Joshua came out of the past to find a dark and stationary world. The sea was still, absolutely motionless, as if every creature, every drop of salty water understood the magnitude of the message and all stood alert, waiting to see how Joshua would react to it.
A flood of images and memories swirled in his mind. Joshua let go of the last page of the letter and watched as it fell, heavy with regret, to the peeling wooden deck of the boat. He stomped his foot on the corner of the page because, although he wanted the truth of what had happened to be swept away by the wind and swallowed by the sea, he couldn’t let go of the inked explanations his mother had sent him.
He did remember that cloudy summer day when Leo proposed. He could still see his mother’s smile and hear her laughter drift in and out of the dunes. He’d felt then, even at three, that their lives were about to change forever. So why had his mother simply disappeared from his and Leo’s lives?
The few times he’d seen Leo after his mother disappeared were always a combination of disbelief, sadness and longing. As a child, Joshua had clung to those visits, waiting for Leo to finish an assignment in a faraway land and come back to Bell Island for a short time of preparation for his next assignment. During those visits he’d felt free to mourn for his mother, remember her as she truly was and not the selfish, careless woman Edith claimed. And during those visits, those mental journeys into a happier, normal life, Joshua had caught glimpses of what his life could have been, would have been, if only something hadn’t gone so terribly wrong.
But what had?
Over the years, Joshua watched Leo struggle with the same question, for he too was blindsided by Grace’s sudden death. During some visits they would simply sit and not speak, for really, what was there to say? They would sit side by side and look at each other in disbelief, as if the other person held all the answers.
And then, nearly ten years after Grace’s death, Leo announced he could no longer live on Bell Island, that he couldn’t live with the constant reminder of his lost love, his only love. But still, Leo had come ever so often, bringing gifts, a trinket of some kind from his faraway worlds. Joshua had understood, even respected his decision because Leo lived with the knowledge, as he did, that the woman who shaped his world had willingly left his side. It had been years since he last saw Leo, and Joshua often wondered if he’d finally given his heart to another.
There has to be more, Joshua thought for the thousandth time. Surely there was something, some significant piece of his mother’s life he didn’t yet understand. How else could he explain her sudden departure? And if it wasn’t suicide, what was it? Was she still alive? Or were the letters written long ago and were just now making their way to him?
Joshua cocooned himself in the dense fog and starless night and he felt protected, hidden from the world that had somehow broken his mother’s heart and had come close to destroying his. He stared into the soupy fog where he could see nothing and thought about the direction his life was taking.
It seemed poignant to him that he struggled with the same thing his mother had. And viewing her situation from the outside in, he wanted to call out to her and tell her it was okay to love Leo, that he was safe and would have never broken her heart. Was the same thing true of Isabelle?
Ah, Isabelle.
If he couldn’t get past the fear and give her what she needed, he may also be doomed to forever crave the lost love of his soul mate.
Joshua shook it off, stood and walked to the wheel. He pointed his boat toward the shore, using the instruments to navigate it through the thick night and back to the pier. The dense fog that crept along the surface of the still water shrouded the shore, but Joshua skillfully maneuvered the creaking boat along the waters and toward his slip by feel. Once he was close to land and the lights of the island, he squinted his eyes and searched for a landmark, something to confirm he was headed in the right direction. Then he saw Ned Gunthriess’ net reaching out of the mist and he knew he’d navigated correctly. He moved the boat into the slip, knocking the side with a thud that sounded thunderous in the still night, and then threw the rope onto the deck. While he wound the knotty cord around the piling, he thought of how devastated his mother had been when she realized she couldn’t spend the rest of her life with her love. And then he thought of Isabelle again.
He needed her. Needed to talk to her about the things he’d read, about his mother’s struggles and how similar they were to his own. He realized she wasn’t only his love but also his best friend, and it was that friendship he needed so desperately now. Maybe if they could reconnect as friends they could somehow rebuild their relationship.
He jumped onto the pier and headed up the ramp toward the payphone that stood outside the bait shop. Once he’d slipped the coins into the slot, he leaned into the stand and breathed into the receiver.
“Hello,” she said softly.
“Isabelle. It’s Joshua.”
She stayed silent for a few moments and with each passing second, Joshua felt himself closing up, the fear tightening its grip on his will. “Are you there?”
“I don’t know what to say, Joshua.”
“Can I come over? I need to see you.”
“What for?”
“There are some things happening, things I don’t understand.” He squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to find the right words. “I need your friendship right now, Isabelle. I really need to talk with you about some things.”
He heard her sigh. “You’re not being fair to me, Joshua. Don’t you know how difficult this is for me? How impossible it would be for me to get over you if we keep seeing each other?”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m just so confused.”
“You made that clear,” she said, her voice becoming withdrawn.
He wanted to tell her about the letter, how his mother had somehow reached out from the grave and given him her words. He wanted to talk about the shift he felt in this soul when he read that his mother hadn’t willingly left him alone, but he didn’t yet know how to explain what had changed in him or what it meant. The words from the past had reached deep inside of him and ignited something, but he couldn’t define what it was.
“The truth is, I don’t only want to see you as a friend. Isabelle, I know we can get through this if only you’ll be patient. Just give me a little more time. Please.”
She sighed heavily into the phone. “Don’t you get it? There isn’t any more time. I already told you, I have to move on, Joshua. Being this close to you is breaking my heart.”
Joshua instantly regretted the call, felt bad he’d caused her more pain. But he was certain that once he figured things out, he could explain it all to her and she would finally understand.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have called.”
The silence between them stretched out until it became deafening. Finally, “Goodbye, Joshua.”
And she was gone.
After he hung up the phone, Joshua made his way to the truck. He slid into the sticky, hot vinyl seat, for even at night the drought made its presence known, and put the key into the ignition. He had every intention of going home and doing what his mother asked, sitting and thinking about the letter and trying to imagine how it could possibly change his life. But then a deep, aching desire to understand consumed him.
What was happening to his life, his world as he knew it? How did he get to this place, become a man who had so little courage he couldn’t even commit to the woman he loved? All at once, he’d lost everything and gained so much. He’d lost Isabelle, the woman he loved, but gained back his mother, or at least her wisdom, her words.
And what about her? How could she have been so happy one day and so despondent the next? What caused her to leave? And where did she go?
What didn’t he know? And would she tell him about it future letters?
Joshua thought back to the letters and how weak his mother had become when writing them. Was she alive and sick, or had she written the letters before she died a
nd somehow he was only just now receiving them? His head was spinning with the possibilities and he didn’t think he could wait to receive another letter to learn the truth.
And then he thought of the Malleys.
He wondered if Edith held the answers, she being the one who’d played cruel games with his mother’s happiness. And suddenly he had to know, had to confront the woman who raised him, who’d so cruelly and permanently tried to alter his destiny. He would go to Edith and tell her he knew what she’d done so long ago. That he knew she’d tried to sabotage his mother’s relationship with Leo, and he would make her explain how she could have done something like that. And he would find out if she knew the truth about what really happened to his mother.
Chapter 6