“I was just looking at those pictures.”
Yes, the pictures. There are three of them, and I can see them now as if my vision had not faded. They are early pieces, very early, before the world fell in love with her detailed lines and bold colors. I drop my shoes to the floor and swing my legs up onto the bed.
“Why?”
She hesitates before she answers, but it is barely noticeable, and I am not sure I haven’t imagined it. “I like them. They remind me of someone. Where did you get them?”
“I’ve always had them.”
“Always?”
“Yes, they were painted years and years ago.”
“So they’re old.”
“Quite. But who’s changing the subject now?”
She sighs. “Right. Your brother. What happened to him?”
I wish I knew. I am privy to few details of his life after we left Porphyry. He had disappeared by the time I was well enough to look for him, to demand answers. But I’m not sure I would have, even if I could. I heard later that he moved to Sault Ste. Marie and took a job with Algoma Steel. A few years after Emily and I went to wander the world, he moved back. He worked many jobs, never able to stay long at any one, harvesting wood to feed the paper mill, hammering nails to build houses, even hiring on as a deck-hand with Paterson Steamships. He built Wind Dancer himself, and sailed her single-handed for months on end out on the Lake. He knew that boat intimately. The Lake, too. I never could have imagined him coming to this . . . But he was too old to be out on Superior, alone.
“I don’t know, Morgan.” My voice has gone soft. “My brother was a good sailor, but he was also an old man, and the Lake is temperamental. He must have had a really good reason to slip off in the dark of night and head to Porphyry Island to dig these journals out of whatever hiding place they’ve been in for so many years.”
“Were you close?”
That is such a difficult question to answer. Some of the edge has returned to my voice when I do. “My brother and I haven’t spoken in more than sixty years.”
“So you hated him.” It is the simplicity of youth, framed in black and white, right and wrong, love and hate.
“No. No it wasn’t like that at all. I loved . . . I love him, very much. But it’s a long story.”
12
Morgan
I watch as she settles herself on the bed and pulls the knitted blanket over her legs. Her white hair is tied in a ponytail, but she tucks some loose strands behind her ears and lies back against the pillows. My gaze travels back to the sketches sitting on the dresser. Their lines are so familiar to me, and I want to know why.
Rivers of rain still chase down the window. I don’t have to be anywhere. She closes her eyes like it lets her see the images her father’s words have brought back to life.
“So tell me,” I encourage her.
“We traveled as a little package of three, the headstrong Charlie with Emily and me trailing along behind in his shadow, more than willing partners in his explorations and adventures. We adored him. My father lived an unconventional life, and by extension, so did we. But we knew nothing different. We thought it normal to live on an island far out on the dark gray waters of Lake Superior, beneath a great beacon that winked at the ships passing in the darkness. We spent our days traipsing through the woods, exploring the channels and bays in a little boat, hunting rabbits and picking wild berries. It was a wonderful childhood.”
“Was Charlie older than you?”
“Yes, by four years. Emily and I were the youngest. We were born on the island, and it was a miracle we even survived. My mother had not anticipated delivering twins. When her labor began, it was more than a month too soon. There were no boats fast enough to gap the distance between Porphyry Island and Port Arthur, and her body was too well acquainted with the rhythms of childbirth, having already brought two children into the world. There was barely time to boil water and fetch Pa. But Mother was a healer; she knew how to care for us. We spent our first months swaddled together in a wooden crate, perched near the heat of the woodstove, thriving on her milk. Emily and I—we were inseparable, Pa told me, two parts of a whole. We couldn’t even breathe without our other half. And Charlie, he watched over us.”
The old woman pauses here. “No, Morgan, I don’t hate him. For a time, we were very close. But something came between us, and it has stayed there for longer than I care to remember.”
I pick up the journal, and the sound of my movement brings her back to the room.
“We haven’t got there yet, have we? I’m getting ahead of the story. Charlie hasn’t even had his beginning. Go on.”
I open up the old book again and flip through the pages we’ve already read. “1918.”