Broken Hearts Pull Hopeful Paddles

The Story of the Marsh Boy continues…

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Loss of Connection and a Broken Heart

Cole shuffled his feet to his stand up dresser and picked up the photograph of his mother. He stared at it. The room was silent. His father, who seemed to feel in good spirits after their heart to heart, had left him and sought the solace of his own room. They each had their own sanctuaries where they could just sit and think. Man or boy, they needed space to process the world around them when it didn’t make sense but still required they act their best.

Lily Marsh'’s smiling face stared back at her son from behind the glass. Cole slumped his shoulders then raised the palm of his left hand over his eyes. He ran his hand down his cheek, set the picture frame down and punched the door frame. His fist wouldn’t go through the frame like it had the drywall. The hole was still there from the day he learned is mom was lost.

A walk down to the dock would clear his mind. Cole had read online about how healthy walks were when you feel stuck. That wasn’t exactly what he was feeling but it beat the anxious silence of his bedroom walls closing in on him.

The blade of rock stood tall out in the bay. It had some weird name that was hard to remember. “Tanni-something,” he said out loud to himself. Dad was always taking mom on some crazy expedition of his. Why couldn’t he have left her out of this one? Cole walked to the dock, crossed his arms, and stared out into the water.

“Sup, C-average?”

David. It was bad enough having to hear him at school but to be neighbors? So much for the space he hoped to find at the water’s edge. The hole in the drywall was better than this interruption.

“That’s not my name.”

“It is now.” David opened up a tackle box big enough that it could have been a cooler for ice cold drinks. He had the tackle, a spinner rod, gloves, and a pair of Costa sunglasses with mirrored lenses hiding his eyes. David looked at Cole over the rim of his sunglasses. “Why don’t you stay a while? You gotta use your own gear, though. I don’t share my setup.”

“I know that. You’ve never shared your stuff.”

David leaned his head back to the sky and smiled behind the glasses. “Glad to see we have an understanding. It’s a nice day to cast a line in. I love fishing every chance I get. I’ll catch anything! What’re you doing out here anyway?”

Cole hesitated. David was not the person he wanted to open up to but he didn’t want to lie to him, either.

“Looking at that rock.”

“Tannigath?” asked David, nodding his head toward the rock in the bay.

“I guess. What kind of name is that?”

“One I reckon you’d prefer less than C-average.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Seriously, though. Do you know where the name came from?”

David lowered his voice and spread the palms of his hands toward the ground like he was touching a low mist. “I overheard a couple guys talking about it at the market. A few of them that have gotten close to the rock. Close like, where the water starts stirring up. They said they heard the name on the wind. Like an echo.”

“That’s a load of crap.”

“It probably only happens during a full moon, too,” said David as he shrugged his shoulders and then his eyes brightened. “Where that water is all rough out there, I bet there’s a load of fish near that rock!” David gently ran his hand along the tackle box lid.

Cole shook his head and deflected. “You know all the answers, don’t you?”

“I read a lot. Newspapers, too.” David was taking this conversation into dangerous waters. “Hey, isn’t that where your mom went overboard?”

“You shut up about her!”

David threw his hands up with palms facing Cole. “Ok, truce! I’m sorry I brought it up.” He looked at his gear and looked at the rock. Back and forth, his head turned several times. The water was calm everywhere except at the base of Tannigath. “I’m going out there the canoe. I’ve read about all kinds of wild fish out there. Wanna go?”

Cole stepped back.

“Oh, come on,” David said. “It’ll do you good to get out on the water. Heck, I’ll even let you use one of my poles, but you’ve gotta get your own hooks.”

Cole stared out at the bay. The water looked like it was boiling at Tannigath. As he stood and stared, the photograph of his mother filled his mind’s eye. He visualized her and dad on the boat leaving the dock. It had to have been for the fish. He’d be able to sell any big catches at the market. But why take mom? Every time she was around dad, she would fidget with her hair and scrunch her nose. She would look at him with these wide eyes like she was trying to take in every memory she could. They were eyes he’d never see again.

But that was the last place she had been seen. Her last breathe of fresh air. Her last heartbeat. It’s not like he would find anything out there, but maybe it would help him feel more closure over her loss. Cole let out a sigh.

“Let’s go,” Cole said. “I’ll run up to the house and grab my gear. I’ll be right back.”

As he approached the canoe with his much smaller tackle box and fishing pole, David was attaching his fish finder monitor to a crossbeam mount on the front of the canoe. “You get the back, C-av…”

Cole shot him a glare.

“You get the back, Cole.”

As Cole stepped off the dock, he settled with the thought that this was better than the hole in the drywall. Both boys sat down in the canoe, grabbed their paddles, and pushed off the dock towards the monolithic rock blade that rose out of the boiling water named Tannigath.

To be continued…

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Talk to you soon.

~ J.P. Simons