Filed To Story: Wild Dark Shore Book PDF Free by Charlotte McConaghy
She has her own words that must be said.
“I don’t want children, Dom.”
And I come with three and so that is that.
I remember a morning, one of many that all bleed together in my mind. A morning I rose, shattered by grief and weariness, stumbling into our living room in the city. I remember wondering why I could hear no crying, no morning calls for a bottle, and then seeing my son on his back in a shaft of sunlight, with the small lean bodies of my older children laid around him, I remember their fingers tickling his belly and his smile, his first smile. They looked up at me with such awe, such delight. A smile, Dad! He’s smiling! And I thought, this is why we survive.
Dominic
Before we return north, we visit the seed vault to check the temperature. It’s sitting at minus ten, and the water from the tunnel has started seeping under the seal on the door. On top of which, the concrete cancer Rowan identified has spread substantially.
“Four weeks until the boat?” she asks.
I nod.
“I don’t think it’ll make it. Not without some repairs.”
“I thought this vault wasn’t your problem.”
She faces me, impatient. “Well since I’m the only one here who seems to be taking this issue seriously, I guess I’d better get to work on it. I’m gonna need tools. And another laborer.”
On the walk home I think a lot about what she said in the field hut.
I’m not the only one pulled in another direction. What disturbs me is not the truth of this statement, but that Rowan knows it. For the last few nights I have been telling myself that if there is a reason she and I could never?…
become, that reason is Hank. Honestly I’ve been telling myself that since the day we replaced the roof and she told me of her house. Then I told myself it was my kids, it was Rowan not wanting kids. Two problems beyond my power to solve. But as we walk across Shearwater, headed north to our lighthouse, I wonder if those things have simply been excuses.
If they were not problems, would I be free to love her? Truly, and with all of myself?
My wife moves at my side. Just the warm rustle of her. A light touch of her fingers on mine.
Fen
It is only by chance that she sees. With their father having followed Rowan south, Fen has come up to the lighthouse to check on her brothers and help with the chores. It’s through the laundry window that she sees them approaching together from the south. She wonders what’s happened, if Rowan knows anything, and if everything will change now.
She watches them for a few moments but can’t decipher any clues from this silent walk. She’s about to turn back to the washing when she sees them stop. They are still a short distance from the lighthouse, and in discussion about something. Are they arguing, standing like that face-to-face? There is no anger in their postures. Instead there is something soft. Their outlines seem a little smudged. Fen watches, stunned, as her dad reaches for Rowan’s face, his hand at her jaw, tilting it up so they are gazing at each other, and they are standing closer now, and he is speaking again, something murmured, and Fen feels an explosion in her chest. It takes the space between heartbeats for her to identify this sensation as relief.
She watches them all afternoon, but they don’t look at each other or touch in the same way. And when she follows her dad up to his room, her heart already sinking with the knowing, she hears him talking to his dead wife and all her relief sputters out.
Fen knows what she has to do. To give Dom and Rowan a chance. To give them all a chance for something new.
She waits until her dad is in the shower and then she moves quickly; there will be only a few minutes now. She fills a bag with the last of her
mother’s belongings-more books, trinkets, jewelry, clothes-and then she bounds down the stairs to pull on her coat.
“Hey,” her brother says, and she whirls.
Raff is in the doorway, watching her.
“You don’t need that stuff,” he says.
“I know,” she says. “Don’t worry.”
“Whatever you’re doing, it’ll make things worse,” he warns.
“It won’t,” she promises, although maybe it will, at first. But she is thinking long game here. She’s doing this for all of them.
On the beach she has a small campfire that she tries to keep lit. To this she adds driftwood and the kelp she has been drying to make a bonfire. She gathers the items from her boathouse and lays them all out on the black sand, looking at each. She has a moment of uncertainty. The memories she has of her mother wearing these things are precious to her, and undoubtedly Dom has more of them, memories tied to every single thing here, and without the items will those memories disappear? Is that what Fen wants?
All she knows is that her dad must be freed of his ghost. So, one by one, she starts placing her mother’s belongings on the fire.
Dominic
I notice the absence immediately as I reach for clean clothes after my shower. All of Claire’s things are gone from the cupboard. I wind my way downstairs to where Raff and Orly are starting dinner. Raff’s chopping with his bandaged wrist, which is a good sign.
“How is it?” I ask him.
He holds it up. “Swelling’s almost gone. Definitely not broken.”
I nod, relieved. “Good man. You guys know what’s happened to…” I falter, unsure how to put it. “The stuff in my cupboard?”
“What stuff?” Orly asks.
“Mum’s stuff,” Raff says.
“What stuff?” Orly says more loudly. “I didn’t know we had Mum’s stuff.”
It hits me. How wrong this is. Hiding away her belongings like a greedy dragon hoarding treasure, instead of sharing them with her children. What the fuck is wrong with me.
“Fen’s been taking it,” Raff says. “For a while. You didn’t notice?”
There are a lot of things I haven’t noticed about my daughter; that is becoming crystal clear.
I need to see her. Make sure she’s okay. I will tell her I’m sorry for not checking in sooner, and for not having shared her mother’s things with her. All that stuff, the jewelry and the clothes, that should be Fen’s now, it should belong to her, she shouldn’t have to steal it. I feel a bit queasy.
“What’s going on?” Rowan asks, appearing in the doorway.
Nobody says anything; it feels awkward.