Authors: Susannah Marren
Between the Tides (31 page)
“Like my mom knows it? The tides ⦠the bends ⦠If she aced the Raritan River, the Delaware Bay is hers ⦠the Cape May Inlet is a piece of cake.”
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Matilde leaves the guest room, and an hour later, I find her awake in her bedroom. The lamps are on, casting a wide golden light, and I realize that it is not only Matilde, but also Claire sitting on the bed. I stand outside the half-open door.
“Look, Claire.” Matilde reaches for an oversize sketchbook. She flips through quicklyâit becomes animation. “You aren't allowed to tell anyone that you've seen my book, Claire.
Ever.
Okay? You're the first person to see these except for Mom.”
Claire bobs her head up and down.
“I knew it from the time I was three that Mom is a sealy. I knew she'd die if she wasn't near water,” Matilde says.
Claire is sucking her thumb, hanging on to her blankie, preternaturally calm. “Mommy is a sealy.”
“Mom's tale about the selkies is the one where the fisherman makes the prettiest sealy his wife; you know the story, Claire. He hides her coat until she finds it one day and leaves her children and husband.
“I told Mom I'll draw my own story,” Matilde sighs. “Since Mom is gone I've been looking at my sketches again.”
Claire is very still, pointing to Matilde's open sketchbook.
“I drew theseâfor you, Claire. Because you love the story about the selkies. We haven't done the selkie story at night in a long time, maybe since we moved to Elliot.”
Matilde turns to the next page. “Here's a picture of the two sisters with their sealy mother at the ocean. See? I've made the sun too big to be real so that the selkie and her girls are ⦠helpless.⦔
“Helpless?” Claire cries. “What, Matilde?”
“That's enough.” Matilde closes the book and wraps her pinkie in Claire's pinkie. “Pinkie swear that you won't say a word.” Claire nods solemnly and Matilde takes another sketchbook from under the bed.
“Here's my new book, what I was supposed to show Mom on the boat. I kept waiting to show her because she was working on her spring show.”
“Please get Mommy for me now.
Now! Matilde!
”
“Look at my pictures, Claire, my new pictures. Mom loves the spring winds, right?”
Claire takes her wet thumb and streaks it across the first picture of the mother and her four children, two girls and two boys. Matilde grabs her hand. “Claire!”
Claire stares at the picture.
“Everyone is on a picnic under a beach umbrella, Claire.”
“Happy,” Claire says. “Matilde, the mommy is
happy
.”
“So are her children, Claire.”
Matilde shows Claire the second sketch of the mother and father standing in front of Bloomingdale's.
“In my story her husband brings her to the city and takes her shopping. She looks beautiful in whatever he buys for her, but her hair is really made of seaweed and her skin is light because it was covered for years by her seal skin.”
Claire is concentrating on Matilde's next picture, where the sealy mother is in the city with her children, along the banks of the Hudson River. Matilde turns the page.
“They take the crosstown bus to the East River, to Carl Schurz Park, to play and watch the tugboats. She takes her children to school and back. She almost floats down the street, not like other mothers who walk or drive.”
Matilde turns the page to a picture of the mother in her studio.
“While her children are in school she draws pictures of the sea and sky. Just like what Mom told you, Claire, the father hides her seal coat so she'll be his wife and the mother forever. See the closet in the hallway that I've drawn?
“The mother is okay since she loves her children very much. Then one day she escapes and everyone says she's gone back to be with the other selkies.”
Claire becomes hysterical. She's screaming and Matilde puts her hand on Claire's mouth. “Claire, shhh. Everyone is asleep except for us. I'll have to get Dad or Jess if you're too loud.”
Claire shakes her head.
“Okay, fine ⦠I'll tell the storyâwhat I think is the truth.”
Matilde holds up the next sketch. It is of the older daughter in the attic searching for the missing skin.
“Gone, Matilde, gone?” Claire whimpers. “Is the mommy
gone
?”
Matilde kisses the top of Claire's head as Lainie would do.
“Look, Claire, the next sketch is of the daughter by the Narrows. See how she's surrounded by blue and green? Then the next picture ⦠here ⦠see? One night, months later, the older daughter wakes up and finds a sealy coat left at the back door. The moon is out ⦠the stars are out.” Matilde takes Claire's finger and traces the picture.
“And here's the final picture. The daughter's hiding the coat. But she knows that one day she will be with her mother.”
Both girls are crying.
“Nooo! Nooo! Matilde, there's a coat for me too. Draw the coat for me too. For the same day. To be with the mommy too!”
“Claire, listen, there is one sheet left in my sketchbook.” Matilde reaches for her book bag on the floor and takes out crayons and pencils. “Take the black pencil. You start drawing the second sealy coat for the younger daughter. Add it to the page.”
Claire is holding the pencil.
“Then we'll do the rocks and the mommy and her daughters together. On this page we can also fit the skyâand I'll do the ocean. We'll use the blue crayons for that, okay?”
Claire squeezes close to Matilde and takes the azure crayon in her free hand. “Okay, Matilde.”
The cold air burns on my cheeks. Who will console these motherless girls?
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Early the next night, two Coast Guard officers arrive and Matilde and Claire huddle together outside the den door. The first guardâhis name is Chipâsounds nervous when he tells Charles that the day has been unsuccessful. “These bodies, they move with the tide for weeks,” Chip says. “Nothing is decided, Dr. Morris. We'll keep searching. We won't make any promises.”
Their boots move thickly on the flagstone path outside and the children appear.
“You must be hungry,” I say. “If you go into the kitchen, Mrs. Higgins will feed you. It's dinnertime. Come.”
Mrs. Higgins is sobbing on her cell phone when we walk in.
“The dead,” says Mrs. Higgins, “they take a piece of your heart, they take a piece of you with them.”
Matilde slips outside a few minutes later and faces the waterfront to the west. The gale is dying down slowly and the stars are vivid enough to seem alive or as if they've been painted on a sweeping canvas. Dusk has settled and I use the flashlight from my iPhone to walk to where she stands.
“This must be the worst for you, Matilde,” I say.
“Mom isn't dead, Jess. I'm okay.”
I could tell her that she's wrong, that everyone knows. Instead I place my hands on her shoulders.
“C'mon, let's go inside. There's macaroni and cheese.”
Matilde and I walk up the wooden path with the water behind us, slicing at the bulkhead. The kitchen window is lit up and there is Tom standing at the sink and Charles beside him with Jack on his shoulders. Charles moves to the right and next Tom bends down, reappears with Claire in his arms. Matilde and I are almost at the house and we hear Claire laughing. “Put me down. Put me down!”
“They must be dividing cookie dough,” I say.
“Claire's smearing it over her face,” Matilde says.
Liza and Billy come to the door and wave to us. “Matilde, Mom!” Liza shouts. “Hurry up!”
Matilde pauses as she's about to enter the house, and then Tom comes toward her. “Everyone's waiting for you, Matilde.”
Matilde follows him inside.
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I am grateful to Alice Martell, my agent, for her tireless and brilliant suggestions; Jennifer Weis, my editor, for her insights and steadfast belief in the story; Jennifer Enderlin and Sally Richardson, my publishers, who encouraged me to write fiction. At St. Martin's Press: Dori Weintraub, Paul Hochman, Sylvan Creekmore, Bethany Reis. Rebecca Stowe, for her wise edits; my writing group: George Bear, James Parry, Jonathan Stone. Those who listened or read pages: Brondi Borer, Helene Barre, Katinka Matson, Jane Shapiro, Meredith Bernstein, Barbara Shindler, Helen Metzger, Meryl Moss, Lindsay Shepherd, Thomas Moore, Mark Shapiro, Judy H. Shapiro, Patti Himmelberger, CB Whyte, Kara Ivancich, Tina Chen, Linda Berley, Sandra Leitner, Sally Robinson, Jessica Soule. Neil Rosini, sage lawyer. Jack Van Dalen for his Cape May expertise. Jennie and Elizabethâmuses. My father, who has always navigated the shoreline; my mother, constructive critic and staunchest supporter. Howard Ressler, truest believer and partner.
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SUSANNAH MARREN
is originally from Long Beach Island, New Jersey. She currently lives in Manhattan with her family and still spends her summers on the Jersey Shore.
Between the Tides
is her first novel. You can sign up for email updates
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Contents
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
BETWEEN THE TIDES.
Copyright © 2015 by Susan Shapiro Barash. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Ervin Serrano