Nightflower Candor

The old man’s feet hung off the side of a fishing boat. The sea sprayed his toes as memories washed over him but could never wash away the pain. Dead captains, dead crew, sunken ships. A lifetime of losing friends and surviving to remember them.

            “Retirement?” a young voice said, “Wow…”

            The old man turned to find his grandson joining him. He smiled and the boy went on. “I heard folks saying you’re the first fisherman in the village to ever retire. Is that true? How could that be true?”

            “We all retire,” the old man replied.

            “You mean—like dead?”

            “Sometimes,” the old man said with a smile older than joy. He watched the waves crash and break and become new ones. “Do you smell that?” he asked.

            His grandson sniffed the air. “Cod?”

            The old man laughed. “Salt.”

            “Salted cod?”

            “The air is saltier. Don’t you smell it?”

            His grandson sniffed a bit more.

            “We’re close now,” the old man said.

            A larger wave splashed against the hull and rocked the boat. All sailors know to keep one hand firmly on the rope. His grandson nearly learned why. The old man yanked him by his shirt and the boy steadied.

            “Thanks,” his grandson murmured and the old man looked at him as though gazing into a mirror. He recognized that shine in the boy’s eyes. He remembered his own. The deep wrinkles in his hands faded beneath memories and he was young again.

            The old man’s grandfather commanded the helm of the ship through a wicked storm. Choppy and torrential, the hull rocked with the great power of the sea. Waves splashed onto the deck and a thick fog enveloped the stern like dropping a stone in murky water. The wheel spun without hands to catch it.

            “No!” the old man screamed in his youth, but he was too scared to act. He clung to the ropes in fear and let the sea take his grandfather silently and without remorse. The sea battered the hull while the fog erased the world.

            His father carried him below deck with the stinking cod and locked the door. His father took command of the family enterprise and battled this wretched storm all night, alone, until dawn brought calmer seas and his son was allowed out.

            “Grandfather?” a young voice said, snapping the old man from his thoughts. The old man was again old, the memories heavy in his bones. “Grandfather!”

            “Sorry,” the old man said, loosening his grip on the rope as he realized how tightly he’d been squeezing. “The salt means so much to me,” he said. “When you’re out here long enough, you forget where the sea ends and you begin.”

            “Why retire?” his grandson asked.

            “Your father has waited long enough…”

            “But—”

            “I outlived even your grandmother,” he said and coughed a few laughs. He looked at his gnarled hands. “Time takes away all things.”

            A gull squawked overhead, but the old man stayed fixed on the sunlight glistening across the waves. The old man wiped away his tears before his grandson could notice. The horizon called to him and he listened.

            The old man was young again, watching his father steer the ship. He had studied how to captain and felt ready but respectfully waited his turn like all the sons before him. His time would come, his father told him, it always came. A gull squawked and years later another replied. The years folded together.

            A gunshot. The old man’s father lowered a smoking rifle. The gull flew away but a cracked spar, still hanging by its rigging, swung across the deck. His father turned too late and blood spread dark across the deck. His final word came wet and thin.

            “See…”

            The old man as a young man tossed the rifle into the sea first and his father second. He performed each task with terrible routine. A funeral would bring shame because fishermen drowned and that was the story told ashore. Their bodies lost.

            “There you go again, Grandfather,” a young voice said. “What are you thinking about?”

            “My father—your great grandfather. He didn’t drown.”

            “What?”

            “I lied! He did not drown.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Not all of us drown.”

            A silence drifted between them.

            “I’m not supposed to tell you,” his grandson broke the spell, “but there will be a great celebration when we return.”

            “Celebration what?”

            “You!”

            “I said no fuss. I never wanted fuss.”

            “You deserve it, Grandfather. We all want to celebrate you.”

            “There is nothing to celebrate…”

            “There’s a million things!”

            “Only one—Land ahoy.”

            The old man didn’t even have to look up but his grandson stood for a better view and held the rope tightly. Another gull perched on the mainmast but raised no song and there was no rifle fire. Its white and gray feathers glowed in the afternoon sun.

            The old man stared into the familiar deep with searching eyes. It never stopped calling to him and he took stock. His father never drowned yet the sea claimed him all the same.

            Must we only drown in water…

            “We love you,” his grandson said. The old man smiled and wiggled his toes in the salty air. He looked at the young boy and finally loosened his grip on the rope.

            “I love you too.”