Chapter Text
I breathed the salt-kissed air as the passenger ferry cut through the emerald sea, its wake a frothy ribbon trailing behind us, and my lungs were immediately filled with a familiar dread I ought to have already forgotten. From my spot by an open window, my eyes scanned the horizon as the mainland receded, a fading smudge of green and brown, replaced by the vast expanse of shimmering blue.
“Going home for the holidays, eh?” The ferryman— a round bearded man in his forties, draped in a colored-down jumper over a cream tee, and whom I learned was called Dave upon boarding— asked, sparing me a glance. His hands were busy on the steering wheel, eyes latched at the line where the sky met the sea.
A tourist spot for a hometown had its perks, as few as they may be. One being no sane person would visit a tropical destination in the midst of December, and so I was privileged enough to have been the only passenger.
I hummed and nodded in response, sporting the sincere smile I usually gave to fans and lovers of my works alike, even though he couldn’t see.
He asked, “Annual visit?”
“No, not really.” I chuckled lightly whilst a sense of mortification washed over me. “It’s been ten years since I went home.”
“Graces, that’s a long time. Though it’s hard to imagine someone from the city would dare make such a tedious trip whenever they want. You probably had a lot of stuff going on with your life.” He sounded like he was smirking. “Corporate?”
“Author,” I replied succinctly.
“A bigshot! We rarely get that around here. Well, I won’t be nosy no more and leave you to it, then.”
One would think it’d been the least interesting passenger story he’d heard with the way he shrugged the conversation off ever so casually, but Dave’s eyes momentarily flitted towards my direction and I saw how they slightly twitched in intrigue.
People from my hometown could really learn a thing or two when it came to subtlety for the sake of gossip. I knew even then that rumors of the boy who left and never looked back— at least for ten years— circulated among its insufferably nosy residents. One could never be free of their prying eyes and jeering mouths enough to drive away the queer and uncommon, no matter the miles you’d trodden.
Despite itself, part of Emerald Cove’s emanating charm came from how everything in it seemed to never change; the run-down ferry, the arduous travel by the sea, the feigned disinterest by its all-knowing residents. All of which I gleaned even before proclaiming touch down!
I shook my head, equally vexed and endeared. There was a tad bit of hilarity in coming back to a town that I swore I would never return to. The town in which I’ve come to know not only by who resided in it, but by eventually who had left it. Still here was I, en route to a place that held my memories— except myself.
Well, not for long. All around us, small islands, like scattered emeralds, appeared from the mist. As the boat drew nearer to its coast, Emerald Cove emerged.
A verdant lump of land framed by the azure sea and cloaked in a mantle of pine forests, the townscape sprawled on a quaint scale, each ridged rooftop forming a miniature maze that ran from bottom to the highest peak like a ladder towards the afternoon’s cerulean sky.
The island rose and fell in gentle swells, and its rugged coastline was etched with hidden coves and secluded beaches. Whitewashed houses, clustered like pearls, adorned the hillside, their blue-domed churches standing sentinel over the sapphire ocean.
The ferry docked and I was immediately greeted by the rush of fishermen, all going about their business with a sense of acclimation. They carried fishnets and fishlines over their shoulders in their waders and boots, the others heaving barrels filled to the brim with fish. Each one of them never regarded the tourist docks as if they’d been completely sick of it. Granted, people from all around the globe crowded the array of wooden moors all throughout the year, with only a few months of respite from their ruckus and vacationist shenanigans.
Emerald Cove as a tourist destination was a novelty. During my years of residence (read as: imprisonment), we had little to nothing of all the fishing machinery, all the upscale boats and longlines and whatnot. Even the assemblage of boutiques and souvenir shops that loomed over the moors so as to entice tourists with their overpriced goods were startlingly unfamiliar to me.
The differences were stark, and it almost knocked the breath out of me as I stepped out of the ferry. Still, everything strangely felt like home, and I wasn’t sure if I liked that or not.
“Welcome home,” Dave blurted out from behind me. I gave him a nod and a smile as he steered the ferry away.
Heaving out an exhausted sigh, I turned on my heel and began treading past the wooden dock and into the curved quay, avoiding the quaint empty forecourt on my left and instead heading towards the rising streetway that would lead me to my old childhood home.
Passing by the array of souvenir shops, my eyes roamed around their colorful fronts; turquoises and ceruleans and cheerful yellows, with strings of seashells and wind chimes that tinkled in the gentle sea breeze hanging from weathered wooden awnings.
Here, wicker baskets overflowing with brightly colored t-shirts and sarongs spilled onto the sidewalk, and there, a slightly sun-bleached postcard rack showcased images of pristine beaches and breathtaking sunsets.
Here was a hand-painted sign that advertised Local Treasures and Island Memories, their letterings slightly crooked but full of charm. And there, an ajar door of a quaint shop that seemed more nautical and rustic— its wooden planks weathered by years of sea-salted breeze.
From outside, I caught a glimpse of a familiar brunet slouched on an antique counter. He’d glanced at me in return and I saw how his eyes, upon meeting mine, widened in utmost surprise. But before memories that were purposefully thrust into the deepest recesses of my mind could emerge, I skidded hastily out of his sight.
Ah, yes. How could I even talk about Emerald Cove without mentioning the boy who made living here bearable?
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“Oh, what a delight!” My mother exclaimed, racing towards me ecstatically as I hauled my suitcase into the rickety doorway of my childhood home.
Marge was a literal goddess in her late fifties. She seemed as if she had not aged, in her brown khakis, plaid shirt and free-spirited person. Her curly waves had been tied in a small knot above her head and her eyes crinkled in utter glee. With my mother still being so robust, I lowkey worried the time-worn floorboards might burst through from her running.
“It’s nice to see you too, mom,” I said, chuckling at her childlike display as she showered me with a hundred pecks all over my face.
“How I’ve missed you!” Her callused hands, aged with labor, were cupping my heat-soaked cheeks. “Let’s get you inside, then. Noah! Come help!” She pivoted towards the inside and hollered.
Rushed footfalls echoed throughout the flight of stairs, and from the landing by the entrance hall appeared a tall, scrawny boy. His blonde hair was disheveled, criss-crossed from a night’s repose. The furrow of his brows eventually lifted upon seeing me.
“Ian!” My younger brother sprinted and drowned me in a blissful embrace.
I’d not seen Noah since I left. Not since his father married my mother. Although there’d been radio silence and a ton of unanswered messages from me during the first five years of my departure, he had reached out through a letter, and we’d kept in touch through social media ever since. He was dramatic and sentimental like that, no matter how he refused to admit it.
Since he never once left Emerald Cove, there was no instance for us to reunite. So I basked in the warmth of his arms around me, thinking of how I fiercely missed his innate clinginess. He’d looked startlingly mature and, infuriatingly, way taller. Gone were the days when he was only shoulder-length from me. Still, he was my baby brother.
I had to steel myself for the sting behind my eyes. My mom and Noah were the anchors that kept me from drifting into dark territories in the ten years that I’d been away. They satiated my yearning for familiarity through the barriers of a cell phone screen, just enough to keep me from coming home.
And yet, here I was, unsure if I’d made the right decision after all these years. If I was ready to face—
“Marge, what’s all the ruckus there?” A hoarse, bellowing voice broke our reunion bubble.
Emerging from the hallway that led to the living room was Steve. His age lines curved as a familial smile slowly etched across my step father’s face.
I thought to myself, Yes, perhaps things are truly better now.
“Good heavens!” He cried out in disbelief. “Look at what the gods have sent in!”
Grinning, I trod nearer, leaving the grudges of the past behind as I gave him a warm embrace.
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My mother was a wonderful woman. She was vivacious, sharp-witted, and a force of nature. A person with a whirlwind of fire in her. Majority of Emerald Cove’s residents admired her for that. But what she was known for the most was her undeniable knack for gossip .
Marge Park was never really subtle about being the neighborhood busybody. And so, I found myself a few moments later at the dining table, subjected to her retellings about everything that happened in my ten year absence.
“Just chit chats and tete-a-tete,” she said. “Just to fill you in.”
Over lunch, she talked about how Missis Cornwell from next door had recently become a widower, her son unsurprisingly in his rebellious phase with a terrible knack for constant petulance.
Then she expressed great disheartening for the preacher’s daughter who’s plans of taking up a degree in one of the mainland universities turned into a crumbling dream when the conservative father forbade the poor girl to do as such.
And she frowned whilst recounting how Brian, one of my childhood friends, found himself a wife but had now descended into a drunken mess, burrowed in debt and bad decisions.
“You ought to find one too,” my mother would say amid the retelling.
“A wife or an impossible amount of debt?” I’d joked back.
Even Noah was not safe under my mother’s scrutinous eyes. I bet no matter how happy he was with my return, he’d dreaded that it gave Marge the opportunity to complain about his life decisions under the guise of filling me in. He wasn’t necessarily making terrible choices on how he wanted to pursue his dreams, but sons who chose to stay in Emerald Cove and did not yearn to work in the mainland were generally frowned upon.
“I just want what’s best for my bright boy,” she said, pinching Noah’s cheek whilst the youngster failed to back away.
“Mom, I’m twenty four,” Noah replied with a mouthful of the fried fish we were having. “I think I get to decide if I want to stay here with you and dad to help out. The mainland’s overrated anyway, I don’t get why people wanna work there so badly.” He turned to me and then, “No offense.”
“None taken,” I replied, snickering. “I can attest to that. Island life’s way better.”
“See?” Noah spread his arms, directing them to me. “Besides, I’m in my last year of Psychology here, and the community college isn’t that bad.”
“And pray tell, what are you planning to do once you graduate with that degree here in Emerald Cove? It’s not like we have those fancy hospitals and whatnot.”
Noah's face fell. “I—”
“Marge,” Steve chimed in, shaking his head.
Mom regarded him briefly, thinking, and then let out a defeated sigh. “You know I just don’t want you to be stuck here. Look at your brother.” She gave me a soft smile and I responded in kind. “No matter how much I loathed that he chose to leave, I can’t deny the fact that his life had ridden for the better.”
I bristled at the sudden acknowledgement. It took a long time for my mother to actually accept my decision to leave, and when she finally did, we pretended that she was just okay with it, and I entertained the wild idea that she had already forgotten about my troubled past. After all, orthodox parents don’t reprimand their thirty-year-old children.
Now, hearing it coming directly from her was akin to a pain from a reopened flesh wound, pounded with salt and all.
But when she plastered a familiar smile directed to me, saying “ I forgive you for it, son. I hope you learn to forgive me as well,” my heartstrings tugged and I knew all is well and forgiven between us. You see, we were never the sentimental kind.
Noah, however— he and my mother didn’t have the perfect mom and son relationship. Granted, they’re not related by blood. The first few years after his dad, Steve, and my mom married were rough to say the least. More so for Noah than anyone else.
From what I’d heard, they argued a lot, hurling unnecessary hurtful words towards each other if only to spite their indifferences. But that’s to be expected when a woman is thrust into a motherless child’s life, forcing her to covet the role for herself. I worried, of course, but their inevitable coming together would render my concerns for naught.
I knew Noah would eventually give in. He was a soft boy inside a hard exterior. It was in the way he’d sent me a heartfelt letter after his five-year tantrum, or talked in excruciatingly dreamy details about the boy he was seeing. It was in how he slumped in relief after my mother’s somber remarks, smiled and said, “You know that I know that mom.”
Despite the rekindling of unwanted aches, I was endeared. And so, the retellings pressed on.
“Wow, It’s like I never left,” I said, once my mother was done with all the filling me in with Emerald Cove stories I honestly did not want to be made aware of. But to hell with that, no one refuses a chatty Marge, especially when it’s gossip. A comical grin hung on my lips as my brother and Steve giggled from across the dining table, their plates now empty and their stomachs full.
“Well, you’re welcome. I would appreciate a little bit of gratitude. Information is not easy to come by,” she snapped happily.
I snorted. “Information, she says.”
“Anyway, you should head down the docks,” she said, standing up, plate in hand, sauntering towards the connecting kitchen, “by the boutiques.”
“What for?”
“To visit Evan’s souvenir shop, of course.”
I gawked. Well, that was one thing I did not want to be filled in about.