The Boatman

          The day began with prayer and substance abuse.  As they sang "Amen," Wolf cracked a beer and Blossom fired up a joint to share with the rest of the boys in the band.  Lenny strummed a few chords on his guitar and kicked a dying ember back into the fire.  Beebs sat propped against the dune.  He trilled up and down a scale on his penny-whistle.  Sebastian tuned his violin as he leaned against the sun-bleached remains of an uprooted tree.  He listened for that beautiful and holy resonance of perfect pitch.  Nico warmed up on his accordion as he wandered toward Sebastian’s children playing sleepily in the sand.  The sun painted strokes of orange and red in the hazy morning sky but the mood of the day remained in question--blue and bright or gray and easy.  Either way was fine for Blossom.  Each moment was a celebration, for her time had come to die.

          She waited for the boatman in the company of her friends—the family who had taken her into their circle when Sylvie had left.  She missed her terribly.  Wolf had assured her that Sylvie lived on in them, yet Blossom struggled with doubt until she, too, experienced the ravages of that word, “incurable.”  The smoke from the herb helped to settle her stomach.  She passed the joint to Lenny and followed Nico to see what the children were up to.
          Little Moses dazedly filled an empty coffee can with moist sand from the tide line.  Sleep still crusted the corners of his eyes.  Daisy lay on the beach flapping her arms and legs as she smiled at the brightening sky.  “Blossom, look!” she cried as she awkwardly rose to her feet.  “I made you a sand angel,” she told the woman proudly as she reached for Blossom’s hand.
          Blossom gently squeezed the child’s delicate fingers.  “Oh, honey, that’s perfect,” she told the little girl, and then she let go of her hand and kissed the top of her head.
          Not to be outdone by his younger sister, Little Moses rubbed the sleep from his eyes and declared, “I’m making you a castle, Blossom.”  He turned the coffee can upside down and carefully lifted it to reveal the first brick.
          “I am sure it will be grand,” Blossom told him.  She looked out to sea as the morning sky brightened to a pale blue and the boys began to play a familiar tune.
 
          Wolf came up beside her and, still holding the beer bottle, he hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his faded blue jeans.  An ocean breeze blew open his unbuttoned shirt.  He stared intently at the horizon for a few moments, and then he looked down at Blossom’s bare feet.  He leaned over and picked up a perfectly intact clamshell.  He handed it to her.
          Blossom examined the shell.  She handed it back to him.  “It’s beautiful,” she told him.  “Give it to Mose.  I’m sure he will make good use of it.”
          “I thought you might want it for your collection,” Wolf said.
          Blossom reached into an ample pocket in the folds of her skirt.  She held out the strand on which she had threaded several shells.  “I only take ones with holes already in them,” she explained before she looped it over her head and around her neck.  She fingered each shell as she continued, “The imperfect ones, these with the worm-holes through them, are the most easily strung.”  She smiled and looked into Wolf’s eyes.  “They are the most beautiful ones, to me,” she added.
          Wolf nodded and took a few steps over to Little Moses.  “Here you go, buddy.  Blossom wants you to use it in the castle.”
          The boy took the shell and turned it in his hands in order to examine it from every angle.  He determined it would be a door.

          The rest of the band joined Nico near the children as Wolf and Blossom wandered down to the water’s edge.  The small waves broke a few dozen yards offshore.  The water hissed as it slid across the hard sand to their feet.  They stood silently on the cool sand watching the horizon together.  Wolf looked down at what the water had left behind at their feet.  He spotted one—an imperfect shell with a worm hole.  He bent down and picked it up.  As he was about to offer it to Blossom, she moved away.  Her attention drawn to something rolling in the backwash of the water, she splashed over wet sand and into a wave to retrieve it.     
          The wave broke at her shin and doused her.  She laughed like a little girl as the waves played “keep away” with a corked and crusty old wine bottle.  Drenched from head to toe, Blossom stood up clenching the neck of the bottle and smiling victoriously.
          Wolf laughed.  That moment was the picture he had been waiting for—the perfect image of the essence of Blossom to treasure ever in his mind.  She examined the bottle as he approached. 
          When she heard his big feet slapping on the wet sand, she looked up with a curious expression as she struggled to remove the cork.  She held the bottle out to him.  “There’s a note,” she told him.   
          Equally curious, Wolf took the bottle and held it up to the sunlight to examine the small scroll through the green glass.  He shook the bottle and then he gripped it tightly in his left hand while he clamped down powerfully on the cork with his right.  It took a few attempts, but he succeeded in liberating the cork.  He handed the bottle back to Blossom; it was her find. 
          Excitedly, she tilted the bottle and shook out the small scroll.  She tucked the bottle under her armpit and gently slid the ribbon from the paper.  She carefully unrolled it and read, “I will see you soon.  Love—Sylvie.”
          “What?” Wolf asked eagerly.  “What’s it say?”
          Blossom handed Wolf the message and the bottle.  As he read the note the second time, he caught sight of the ribbon falling to the waves.  He looked up at Blossom.  Gracefully waiting, her arms empty and hanging easily at her sides, she intently watched the sea.
          Wolf followed her gaze. A boat appeared on the crest of a wave, slid out of sight in the trough, and appeared again.  He dropped the note and the bottle into the waves.  He rested his hand on Blossom’s shoulder.
          She turned her head toward him and smiled serenely.  “They’ve sent Sylvie to help me,” she murmured.

          The elegy began as, waist-deep in the waves, Wolf lifted Blossom into the boat.  She removed the strand of shells from her neck and offered them to the ancient, sea-washed boatman.  “It’s all I have to offer,” she told him.
          “Your passage has been insured,” he affirmed, yet he closed his leathery eyelids and bowed his head to receive the gift as he held steady the rudder.
          Blossom smiled brightly at her dearest Sylvie, who motioned her to her place beside her.  The boys in the band struck up a lively tune as she turned and waved good-bye.


Word count:  1,201