Free Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith

twelve, when we left the islands. I hadn’t been on a fishing boat; I hadn’t been sailing.
    I was watching the shore, trying to get my sea legs, when Coombs handed me a cup of tea from a thermos.
    “Going to pay your respects to your pa, are you?”
    I looked at him blankly, not as surprised by a local with a long memory anymore, and said nothing. He poured himself a cup. I sat down and sipped the tea; it was scalding, faintly minty. I took deep breaths to calm rising nerves and blew them out over the steaming cup.
    “My wife makes this tea from herbs in her garden,” Coombs said, pronouncing the “h” in herbs and drawing the word out. He took a swig from his enamelware mug, though it must have burned as it went down, because he coughed.
    “Oswego tea, she calls it. Settles the stomach,” he said, after choking down the rest, somehow managing to sound both skeptical and proud of his wife’s command of folk wisdom.
    “Thank you, I appreciate it,” I mustered.
    “I remember your dad,” he kept right on. “I remember every one of the nine who didn’t make it, but especially the few I didn’t ever bring back.”
    “There were only three,” I said, and he grunted. “You brought most of them back.”
    I looked away. There was a man walking up the dock now, with a pack and a sleeping roll. It took me some concentration to recognize my companion at the clerk’s office.
    “Is this our other passenger?” My voice caught in my throat on the word passenger . I took another sip of tea. I felt forlorn: I didn’t want to be on this boat with him, making small talk while I tried not to vomit. Why would he be going to Marrow?
    Coombs hollered down to him, and Carey tossed him the sleep roll and hauled in the bag himself. When he saw me, he looked surprised and looked to Coombs—for an introduction, maybe. But Coombs just handed him a cup of steaming Oswego tea and went about pulling up anchor. Carey looked at the cup in his hand as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
    “Good morning,” he finally said to me.
    I lifted my teacup in acknowledgment and took a deep breath as the anchor came up. Carey sat down next to me. He was wearing a uniform this time, and the patch on his nylon parka said FOREST SERVICE . A park ranger. There was a park on Marrow Island, Fort Union, closed since the earthquake. We watched Coombs alternately whistling and cursing, carrying on a conversation with the boat’s various instruments.
    “This is strange,” Carey said after a minute.
    “It is,” I said. “You shouldn’t sit so close to me.”
    “Oh—I’m sorry.” He moved to the bench opposite me. “I didn’t mean—”
    “No—that’s no good either,” I said, imagining losing it on the deck between us or, worse, right onto his official khakis.
    He stood up, but the boat was moving now, and he looked around, unsure of where to go. I could feel a rise in my throat every time I swallowed. My chest felt heavy.
    “I’ll just sit up here.” He gestured to the cabin. “I apologize—”
    “It’s not you,” I managed to get out. “I get seasick.”
    He stopped and looked at me.
    “Oh. That’s not strange,” he said matter-of-factly.
    “If you say so.”
    “I understand. Don’t worry about it,” he said. He was earnest, but there was a languorous undertone to everything he said, as if nothing could surprise him. He stood looking at me, then sat next to me again, but with about two feet between us. I didn’t object.
    “It feels like the water knows I don’t belong on it, and it’s trying to toss me back on land,” I said. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on words, on talking to him and talking myself out of the feeling.
    The engine picked up speed as we left the harbor, and the forward motion became more rhythmic. When the wave of nausea passed, I realized that I had been leaning over at an awkward angle, with my head practically between my knees. I straightened up and leaned back. Carey stared off