Free Pescador's Wake by Katherine Johnson Page B

I’m sorry.’
    â€˜I have to talk with him.’
    â€˜The Fisheries Department has asked them not to make calls. In case they’re intercepted. Have you got Francisco Molteni’s number?’
    â€˜ Si. ’
    â€˜Well, he’s probably the best source of information. Call him if you’re worried. Carlos and Eduardo are okay though, the stupid fools. It’s just not all going to plan. They’re on their way back here.’
    â€˜So, they’re probably a couple of weeks away, do you think?’
    â€˜At least. They’re a long way south right now.’
    â€˜ Jesús .’ Virginia’s voice is brittle with fear. ‘Eduardo.’
    â€˜He’ll be all right. They both will. I’ll call you if I hear any more.’
    Virginia sniffs and Julia realises she is crying. The laughter in the background has stopped.
    â€˜ Hasta luego ,’ Julia says, but the phone is already dead.
    â€˜María, sweetheart; I’m having a lie-down for a moment, all right?’
    â€˜All right,’ Marña’s voice sings back merrily, unaware of the drama unfolding around her. Julia lowers herself onto the double bed, surrendering her body to the mattress. She thinks of Carlos and aches to be close to him. She imagines that they are lying on their sides, her face nestling into the hairs of his chest and his arms wrapped around her. She tries to recall his scent, but can’t capture it. Perhaps she will never again be with him and will be left always trying to remember—forever reaching out for him in the dark. The thought sends her whirling into a panic. She thinks, too, of Eduardo, but pushes those feelings away, instead placing her hand on the skin that separates her from the baby inside. She whispers a lullaby, then puts a pillow over her face so María and Sofía can’t hear her sobs.

M ARGIE
Hobart, Australia
22 September 2002
    Margie Bates hasn’t looked at her painting since the iceberg rose off the page at her. And when she read in the newspaper this morning that the Australis had struck a growler in a storm, she vowed not to toy with fate again.
    Instead she is busying herself cleaning the house and baking. She has invited two friends for morning tea, and the kitchen is alive with flour, eggs, milk and talk-back radio.
    She hasn’t been sleeping well, but has discovered that there are other ways of deriving strength and energy. Before breakfast today, she did yoga on the veranda and then enjoyed an Earl Grey tea while she watched yellow-throated honeyeaters bathe themselves in the glazed-pottery bath she made for them. The bird bath sits on a flat rock under an old eucalypt at the bottom of her garden, near where Sam’s old rope swing had been. As Margie sipped her tea, the honeyeaters drank from nectar-filled grevilleas, whose floral heads, heavy with blossom and birds, kissed the surface of the shallow pool.
    Margie remembers having an inner reservoir of calm that she could tap into at a moment’s notice. But that was in her other life. Since Sam’s death, she has emptied out thatreservoir countless times and, unable to find even a drop of life-sustaining liquid calm, has been left dehydrated from grief. Only in recent months has she learned the importance of refilling that pool—with yoga and tea, friends and art – to fortify herself against the bad days. Now is not the time to start depleting it with senseless worries about Dave. That’s something else she has learned. Worry about what you can change, not what you can’t. Easier said than done.
    She struggles constantly to refute the thoughts that catapult her into fearing the worst all the time. Catastrophising, she has heard it called. She knows people think of her as a worrier, and she hates it. What’s closest to the truth always hurts. Worry is an intruder in her life. A robber of valuable time and energy. A thief of happiness. It drives morbid