‘Mom likes to keep standards up,’ Kate had tried to explain to Susannah when she’d complained about all their back-breaking chores all summer long.
‘None of the other kids on the island have to work so hard,’ Susannah said. ‘They get to have fun, swimming and all.’
‘But they’ve all got daddies,’ Kate said to her. ‘Mom has to work extra hard at looking after us so we don’t starve. That’s why we’ve got to do the house for her, so she can lace.’
‘Well, I still don’t know why we’re doing so much work for just us three,’ Susannah continued to moan.
‘Because of the Olsens, silly!’ Kate had declared. ‘Daddy’s family could come over any time. She don’t want them to see her down.’
That was one thing all right. Their mom was proud, and Susannah admired her for that.
After their regular dinner of fish and potatoes, their mother relented on grounding Susannah for dirtying the sheets and let them out for the last few hours in the summer’s day. The two sisters ran like crazy down the stony track to Lane’s Island’s Bridge Cove. Susannah suggested they swim in the old quarry on Amherst, but Kate had said the woods were too scary when it started to get dark. She preferred to be out in the open, on the edge of their island and looking out at the ocean. All Susannah cared about was getting into the blessed cool water after the long hot day. She didn’t mind all the midges swarming around them as she hopped from foot to foot to get her shorts off. They never bit her anyway, only Kate.
The two girls ran into the water, squealing with delight. Susannah submerged herself immediately and began swimming out further from shore.
‘Don’t go too far,’ Kate called as she splashed about in the shallows.
Susannah was the stronger swimmer. Kate never ventured too far from land, even if it was calm like today. It was their daddy who’d taught Susannah how to swim, the summer he’d been back on leave. She’d been four, old enough, but Kate had been too little and their mother had refused to let her baby in the sea. Their mother never swam.
Susannah had never forgotten her daddy carrying her into the ocean with him until the sea was up to his shoulders and she felt it swaying all around her. She’d been scared and excited all at the same time. Safe in the knowledge her daddy would never let her sink to the bottom, but also wanting to show him she was a brave girl. He had held her hands and her legs had swung out behind her, lifted by the buoyancy of the salty water.
‘Kick your legs, Susie!’ he had encouraged her. ‘Make waves!’ he’d laughed.
The first time he’d let her go, he hadn’t warned her and she had almost screamed with fright, but then he kept saying:
‘I’m here, Susie, right here; you can do it, my girl.’
The water was home right from the beginning. It carried her and she had trusted it. Began to swim all on her own, much to her daddy’s delight. She was a mermaid, flipping her tail, and diving beneath the surface. Following her father under the water, their red hair waving like sea flora, both their eyes open, bubbles all around them.
The last three summers, Susannah had been trying to teach Kate to swim. Susannah had wanted to pass on what she’d learnt from their daddy, but Kate never took to it like she had. Started screeching when Susannah pulled her too far out from the shore, declaring she didn’t like it when she couldn’t put her feet down on anything.
‘But that’s exactly what I love,’ Susannah had said in astonishment. ‘I feel so light!’
Susannah kept swimming. It hurt her heart to think of her daddy. She tried not to, but sometimes she just couldn’t help thinking about what had happened to him. Their mother had never spoken about details during the war. Just told the girls their daddy was never coming back, and Susannah couldn’t even remember exactly when that had been.
It was only at the beginning of this summer that Mrs Matlock, the librarian, had told her a little about what had happened to her daddy. Apart from the ocean, Vinalhaven’s small town library was Susannah’s favourite place to be. Often, she’d hide away for hours reading all the history books. There was plenty on the Civil War, and the history of English kings and queens but Susannah was looking to read about what had just happened in the world. When she’d drummed up enough confidence to ask Mrs Matlock, she’d been told the war was not history yet.
‘I’ve some old newspapers catalogued,’ she told Susannah, looking in surprise at her over the rim of her glasses. ‘But why would you want to be reading about something as terrible as the war? Wouldn’t you prefer a nice story book? Have you read Little Women? It’s a favourite of mine.’
Susannah had shook her head. ‘I want to know what happened,’ she’d said to Mrs Matlock.
It was as if the older woman knew without being asked. ‘Is it about your father?’ she said, her eyes gentle.
‘Did you know him?’
‘I sure did.’ Mrs Matlock smiled fondly. ‘Spent nearly as much time as you in this library when he was a boy.’
It pleased Susannah to hear this about her father. He had liked books too.
‘Has your mother never told you what happened to him?’
‘All I know is he was posted to North Africa,’ Susannah said. ‘He came back once on leave. But when he went back he got killed.’
Mrs Matlock nodded sadly. ‘Yes that’s right, your father was posted to North Africa after the Anglo-American occupation of Casablanca. But he didn’t die there. Your mother told me he was killed in action during the allied invasion from North Africa to southern Italy in 1944.’
Susannah sat quite still. North Africa. She remembered him telling her about the dry heat, the desert
