The Sea in Winter: Chapters 7–13

I reach the desk and touch my fingertips to the top book: Beyond the Wildflowers, by J. A. Corsair.
“It’s a trilogy,” Marisol says.

He goes through the usual questions. Each appointment begins with this brief check-in. He asks about how frequently I’ve felt the injury in my knee. He asks about the severity of the pain and discomfort over the past few days. He asks me to give each day a rating between one and ten.

I can’t help but gasp. “Really? You think so?”
His voice remains soft, contemplative. “I do. I think you’ll be fine with those hikes your mother asked about. And did you notice you’re not limping today? Or at least you didn’t just now, as you came down the hall to this room. Your gait was perfectly steady.”

I can’t help but gasp. “Really? You think so?”
His voice remains soft, contemplative. “I do. I think you’ll be fine with those hikes your mother asked about. And did you notice you’re not limping today? Or at least you didn’t just now, as you came down the hall to this room. Your gait was perfectly steady.”

Perfectly steady.
Those two words fill me up with joy. I’m suddenly giddy and grinning, feeling electric, like a sunbreak bursting through a storm cloud.

“Of course. You’re still in recovery, and we must be extra careful and attentive. I highly recommend you continue to do your exercises with the resistance band at home, just as you have been.”

He instructs me through the usual exercises: repetitions to strengthen my quads, hips, and hamstrings; balance exercises to help with proper alignment; stretches to increase my range of motion.

Faint piano music filled the space from the accompanist playing for a different class down the hall. An upbeat allegro. We could hear the rhythmic thuds of the students practicing their petit jetés and changements.

Some of the girls think it’s unfair favoritism, since her mom is a former principal dancer, but I’ve never felt that way. I just think that Hattie is gifted and passionate. I think she works harder than most people do.

The wooden coffee table in her living room has a massive, cracked geode slice embedded in its center.

A collage made of sheet music hangs from the wall.

She and her mother look so much alike, the dance portraits almost seem like glimpses of her own future. A psychic foretelling.

As Hattie spun in tight circles, Eva, Taylor, and I were all seated on the studio floor, lacing the ribbons of our pointe shoes around our ankles. Cinching them tight. Tucking the knots inside the satin folds.

I knew Hattie didn’t mean to show off, but sometimes her flawlessness felt like a personal attack.

I looked up at Hattie. She often compared me to Noelani. She always said that I looked just like her. That I moved and performed like her, too. And I wanted that to be true. I wanted to seem like someone destined to perform as the Peacock in The Nutcracker.

Mr. Lawson pushes a cart beside me. There is a wide, flat machine balanced on top of it. The machine has various dials and buttons on it, and a small digital screen. We use it for the electrical stimulation therapy.

He increases the voltage. My muscles twinge in response. The pads grow even warmer. I open my eyes, blinking up at the ceiling. “Right there,” I tell him. “Perfect.”

We climb in, I place my new books in the back seat, and she sets the warm boxes on my lap. “Hold them level,” she says. “Please.” I shakily inhale the scents of garlic and marinara sauce.

We drive all the way home, and I don’t say a single word. I just sit here, waiting for my breaths to even out. Waiting for this sudden pang in my chest to go away.

“The late 1800s and early 1900s were a difficult time for the people,” Jack explained to me. “Settlers were coming in, and there were all kinds of epidemics. Our ancestors suffered from smallpox, measles, influenza...."

The early years of his see-yah’s life were difficult. The family lived in poverty. They were forcibly removed from Ediz Hook by white settlers when Jack’s see-yah was only a small child.

Tonight, he’s telling us all about this girl named Abby in his class, who slipped a handwritten valentine into his cubby. He is obsessing over this card. The significance of it.

His hands are folded on the tabletop, his fingers absently twisting his wedding band. “Is it just me, or does this sound like an unfortunate case of unrequited love?”

He grabs a small carton of Conversation Hearts and holds it up for our inspection. Like this is a crucial piece of evidence in some wild conspiracy theory.

“Ye’ve revealed yer treasure to a mad-hungry pirate!” Jack shouts in his pirate drawl. “Finders be keepers, ye bloody landlubber!”

“Ye’ve revealed yer treasure to a mad-hungry pirate!” Jack shouts in his pirate drawl. “Finders be keepers, ye bloody landlubber!”

Connor scoops the box against his chest, bending his torso in a protective stance. In his haste, he’s forgotten the lid, and stray pieces go flying. I hear the crack of impact as candies skitter across the hardwood floor. Tiny folded cards flit to the floor like flightless butterflies.

Connor scoops the box against his chest, bending his torso in a protective stance. In his haste, he’s forgotten the lid, and stray pieces go flying. I hear the crack of impact as candies skitter across the hardwood floor. Tiny folded cards flit to the floor like flightless butterflies.

Connor drops, scrambling to retrieve the fallen candies before Jack can reach him. Jack makes an exaggerated show of trying to hobble around the table on his “peg leg.”

And the morning took off in a frenzy, with Mom and Jack brewing coffee and reading traffic updates and the overnight breaking news reports, Connor yawning theatrically, me double-checking my packed bags and my text messages, rain pummeling the roof and windows.

Today is rumbling and wet. On our way here, cars splashed through puddled dips in the road, trees bent to the whims of the wind.

We drove through the crowded avenues downtown, where pedestrians walked with bowed postures, their umbrellas angled like shields against the gusts.

The ferry rocks and sways in a gentle motion. I can hear the thrash and gasp of the Puget Sound, overlapping with the hum of the other passengers, the relentless power of the rain. Of the sea in winter.

Connor nestles against me. I have the window seat, and I can’t tell if he’s cuddling me because he’s cold or because he’s scared or because he wants to see everything outside.

“That’s because your mother is, um—vertically challenged.” Jack softens his words with a gentle pat on Mom’s knee. She scoffs and pretends to brush him off, even though she’s smiling and obviously doesn’t care about her height.

We all feel the moment when the ferry dislodges from the pier.

The giant boat jolts and drops, fighting the waves as we venture out into the open water.

The Seattle skyline looms behind us, all sharp vertical lines and blurry grayness.

Mom and Jack focus their attention on their phone screens. Jack is squinting and scrolling slowly, his brow furrowed in concentration; Mom is taking pictures of our surroundings.

The ferry ride is quick and choppy. And by the time we reach the dock on Bainbridge Island, Seattle has faded far into the distance. A rain-drenched mirage across the Puget Sound.