Now, through my lens, I watched both women get to work. They were too far away for me to catch any of their conversation. It appeared that Lucy was teaching Charlene how to tag the birds. Lucy is a master at this tricky process: capturing a feathery body, holding it firmly but gently in both hands so it cannot peck her or injure itself, and attaching the orange band. Charlene was obviously nervous, her brow furrowed with concentration. Lucy spoke soothingly, patiently, as Charlene fumbled and frowned, letting bird after bird slip through her grasp. Suddenly, both women burst into laughter. I got it on film: Charlene’s head thrown back, her hair a crimson halo, and Lucy doubled over, clutching her stomach. Their mirth scared the remaining birds into flight. The flock swirled upward, a waterfall of wings.
I found myself distracted. The problem of Lucy has occupied my mind lately. I cannot figure it out. She is the belle of the Farallon Islands, the darling of the group. I have seen her giving Charlene a neck rub or offering to do the dishes when it’s Forest’s turn because he looks tired. I have observed her sitting on the couch with Galen and delighting over a ludicrous error they have stumbled upon in a reference book — the kind of thing that would only be discernible to a pair of biologists. Lucy laughs easily and loudly. She is open, cheerful, kind.
But not with me. It has taken me a while to catch on to the reality of the situation. To be frank, I was fooled at the start by her appearance. Plump and pink, she looks like the sort of woman who ought to be wearing an apron or kneeling in a garden, her hands deep in the earth. In her interactions with me, however, she has been odd from the beginning. Every so often, she will throw out a backhanded comment. (“Wow! That shirt is interesting.” “You must have great teeth, mouse girl. I can hear you chewing all over the cabin.”) Lucy will snicker when I trip on a loose floorboard or drop my spoon at the table. Withering looks. Covert eye rolls. I cannot read the riddle.
My roommates and I have the dynamic of a family, minus any semblance of warmth. We share a home. We see one another all day, every day. I must do my best with them, whether or not we get along. There is no privacy. If Mick is constipated, if Charlene has her period, if Andrew is feeling lustful, everyone knows about it. We each have our own roles. Galen: the stoic parent, ruling through benign neglect. Forest: the brainy son, forever at his books. Me: the shy stepchild, still finding her place in the pecking order. Within this group, Lucy might be the mean sister whose behavior is not obvious to her elders — who deals out punishment in pinches and slaps and then looks up innocently, saying, “Who, me?” She presents one face, hiding another, a double identity I am just beginning to perceive.
7
YESTERDAY CAPTAIN JOE made his first appearance since my arrival. Normally he comes twice a month, but he has been hindered by engine repairs. It has been almost seven weeks now. I was in my room when the boat appeared on the horizon. It might have been dropped there by magic. My heart turned over. I have come to understand why people in olden days imagined that the world ended at the horizon line. It is sometimes hard to believe that anything can exist beyond that cold edge.
Through the window, I saw that Galen and Forest were on alert. Dressed in their typical, ludicrous gear — waterproof pants, bright orange jackets, hats with earflaps — they were heading toward East Landing. I knew the drill. Captain Joe would approach as close as he dared. One wrong turn, and the ferry would find itself torn apart on the jagged cliffs. Galen and Forest would lower the Billy Pugh. Captain Joe would load it up with our groceries, toilet paper, and toothpaste. Galen and Forest would respond by sending back our outgoing mail. In truth, the whole thing reminded me a bit of space travel. Captain Joe would blast off from his native soil, his cargo hold stocked with supplies for the crew at the space station. The journey from California could take as long as six hours each way. Galen and Forest would meet him at the boundary line, where the crane would bridge the empty air. At any moment, something could go wrong. Someone could be injured, or worse.
Captain Joe is not the first ferryman to service the islands. I have recently discovered that there were others before him — many others. Most of them quit the moment they found easier work. A few fled after being hurt on the job; broken bones and concussions were common. One drowned. Five years back.
Our oceanic view is the most dangerous stretch of water on the Pacific coast. In places, the sea is only fifty feet deep. The tides sweep in and out at a quick, breathless eight knots. Powerful currents wind through the ocean with their own internal logic, like rivers carving banks into water, rather than earth. There are monstrous waves. Boats slosh and tumble like marshmallows in cocoa stirred by a spoon.
Soon Captain Joe was on his way home. Galen and Forest headed back toward the cabin, loaded down with boxes of groceries, tampons, batteries, and all the mail that had been piling up for us in the post office in San Francisco. The ferry motored smoothly away from the shore. I watched it go with a sense of desolation. The emotion passed quickly, but for a moment I felt like an abandoned child. Watching a parent retreat into the distance. Alone in a hostile and unfamiliar place.
On board that ferry was a postcard for my father. I had been on the islands for nearly two months, and during that time, I had prepared only one piece of mail to send to the mainland. On it I had written, Proof of life.
This has become a running joke between Dad and me — the cryptic postcard. (He doesn’t know about the letters I save for you, of course.) My postcards to my father tend to be as brief as telegrams. I will amuse myself by communicating my meaning in as few words as possible. 110° in the shade, I wrote during my month-long stint in the Sahara. From Paris, where I was sent to photograph the piles of skulls in the catacombs beneath the city, I wrote, Beaucoup de dead people. And when I was living in the arctic circle, throughout the eerie summer months, when the sun neither set nor rose — when it skimmed the horizon in bewildering revolutions, drifting higher and lower like a balloon caught in the breeze — I wrote simply, Bright.
Dad has gotten into the spirit himself, omitting unnecessary verbs and articles. It is a game we play, trying to top each other. Office a madhouse, he will write. Overworked. Printer ink dangerously low.
I am aware that my relationship with my father is unusual. Home has been a constant point on the compass since my childhood. For my work, I have bounced around the globe, rootless and unmoored. A month in Costa Rica. Three weeks in Taiwan. Half a year in Australia. Sleeping on couches and bare floors. Letting my stomach tie itself in knots over the local cuisine. Photographing birds and geckos, shacks and trees, people and gravestones. Photographing everything.
And then, like a swallow to Capistrano, I have returned to my father’s sprawling two-story house. He has never had the chance to transform my old bedroom into a study or a storage area. I have continued to use it, sleeping on that narrow mattress beneath the mobile of the solar system I built back in middle school. I have kept my own books on the shelves, my own clothes in the drawers. My father and I have transitioned into companionable roommates.
The whole thing is both logical and odd. Most of my old friends from school have mortgages of their own by now, not to mention husbands and kids. But I have never lived anywhere long enough to justify paying rent, let alone buying furniture. Besides, I like my father’s house. I help him with the garden. I do most of the cooking. I know the surrounding neighborhood like the back of my hand. Dad and I have our own rhythms and routines, built over years, honed and perfected. His book club. My soap opera addiction. His morning run. My evening walk. His workbench in the basement, strewn with sawdust and tools. My darkroom in the attic, foul-smelling and secret, baths of chemicals shimmering in the gloom. The photos of us on the wall.