‘Land, ho!’ came the cry echoing across the harbour. It was foggy still, so none of us could see the boats as they drifted silently across the water and into the dock.
‘Who is it, Mama?’ I asked quietly, squinting from the shore of the bay. ‘Is it Papa?
‘Hush, child,’ she said sharply, eyes straining against the haze. ‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Could it be Papa, Mummy?’ my little brother piped up, still playing with a pile of rocks he’d found.
‘Perhaps,’ she said – although she sounded hesitant even to my little ears.
Our neighbours, the baker and his wife, scrambled over the hill to appear next to us. She puffed as she stood next to my mother, concern etched in her eyes.
‘Is it true?’ she whispered. ‘Could it be them?’
‘It’s been months since we’ve seen their professionally applied fishing boat graphics,’ said the baker, in the sad tones of a would-be poet. ‘It isn’t likely.’
‘Oh, hush,’ his wife frowned at him, her expression softening as she looked back to my mother.
‘No, he’s correct,’ she said. ‘It is foolish to hope.’
‘Why is it foolish, Mama?’ my brother piped up. ‘Don’t you want to see Papa again?’
‘Oh, child,’ the baker’s wife quickly interjected, bending down to scoop him up. ‘Of course, your mother wants your Papa home, safe and sound.’
‘Of course,’ my mother repeated, eyes vacantly staring out into the fog. ‘I miss him… terribly.’
The baker grunted his approval, chewing on a pipe.
A wind came howling over the hill, mountain-cold and storm-fast. My mother quickly wrapped herself around me so I didn’t feel the worst of the chill. She stayed close to me as we watched it push the fog back slightly, thinning it out, until—
‘Now, where do you purchase a boat wrap like that?’ the baker whistled, as the large trawler in the bay came into view. ‘That’s one hell of a boat.’
‘Yes,’ my mother agreed, her voice trembling. ‘But no fishing vessel, that is for sure.’
‘I’m sorry, Mary-Anne,’ the baker’s wife put her free hand on my mother’s shoulder.
‘As I said,’ my mother hardened her posture. ‘It is foolish to hope.’