Impossible (22 page)

CHAPTER 50

When Soledad arrived, she found Lucy alone in the waiting room, pacing, with her arms wrapped around herself and a fierce look on her face. "Sorry," Soledad said. "I know I'm running a little late, but I'm ready now. Did you want to say hi to Jacqueline before I take you home? She'll be back in just ten—" She stopped, taking in Lucy's expression. "Lucy? Is something wrong?"

Lucy shook her head. "No. I—no." She hesitated, but decided she wanted to talk to Zach about what she'd just learned before she told Soledad and Leo.

Or should she tell him at all? Would it be too much of a burden, if Zach knew what she now did? If any of them did? She felt clammy with fear and uncertainty.

Maybe this knowledge was something she had to bear on her own. Because if it all did come true—if she was indeed doomed—

Then she caught sight of the travel magazine on the floor and picked it up, holding it tightly. She remembered what she had been thinking before the Elfin Knight had appeared to her. It heartened her.

She wasn't finished fighting yet.

"Lucy?"

"Mom, is it okay if I take this with me?" Lucy indicated the magazine. "I'll return it later. There's an interesting article."

"No problem," said Soledad. "You don't want to wait for Jacqueline? Okay, then, let's go. You can put your feet up at home."

But that was not what Lucy had in mind. After Soledad dropped her off at the house in Newton, Lucy went online to look up information about the Bay of Fundy. By the time Zach got home, she was sure.

"Cancel your trip to Mississippi tomorrow," she said, with a certainty that Zach had never heard from her before. "It's not swampland we want. It's this." She showed him what she had found. "The tide goes out, more than two miles in places, and that exposes the ocean floor of the bay. It's teeming with life, so the birds swoop down in huge numbers to feed before the water rushes in again to cover it."

Zach looked at the pictures in the magazine. He got it immediately.

"No need for a peninsula," he said. "Between the salt water—the ocean itself—and the sea strand—the moving tide. The beach expands and contracts for miles. It switches between land and sea. Twice a day."

"Of course, nothing I plant is going to grow there," Lucy pointed out. "Because the salt water will come back and cover the seeds within twelve hours. That's about how often the tide turns. But I can plant there anyway. Like you've been saying."

They looked at each other.

Zach pulled up the mapping website. "New Brunswick, Canada. That's seven highway hours by car from here. Or maybe eight, to get to a good part of the bay. You have a passport, right?"

"Oh, yes. You?"

"Yes."

Lucy hesitated. "Zach? I want to go right now. Like, tonight. Is that okay? I can't wait. We have to go now, right now. I—I feel it. Women's intuition or something."

She hoped he wouldn't question her. She had never been one to claim intuition before. She hadn't made up her mind yet whether to tell Zach about her encounter with the Elfin Knight, and what she had now learned from him, and how it had galvanized her anew.

If they failed—if she failed—it would burden him to know that truth.

A pause. Then Zach nodded. "All right. I'll load up the goats' horns, the wheelbarrow, and the sand and corn dust in the car, and then we'll be off."

Lucy was practically vibrating with relief. "I adore you. Okay, I already checked the tide tables and right here"—she pointed to a specific place on the map of the Bay of Fundy—"it'll be low tide at just after ten tomorrow morning. We'd have to wait a whole day for the next low tide at daylight."

"That's true," said Zach. "Let me just call your parents. I assume you want them to come?"

"Oh, yeah." Lucy put a hand to her stomach. "Especially Soledad."

Zach froze. "But you told me the doctor said—"

"Calm down. I still have three weeks. We'll be there and back before I go into labor, I'm sure. I just thought Soledad should be nearby anyway, just in case."

"Sounds good to me," said Zach. But when he got off the phone, he was frowning. "She says Leo has a gig tonight that he's already left for and she's not sure exactly where it is. He always turns his phone off when he plays, and he won't be home until one or two in the morning. And a night's sleep would do us all good, she says, and can we leave first thing tomorrow? I told her that was fine. I know you'd like to go now, but it's a good idea to wait, Lucy. It won't be long."

There was a lengthy pause. Lucy looked as if she wanted to speak; indeed, she moved her lips as if she were forming words. But she didn't. Then, slowly, carefully, she said, "I want to make tomorrow morning's tide. It feels important to me—actually, it feels urgent." She took a deep breath, and turned away. She massaged her throat as if it were stiff.

Zach hesitated. It made all the sense in the world to get some sleep tonight and go in the morning with Soledad and Leo.

He said, "Okay. You and I will go right now. I'll tell your parents to follow us up tomorrow morning, as soon as they can. They'll only be a few hours behind us. It's no biggie. They'll meet us there."

Lucy's face illuminated. "Can we really?"

"Yeah," said Zach. "Let's go."

CHAPTER 51

They reached New Brunswick just after sunrise and had breakfast at a truck stop on the Trans-Canada Highway. Lucy forced herself to eat a big omelet with two slices of toast. She sipped orange juice while poring over the map. "We take an exit toward Memramcook. Then through Dorchester and on to Shepody Bay." Shepody Bay was an inlet of the Bay of Fundy with long stretches of pristine shoreline. "The tide won't be fully out until ten, but it doesn't matter if we get there early." She peered out the window at the gray sky. "I just hope the sun comes out." She was finding it difficult, but possible, to contain her anxiety and urgency.

What she had not found it possible to do was to talk to Zach about the Elfin Knight. If it turned out all right—if she succeeded—then she could tell him afterward. Otherwise, it was best that he not know. He would suffer less. Leo and Soledad would suffer less. And their knowing or not knowing would affect nothing as far as the baby was concerned.

"Weather.com said it would be clear today," said Zach. "Cold, but clear. Which I guess is as good as it gets in February."

Lucy nodded.

They got back in the car. But as they drove farther east toward what should have been the rising sun, the sky grew darker. The wind picked up force and whipped against the car. Then a heavy, wet mixture of sleet and snow started to fall, making it difficult for Zach to see. He noticed Lucy watching the speedometer anxiously. Every time he had to slow down, she would clasp her hands tightly.

There was something new in Lucy now, he noticed. A new level of anxiety? Maybe it was because they were getting so close. But when he asked if she wanted to talk, she smiled and said no, she needed to focus her mind on the task ahead.

There was nothing else he could do.

More than an hour later than they had originally estimated, they reached the correct exit. "Should be only forty or fifty minutes to the bay now," Zach said. He debated asking Lucy to get him a couple of aspirins from her purse. He had a headache that was getting worse, but on the other hand, he didn't want her to know about it. She had enough to worry about. Maybe he could take the pills on the sneak at some point.

Lucy reached for the cell phone, which was something she'd done periodically all morning. Then she snapped it shut and sighed.

"No signal?"

"No signal."

"Well, worst case, your parents will meet us tonight at that hotel Soledad mentioned. I'm sure they're on the way by now." Zach kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. He'd had to slow down yet again. "How are you feeling?" he asked. "You must be uncomfortable. All this sitting in the car. Do you need me to stop at the next rest area?"

"I'm all right," said Lucy.

It was a lie, but a necessary one. She was uncomfortable, but that was only to be expected. The real problem was that ten minutes before, she had experienced a muscle contraction. It wasn't much, though. And, luckily, Zach's eyes had been fixed on the car windshield and the wipers that were doing an extremely bad job of keeping it clear, so he hadn't seen her surprise.

There was this thing called Braxton-Hicks contractions, which was the uterine muscle getting ready for labor. She and Zach had learned about it in the birthing class they had taken. Braxton-Hicks contractions were not real labor. What Lucy had just experienced was, she promised herself, Braxton-Hicks. After all, she had to plow a field today. And then sow it. She had to, and she planned to, and she was going to.

So you stay right where you are
, she thought to the baby.
Listen to your mother!

The sleet and snow continued. Zach stopped talking as he concentrated on the road, which wound mile after mile along the beautiful, nearly deserted shoreline. He noted, with private relief, the location of a hospital. They passed boarded-up summer cottages. Then he lost his way once before, finally, just after ten o'clock in the morning, they found an area where more than an acre of ocean floor lay exposed between rocks, the shore, and a finger of marshland.

Zach pulled the car off to the side of the unpaved road. He turned off the motor.

They had missed low tide, but only just. Lucy would have to work fast, but she'd planned to do that anyway. Even at their most optimistic, when they had hoped for better conditions, neither of them had thought she could endure twelve hours out there. And it was obviously best to try to finish while there was still daylight.

"I can do it in seven hours," Lucy had said yesterday.

Zach turned to face Lucy. With the engine off, they could hear the wind and the sleet beating against the car.

He thought she looked pale and scared.

She thought he looked tired and worried.

He wet his lips but didn't speak. He held out one hand. She put hers into it. They watched their fingers interlace. They sat there together for the space of three breaths. It was all the time they could afford.

Then Zach helped Lucy struggle into her down parka. He tied her scarf over her hat on her head. Lucy took out fingerless gloves that Soledad had knitted, but Zach snatched them from her and made her hold out her hands so that he could put them on for her, one at a time.

They got out of the car. The sleet beat down.

From the trunk, Zach removed the goat's horn plow he had made out of the little wheelbarrow. He handed Lucy the spare horns, to swap in if the original one broke.

The wind howled.

Zach took the heavy bag of sand out of the trunk. Over two weeks before, Lucy had ground a single kernel of corn to a fine dust in a coffee grinder. She had sifted the corn dust into the sand. Now she took the bag from Zach and heaved it into the wheelbarrow. She gripped the wheelbarrow with both hands and lifted it experimentally, aware of her stomach, round as a watermelon, before her.

"You practiced in the backyard," Zach reminded Lucy. She knew he was mainly speaking to reassure himself. "You know how to do this."

"Yes," Lucy said. "I do."

They had calculated the plow rows, the speed, and the time. They had examined the tide tables. Intellectually, they knew exactly how hard this was going to be. They had long known.

Zach could not read the expression on Lucy's face as she stood before him. He wanted to tell her that he'd stay exposed to the weather too, because it was all he could do to share her task with her. He wanted to tell her that he was wearing the seamless shirt and that he believed in her. But everything that needed saying had already been said.

He had thought he understood. But now, in the wind and the cold and the sleet, the reality of what lay ahead was driven home to him in a new way, and along with it, so was this: While Lucy had hours ahead of backbreaking physical labor, in the freezing cold, with the eventual dark as well as the tide threatening, his part in it was also terrible.

He must stand there and watch.

Zach reached out one last time to touch Lucy's cheek. Lucy turned her face so that her lips could press the center of his palm.

Then she stepped back. She walked away, steadily, awkwardly, pushing the wheelbarrow plow with its bag of sand and corn dust, down toward the edge of the Bay of Fundy.

CHAPTER 52

Lucy stepped onto the exposed ocean floor and walked out, intending to work her way back into the shore. Pushing the wheelbarrow carefully so that the horn suspended next to the front wheel would rake at the ocean bed with its tip, digging a long, narrow furrow across the sand and rocks. At first she went slowly, afraid of breaking the tip of the horn. But the floor of the ocean was wet and soft, so the plowing went far more easily than it would have done had the earth been hard.

When Lucy finished the first row, she used a plastic measuring cup with a lip to sprinkle the corn dust along it. It took just over two minutes to plow and seed the first row, which was faster than the three minutes per row they had estimated back home. Lucy felt like cheering as she looked at her watch. If she could keep up this pace, she'd be done in five hours with the approximately one hundred and fifty rows needed. That was much better than the seven and a half hours she'd expected, using the original three minutes per row calculation. And she might go faster too, as she got used to the task.

But what if she'd been trying to do this while bent over, holding the goat's horn with her hand? It didn't bear thinking of. Thank God Zach had thought of rigging the wheelbarrow.

About two feet away from the first row, Lucy began another in parallel. She could do this. She could. She could complete the plowing and sowing and beat the tide. She'd keep her speed steady.

A doubting voice whispered in her ear, however. When she had practiced with the wheelbarrow at home, she had done so for only fifteen minutes. Could she last five hours? In the sleet and wind?

But she knew she could allow no doubt or defeatist ideas. Just work.

After several rows, she started to feel the rhythm of it. She began to sing, not aloud, but in her mind.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme …

She hated the song, but it goaded her on. The vision of the hateful Elfin Knight goaded her on too. She began to make even slightly better time. Her rows were clean and even.