The Republic of Nothing by Lesley Choyce Page A

won’t argue. That would never work on your father.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do?” I asked.
    â€œConspire,” she said. And with that we walked toward the moon along the shining stones. The tiny lapping waves sang a muted chant with brush strokes of sound. My mother looked long and hard at the moon and then she stooped down to wash her hands in the sea. I was suddenly afraid. All this talk of having been a gift from the sea. I know she believed it but I often wondered if my mother was completely crazy. If she was crazy, she was crazy in such a beautiful, mysterious way that I loved her all the more for it. But I was getting old enough now to wonder if her craziness would be dangerous. It was a time when I should have been allowed the liberty of rebellion and temporary adolescent insanity. But I felt myself becoming an anchor for both my parents. I was all that tethered the anarchist and the mermaid to our home. Casey was young. She drifted through life like a cloud. I watched Casey float around the island on a cushion of air as we walked. Her head was always full of birds and breezes. My mother, on the other hand, was tidal. At times she was there, cooking, cleaning, salting down fish. Other times her mind would slip out to sea or sail her to the stars with her charts.
    And Everett, the successful politician, the failed destroyer of bridges, the theorist. He was changed from wild rebellion into something uniquely odd — a Conservative, a Tory. Howwould he fit into a back bench in the legislature in Halifax? What would become of him?
    My mother, in communion with the sea, began to sing a lullaby. She sat down and Casey curled up like a wisp of night smoke in her lap and fell asleep. The power of my mother’s soft voice almost sent me to dreams as well, but I was too stirred up. I didn’t trust her magic. I sat quietly, skipping small stones into the ribbon of moonlight that had moved further west. “Where is that song from?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know. It’s just something that’s in me and wants to come out. It’s from my life before your father. A piece of it. Some day, I’ll know the whole story.”
    I didn’t want my mother to know the whole story. I feared it would break the spell of our own home life. The unknown elements of both my parent’s lives were not to be trusted. My mother’s singing had unlocked the key to sleep. Hard stones felt like pillows beneath me. The cool, damp air was a warm comforter of down. Leaning on my mother’s soft arm, I drifted headlong into darkness.
    Then I heard the splashing. The slapping of things wet against the stones. When I looked up I saw that the moon was low on the horizon now. It had melted from silver light to red blood and the world was awash with the setting moonlight, a softer but more sinister glow. The sea was a spectacular circus of jumping things. Fish of all sorts leaped about. Some flipped up into somersaults by the shoreline and landed by our feet.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked my mother who seemed to be in a trance.
    â€œIt’s what I can do to keep your father here. It won’t work but it’s necessary to try.”
    â€œThe fish?”
    â€œYes. For him.”
    â€œBut he’s already talking of the trip to Halifax tomorrow. He doesn’t have the boat ready.”
    â€œWhen he wakes, he’ll be out there. “ Hers was a farawaysmile. I lifted Casey onto my back and we walked home. The fish continued to splash and sprint into the air. My mother and I picked up the ones on the rocks as we walked and slipped them back out into the water.
    In the morning when I woke, my father was gone. He had awakened in the dim morning light and, despite the victory, the appointments in Halifax and the politics, he headed to sea. He was back before ten, shouting and hollering for us all to come see. His Cape Islander down at the wharf was a mountain of cod and haddock