The sea, with all its beauty and danger, had now become a conflict zone for Captain Emmet Meagher, a place where he fought against his inner demons after the loss of his leg to the Son of Moby. While sitting at the waterfront longer than he had planned, gazing out at the place in the bay where, at one time, he liked to anchor The Lilly White, Emmet found himself among the ghosts of his past, again. He was mentally marred by the two seamen and the boy he had lost to drowning in the merciless Atlantic Ocean, near the west coast of Ireland, and not far from where the Spanish Armada sank.
An old sperm whale, disoriented in her death throes, struggling for survival, overturned their small boat with a violent thrust of her massive body, leaving Emmet with an overwhelming sense of guilt and sorrow to carry around for the rest of his days. The boy was not supposed to be in the boat, but they were one man short to row, and Captain Emmet had no choice but to send him. The image of the two seasoned whalers who had braved the seas countless times with The Lilly White, and the young boy on his first hunt, full of dreams and hopes of becoming a whaler, adhered to his mind like a haunting what-if that refused to let go.
He could still hear their voices above the crashing waves, and the way the boy had looked at him with wide, frightening eyes just moments before he went under. The what-ifs tormented him every time he closed his eyes, gnawing at his soul and leaving him disgusted with himself, tugging him back to that miserable day, replaying the tragedy in an unending cycle of what-ifs.
What if he had stopped the boy from getting into the whaleboat and not listened to his first mate when he said the boy had to learn sometime? What if he had acted differently and followed his intuition as he normally did, instead of letting the boy get into that doomed whaleboat on that fatal day? What if he had been there to protect him from drowning?
These questions spiraled endlessly while Emmet sat on the waterfront, gazing out into a bay that still held an image of The Lilly White at anchor in Emmet's mind. He could almost hear the echoes of the crew’s voices drifting across the bay, their bantering with each other, some in foreign tongues, and for a fleeting moment, the distant melodies of seaman music filling the air, played on a fiddle and a tambourine with small metal discs that the boy liked to play. Each what-if was like a dagger that pierced his heart, deepening the wound of guilt.
Emmet could still recall the desperate pleas of the boy’s mother on the day they were going to sea, begging him to take care of her eldest son, who was barely sixteen when he came to Captain Emmet Meagher looking for a berth on The Lilly White. An anxious mother who spoke of her boy’s adventurous spirit and his zeal to spend his life at sea as a whaler. A mother who felt a deep-seated fear whenever her son mentioned his ambition, despite the tragedy of his father’s drowning off Mermaid Island with the sinking of The Niamh and the loss of her crew.
Her husband, a man whose reputation was built on trust and integrity, was first mate on The Niamh. He had once been a respected whaler among seamen trying to provide for his family, and was known to both Emmet and his father, ‘Rebel’ Meagher, who had carved out a name for himself through his ventures and his commitment to the principles of freedom for people of all backgrounds and colors.
However, the boy’s mother, Irish by birth, could never shake her imagined portrayal of her husband’s last moments ... the desperate struggle he would have encountered against the unforgiving sea, and the profound silence that would have followed as he sank to the bottom, and, it was said, pulled down by a ravishing mermaid that now turned menacing. It’s what she wanted to believe. A story woven of both tragedy and enchantment. She clung to this belief in telling her eldest son that his father had not perished in the sea, but had instead been transformed, becoming part of the very sea he had loved.
A mortal drawn into a world where the boundaries of life and death, male and female, were obscured ... a world beyond their comprehension. He was now no longer a man, a beloved husband and father battling against nature’s wrath, but reborn as a hermaphrodite with shimmering scales that glinted like precious jewels in the depths of the oceans, with long hair that flowed like waving seaweed interlacing with the currents of the world’s seas, with hypnotic eyes deep in knowing-all, holding the promise of carnal passion. But in her mind, her husband was a guardian of the oceans. It’s what she wanted to believe.
She clung to the notion with fervor, convinced that it was the truth she
sought. It provided her with a sense of comfort and purpose with a semblance
of hope. The idea resonated deeply within her, shaping her perceptions
and influencing her decisions. In her mind, embracing this conviction
was not merely a choice. It was a necessity that fortified her against
the uncertainties that loomed around her. It made life easy.
In her invocations to God Himself, she envisioned a different future for her son, where he could find consolation on dry land, perhaps as a shipbuilder or a ship’s tender. But the boy was persistent in his feelings. It was the open sea for him. Exploring distant lands and hunting whales were all he ever spoke about. And the stories his father had filled his head with ... about the two-masted brig The Niamh, known for her agility and speed, built by an Irish shipbuilder to survive hurricane-strength winds in the Atlantic.
Ireland's relationship with the sea is profound and integral,
intricately interwoven into its historical narrative and the essence of
its people, and this shipbuilder was no different. Ireland’s prime position in the North Atlantic grew in importance over time, with Irish seafarers engaging in fishing and exploration, embarking on journeys that resulted in uncovering new lands, some by chance. It is said that Saint Brendan the Navigator ventured to distant lands from Ireland long before Columbus made his journey to America. It was even said that he found Polynesian chickens when he arrived in America. Over the ages, this maritime heritage played a crucial role for the Irish, and so, such was one man, known as Noah, a shipbuilder who lived on the island’s east coast. He was passionate about constructing brigs with square rigging on both masts, to his own designs. Noah built ships to work and serve as a passion in living up to his given Biblical name by his father, Lamech, in telling his wife that...
''This one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.''
Emmet Meagher remained by the waterfront long after the light had thinned and the bay had taken on that dull, pewter skin it wore at dusk. The tide was neither coming nor going, caught in that indecisive pause that reminded him too much of himself. Boats creaked softly at their moorings, ropes rubbing wood in slow complaint, as if even they were tired of holding on, but these were sounds and smells he could live without if he were Emmet Meagher.
He had learned, over the years, that the sea did not speak in explanations. It offered no apologies. It simply
was ... vast, patient, and indifferent to the weight men carried into it. Sitting there, Emmet felt the familiar tightening in his chest, that low ache that came when memory and thought pressed too close together. He did not fight it anymore. Fighting took physical effort. Remembering did not, but mental pain.
He thought of the man he had been at different stages of his life ... the boy who believed strength was enough, the young man who trusted instinct, the captain who believed responsibility could be borne if carried upright in the shadow of his father, and he taught about his place as a husband To Fiadh and a father to Mark who was growing each day and showing an interest in medical things. Each version of himself had stood somewhere along this same stretch of water, looking out and believing he understood it. Each one had tried in his own way.
Loss he had come to understand, was not a single blow. It was cumulative. It layered itself quietly, almost politely, until one day the weight shifted and nothing sat right again when you were lying in a pine box. A sixteen-year-old boy. Two men. An amputated leg. A dead son by tragedy. A harpoon by fate. None of it arrived alone. Each carried the others with it, whether he wanted them to or not. Each was his fate.
The idea of God drifted in and out of his thoughts now without any moral debate. No rage, but no comfort either. Just a presence, vague and unresolved, like a question asked long ago and never answered. His mother, Cara, if she were alive, would be pleased to see he was letting God in again ... at least his foot was in the door. Perhaps faith, like the sea, was something a man stood before rather than entered. Perhaps the mistake was believing it owed him anything in return. Perhaps man needed his superstitions just to get through life.
Behind him, the village settled into the evening. Somewhere, a door closed, a dog barked. Somewhere, a voice carried, then faded, then came again. Life continued with or without his consent. That, more than anything, grounded him. The world did not wait for understanding, an explanation, or an apology. It moved on.
Emmet rested his weight more fully on his remaining leg and let the ache come, but like the mental pain, this physical pain he learned to live with. Pain, at least, was honest ... man, that was another matter altogether, and as for God Himself, no, he was not going there. It asked for nothing except to live in peace with himself and Fiadh. He breathed in the salt air, felt it sting his throat, and allowed himself one small mercy, not forgiveness, but endurance because tomorrow would come. It always did. And when it did, he would meet it as he always had ... not certain, not totally resolved, but whoever is ... but still standing on one leg at least. Still here.
From the corner of his eye, he saw one of his regulars out walking his two sleek greyhounds. He loved those dogs. The story goes that he acquired them in Blackman's Bay from an
Aboriginal who wanted his long gun and black powder, telling him the dogs would bring him good company, good fortune, and good health. For the first time that day, Emmet Meagher did not try to make sense of it.