Dagmars Daughter by Kim Echlin Page A

her clothes over. Soberly they walked back to Colin and got in the boat together. The winds were blowing up offshore and the waves were high. The little boat tossed and slapped against the waves’ funnels. Colin rowed them away from the land. Reckless, he pulled an oar from an oarlock and swung it over his head. Dagmar was afraid on the dark waters.
    Stop your fabbing, Colin, she said. Let’s go back.
    I’m not going back. I like it out here.
    Turn back, said Donal low and hard, the winds are up. We’ll row double-handed.
    Colin sat down unsteadily in the centre seat and turned them in a circle with one oar, the other laid across the boat, the winds tossing them out toward the open sea. Donal stood and moved toward the middle seat to grab the loose oar. He tried to push in beside Colin to put it back in the lock but Colin wouldn’t budge. Donal reached out to shove him over, but as his hand grasped Colin’s shoulder, the thick fist of his friend swung up and caught him on the jaw. Donal’s head snapped back, then he lunged at Colin, who stood swinging the loose oar over his head. Donal grabbed at it and pulled one end down, trying to get in a punch but Colin locked his arms around Donal’s neck, fell backwards and with two unsteady steps they were both overboard, still fighting in the water.
    Dagmar could no longer see the shore. She grabbed the other oar and stretched it to them but a wave heaved her out of reach. She saw their heads washed over by cold waves. They’d drown. She stared hard at the sky and a strange rain storm whipped itself up over their boat spinning the winds around to drive them like tiny turtles back to the silent shore, Dagmar shaking in the skiff and the two men swimming hard to keep their heads above the water, beaten on by cold drops. Dagmar could stir up the winds and bring down the rains, but now she was overpowered by a man’s love, a force she could not fathom. Each of them made it back to shore alone and half-frozen that night. In the marshland the fish and birds chattered.
    Before dawn Colin tapped on Dagmar’s window, beckoned her out and asked her properly to marry him. He said, I think I would die if the sea swallowed you. I almost lost you.
    Together they walked up the shore to Madeleine’s. Everett was smoking at the kitchen table and Madeleine came out of the goat shed.
    He’s gone, she said.
    Where?
    He didn’t say. He came in soaked and said he was going to the mainland. Madeleine examined Colin’s and Dagmar’s faces and said, I wonder what you have done to him?
    Nothing, muttered Colin. He’ll be back. We always come back.
    Madeleine shook her head with its little chin stuck on her neck and said sadly, Every way’s likely.

    C olin spent his summer’s catch to get a thousand roses shipped in from the mainland to scatter all through his house for the wedding. Red and white and pink and yellow. From the front door to the bedroom he made a pretty trail and buried the bed in petals. Delighted, Dagmar stripped off her dress and dropped naked back into the roses as if she were falling into a pile of leaves. She read the banner Colin gilt-lettered by hand and hung over their bed: Dagmar I am all Dagmar my head my heart my hand . They lay heart to heart for twenty-eight days and Colin whispered to her, Dagmar, I love you, until the blooms were brown and drooping on their stems, until the petals on the bed were dry and turned to dust, until the water in the vases was spent. The people of the settlement loved a wedding and joked among themselves about the couple’s lingering, Good thing there’s a fall larder in there.
    One morning Colin traced his hand over Dagmar’s rounding stomach and, thinking about something else said, I’ll tell you a story ‘bout Johnny Magory. Shall I begin it? That’s all that’s in it!
    Dagmar laughed but felt a fresh chill like ice-quar in the room. He was absent, his eyes trained on the door. He said, I want to go away to make my hand. A