Envious Moon by Thomas Christopher Greene Page A

writing, though they would prefer it if I would write other things. I told Dr. Mitchell that I am of the mind that we all have one story to tell, one important story, and that this is mine.
    â€œHow do you know that?” he says. “You have so much living to do, Anthony.”
    And when he says this, I’ll tell you the truth, I think about it. But then I look out my one window to the manicured lawns and the walkways, and if the leaves are off the trees, I can strain my eyes I and make out the blue-green Atlantic between some of the other buildings. Whenever I see that water, it is this I come back to. This story. Hannah.
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    I n the morning I said good-bye to Berta and when she stared up at me I wanted to tell her that she did not need to worry, that I had no intention of going to sea this time, but I knew she couldn’t know this. I didn’t say anything to Victor either. He would try to talk me out of it. I lied to Captain Alavares in a note and said I was on my way to New Bedford because of a death in the family. I knew Captain Alavares would not believe me and that I was making his life difficult. I also knew that I was probably forfeiting the right to ever be on his boat again, and I did not care about this either.
    An hour later I was on the first ferry to leave Galilee for Cross Island. I wore a Red Sox hat pushed low over my forehead and I had my oilskin bag and inside it was everything I normally brought fishing. All that I would need for a month at sea. Warm clothes and rain gear. A jug of water. My bedroll. A surf rod, separated into two pieces. Tackle. A few ham and cheese sandwiches. A carton of cigarettes and a lighter. Yesterday’s Boston Globe . And I brought two other things I would not have bothered with if I was going to the Grand Banks. Ten one-hundred-dollar bills that I had exchangedfor one of the thousands at the bank. And two bottles of Berta’s homemade wine.
    I had never been on the ferry before. Fishermen didn’t belong on ferries. This early in the morning it was mostly filled with trucks bringing produce and other goods to the island. The truck drivers didn’t leave their cabs during the crossing. There were a few tourists and I had worried I might see some of the girls I knew from Galilee, girls who worked on the island, but I did not. I climbed to the top deck and sitting on the blue metal benches were a few older couples. The other day, Hannah had stood on this same deck. I went to the railing and looked out over the harbor and the village. Below me ferry workers in their blue shirts and white shorts untied the ship from the moorings. And, slowly, the ferry began to drift away.
    The morning was hazy and ocean-cool. When it burned off, it would be a warm one. Around me, the harbor was waking up. All manner of fishermen readied themselves and their boats to go out. Workers arrived at the cannery and the fish stores. Lobstermen unloaded their catch onto the wharf. The air full of brine and fish and diesel fuel.
    This village was all I had ever known. That morning, seeing it from the high deck, from a height greater than I had ever seen it before, it was almost as if I was seeing it for the first time. The working wharves and the gray, featureless commercial buildings. The fish markets and the clam shacks. The small houses in the distance, houses like mine, where the men and women who made their living on this little sliver of coast lived. The bulbous steel water towers inland that loomed over everything. Where the town ended, where the sandy highways that led east to the tourist beaches started. And maybe it was because I had made another choice this day, a choice that would onceagain lead me away from my life, that it looked so small to me. It looked small and it looked sad.
    I turned to the front of the ship. The ceiling was starting to lift and the ocean sparkled in the first sunlight. I could see the rocky bluffs of the island, a mass of brown rising out of