Sea of Tranquility by Lesley Choyce

together they laid waste to products of the industrial world. Phonse brought in a car crusher on a barge once a month. It smashed up a considerable amount of the metal goods shot to hell and shipped off the steel for proper recycling. He was paid a good fee for the scrap and it allowed room for new targets to arrive by boat from wherever — Blandford, Shelburne, Dartmouth, or Lunenburg.
    Chicago was somewhat shocked and appalled to learn that eco-tourists loved to shoot at things. As a result of word-of-mouth reports, eco-tourism to Ragged Island increased by twenty percent. The premiere package tour included two days of whale-watching at the Trough, a day of eco-revenge at Phonse’s salvage yard, and, for an extra fee, you could operate the car crusher on recycling day, which was the third Wednesday of every month.

C
hapter
S
ix
    Sylvie, alone in the late afternoon, collecting her thoughts. Oh, what a great collection of thoughts. They would fill up some big old South Shore barn, those thoughts, memories. Goes a ways back and then some. But the blackflies in the afternoon, that made her think of her husband, her first husband. David Young.
    It had been March when he’d been away. Two days of warmth all of a sudden, three maybe if you counted that surprising burst of warm wind that came in the middle of the night likea lost Arabian horse running wild with hot breath through the sky. The blackflies came out like it was July, pestered islanders right through the brief freak warm spell, then died right off. It had been the entire great summer swarm of insects — annoying little blood-sucking bastards that some hated much more than mosquitoes. Died off and never returned that whole summer.
The blackflies
: that’s what made Sylvie think of husband number one.
    Both seventeen when they married. It had all started with the high rubber boots in the old schoolhouse.
    â€œWhat on God’s green earth is that smell?” the old teacher asked. She was a wonderful teacher, that Missus Lantz. But, watch out for yourself when things went wrong and she took after that pointer stick she kept sheathed in the rolled-up map of North America.
    â€œIt’s the boots, Jesus,” David said and ran to retrieve them, his and Sylvie’s. High rubber boots set tight side by side like lovers, too close to the scalding black metal of the wood stove, old knot-ty spruce logs ablaze inside warding off winter in favour of education. David had set his own boots there alongside of Sylvie’s. He was always doing nice things for her.“Wants your feet to be warm and dry,” he had said. Such a gentleman for a boy.
    They were melting. Oh, my God, what a stench. Everyone grabbing their noses and pinching. The little ones taking the opportunity to howl and screech. Missus Lantz opening the door to winter and inviting the old gentleman in. “Everybody out,” she finally said. “Can’t teach with this!” Melting boots meant freedom.
    â€œWhose bloody Wellingtons?” she asked as David scrimped low across the room to grab the boots and haul them out.
    â€œSorry, ma’am,” he said. “My fault.” David grabbed the steaming boots and heaved them out into the snow. The little ones ran from where they landed as if the devil had been thrown to catch them at play.
    Sylvie remembered going out to look at her own boots and saw that one of them had melted itself onto one of David’s. Lying there in the snow, the two black boots stuck together, the smell still something you could not quite pinch out of your nostrils.
    â€œI was hoping to get them nice and warm for you. And dry inside, you know?”
    Sylvie felt weak and shy. Not like her at all.
    â€œI’ll buy you a new pair when my dad takes me in the boat to Mutton Hill Harbour this week.”
    â€œIt was an accident.”
    â€œI know,” David said, smiling now. “Everything’s an accident. That’s what