The Fisher Queen by Sylvia Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

He found none. I felt no fear because I had yet to experience its profound power. This was another challenge to be met and conquered, and I would be my father’s daughter. I took an almost perverse pleasure in survival. The car accident and my agonizing recovery had become my new benchmark.
    Paul didn’t apologize or make excuses or try to help or reassure me. I had wanted equality in a man’s world and I was getting it, though I wanted some small token of love or pride or gratitude: a tender embrace, a you did great, an I’m a lucky man or a thanks for being such a damned good sport.
    According to my father, I was one of nature’s beloveds, and as such, the Nature Spirits would always protect me. And they did, then and countless times to come.
    â€œWhat are you smiling about?” Paul said in the dimming light.
    â€œEverything,” I said as a faint trail appeared in the soggy ground.

    â€œDaddy, can you hear me? You have to remember to say over,” I shouted into the mouthpiece at the fish camp office and forgot to say the critical over so he would know when to speak.
    â€œThere is no problem with the line,” he rumbled in his lilting accent. “But your mother is crying so hard I can hardly hear you. Angela, for God’s sake, calm down. Everything good here, except for your mother worrying herself sick about you. Lots of action around here lately. Your sister had her baby five days ago, another little girl. Your mother is pushing for Lisa Gay. It’s good you called for Mother’s Day, Sylvi.”
    I heard my mother’s sobs and her burbled “Let me talk, Laimon.” My calm resolve started to melt away. My eyes filled with tears at my father’s voice and my mother’s sobs and I swallowed over and over to keep my voice steady. My little sister was a mummy again and my throat ached with nostalgia. I was an auntie again and I had missed my niece coming into the world. I remembered the boundless joy of holding Jenny, Gay’s firstborn, in my arms just two years before, still bloody and slippery from the womb. Tears escaped. That world and that life already seemed surreal, like that was the movie and this was real life.
    â€œSweetheart, it’s Mum. I’ve been so worried about you; are you alright?” she sobbed. “Just before you called I was sitting in the living room and thinking of you and when I was pregnant with you in England. I just found out and was so happy and Daddy was so worried because he wanted to wait until we went to Canada to have a baby. But I wanted you so badly, mia cara , and there I was on Mother’s Day, knitting you a little pink sweater, piccola bella bambina , because I just knew you would be a beautiful little girl. Born in January, my birthday present. And there you are now, grown up and so far away and doing something so dangerous. Are you okay? Tell me the truth. When am I supposed to say over?” Mum dissolved again in sobs, and with that came my own tears.
    I didn’t know radio telephones broadcasted to every single person dialled into that frequency, which in this case was every person in the fleet, plus anyone anywhere near the external speakers at the fish house. The manager and his wife had discreetly moved to the next room. It wasn’t until Paul came into the office and signalled that it was time to end the call and we were walking down the long outside wooden stairway to the dock that he told me the reason people were snickering all along the way to our boat. I wasn’t even remotely mortified, having grown up with an emotive mum, but laughed so hard I teared-up and could hardly climb onto the boat. Paul, a tad embarrassed, said people would be chuckling about the incident for days. I said I thought it was often safer to laugh over something than to cry, especially in this world where we had to keep a tight rein on our emotions.
    I would come to understand how that became a survival