By Ingrid Anders
A canal dredged from Cape May’s harbor to the Delaware Bay separates the old seaside resort from the rest of New Jersey. This is the kind of island Brooke wants to be—man made and cut off, so separated from the mainland she can forget she was ever part of it.
The open laptop on the kitchen table glows at Brooke, silhouetting the mug about to deliver its third cup of black coffee to her empty stomach. The unchecked caffeine floods her mind with emptiness and veils the physical world. Maybe, if she drinks enough coffee, she can detach entirely.
Dancing on the screen with the white spots in her vision are the words “abrupt departure,” “final paycheck,” and “nondisclosure agreement.” In the email there is also a question about her current mailing address. Mile marker zero on the Garden State Parkway, Brooke wants to respond but instead shuts the laptop and turns to the window. It’s warm for late September and mercifully quiet.
Brooke stands up too quickly and has to steady herself on the table. She should eat. If only she had bought those groceries yesterday. If only that clerk had answered her questions. How should she know what “outdoor access” written on an egg carton means? Are the chickens free-range or not? To what degree are they exploited? To what degree do they suffer? Because Brooke’ll tell you one thing, lady, she’ll be damned if she’ll ever exploit anyone or anything ever again, so help her God, and no, she will not lower her voice, and yes, please do call the manager, whom she would love to tell where this intentionally vague and misleading label can be shoved!
It’s just as well. Eating only pulls Brooke back to the reality she is trying to avoid anyway. She slides a windbreaker over her T-shirt and pushes her toes through the Y-shaped straps of her sandals. She leaves her bicycle leaning against the rental house and lets autopilot guide her feet toward the beach. To anchor herself in sand, to breathe briny air, to see and touch the ocean that lies between her and—Brooke shudders. To disremember.
As she goes, Brooke’s gaze follows the decorative balconies and rounded towers of the Victorian-style homes that make Cape May a National Historic Landmark District, and, more importantly, completely unfamiliar to her. The architecture reminds her of no place else she has been—not northern New Jersey and most certainly not China. Too bad the years of poring over Chinese dictionaries and character worksheets have left her vision permanently smudged.
When Brooke arrives at the beach, the waves shush their frothy greeting and smell like healing. The band of beige sand is deserted, save for a mother and child tossing an inflatable ball between them. Before Brooke descends from the boardwalk, she passes through the Comfort Station, nodding to its wooden oval sign that, anywhere else, would say Public Restroom, but not here in her DIY sanitarium.
When Brooke emerges from the Comfort Station, relieved and flicking her hands in the lingering summer air, the mother’s voice shatters her.
“Jìumìng ā!”
Brooke’s eyes slam shut and she shakes her head to clear the sound. The smells of dust and smoke and gaseous plastic assault her. Pulses of running and wailing pound her. That ghastly face pushes itself into her mind, eyes first, desperate and also bold, daring Brooke to write down what she was about to see—what was painfully clear to everyone in the factory that day, that although there were no obvious violations to report, the working conditions were not right, that it was a mill of exhaustion and entrapment fed by hungry American dollars—before she let go, plunged from the catwalk, and landed at Brooke’s feet.
That woman’s death was no accident, but what to write in the report? How to prove that the company was compliant with the letter of the law, but not the spirit? It’s the spirit that haunts Brooke.
“Jìumìng ā!” comes the voice again. Brooke opens her eyes to see the beach ball floating out to sea and the boy’s head going under. Her feet launch out of the flip flops. Her jacket flies behind her. Plunge. Grab. Pull. Lift. Her hands push the child, dripping and gasping, at his shrieking mother. Then, Brooke runs from the beach as fast as her trembling legs can carry her.
***
The repeated knocking finally rouses Brooke. She pushes herself up off the floor and blinks at the pink-orange window. Woman and son, now dry and dressed, stand in the doorway. She holds out the windbreaker. “Hello. We’re so sorry to bother you. Have you eaten?”
Brooke grunts. The kettle fills with water. The woman sits and boils over with gratitude and apology and prayers and loneliness and her absentee husband and how good Brooke’s Chinese is and can she come back to learn some English and the word friend.
No, Brooke wants to say, I need to forget. But when she places the mug of plain boiling water on the table—how many mugs like this has she sipped in China—the woman hugs it in both hands and starts to cry.
“You saved us. Not just him.” She strokes her son’s back. “If you hadn’t understood me …” She shakes her head. “I haven’t learned any English since we arrived. I’ve been so lost.”
Brooke watches the steam from their cups, how it billows and curls, falters but still always rises. She clears her throat. “Help. The English word you were looking for was ‘help.’”
The woman smiles and leans back. Looking around the kitchen, her face assumes a new look of horror. She reaches for Brooke’s hand. “Come with us. I will make you food.”
The Cape May Canal is only 3.3 miles long and 100 feet wide—short enough to jog from end to end and narrow enough to swim across.
Also, there are bridges.
Ingrid Anders is a freelance writer currently residing in Northern Virginia, formerly residing in China, California, Taiwan, Germany, and New Jersey. She hosts the Short Story Reading Group for Writers and the Short Fiction Writing Workshop at the Washington, DC, Public Library.
