Fish Food

Ruthie and I had spent more hours than we could count collecting shells and starfish and driftwood, sometimes we would find an old coin tangled in the kelp but until the tide carried in the severed hand, our adventures had been harmless and mostly uneventful. The hand changed everything.

Ruthie saw it first and let out a high pitched scream, scaring me out of a year’s growth and making me drop my entire lapful of sea glass. It was ragged at the wrist, shriveled and badly discolored, missing two fingers and the joint of the thumb. When Ruthie poked it with a stick, I gagged and thought for a moment that I would lose my lunch.

“Leave it alone!” I wailed desperately.

“Jeesum crow,” she whispered, “Somebody’s fish food!” She leaned in a little closer and prodded it again. My stomach lurched dangerously.

“Let’s just go home,” I pleaded with her but Ruthie was as fascinated as she was stubborn. She managed to separate the vile thing from the kelp with the stick and push it out of the way of the tide.

“What can we put it in?” she asked.

“PUT IT IN?” I screeched and realized I was beginning to feel light headed, “”Put it back in the water! Let the fish finish it!” A feeling very much like panic had begun a slow but steady climb from my gut and I was positive if it reached my throat I would puke or pass out or both but Ruthie was being maddening reasonable.

“No,” she said calmly, “We have to tell somebody. Sparrow or Long John maybe.” She looked thoughtful for a moment and then grinned. “Better yet, we’ll take it to Doc! He’ll know what to do.”

The thought of handling it was the last straw. The bile reached my throat and I suddenly tasted acid indigestion and began dry heaving. I ran blindly for the edge of the woods, fell to my knees and threw up breakfast and lunch and everything in between. It was humiliating and awful but Ruthie helped me up, had me rinse my mouth with a handful of salt water, then gave me a cherry lifesaver and a reassuring hug.

“We can wrap it in kelp and put the kelp in the sandwich box,” she said practically, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to touch it.”

So that’s what we did. She tied her bandana to the stick and then the sandwich box to the bandana and we set off. I kept well away from the wretched thing but Ruthie just slung the stick over one shoulder and began to whistle. Headed down the well worn path from the cove to the road, I imagined we looked all the world like a couple of Norman Rockwell kids off on a fishing trip.

We found Doc comfortably settled in a rocking chair on his porch, smoking his pipe, frowning over a crossword puzzle and drinking buttermilk. The old gray tomcat who had kept company with every doctor we’d ever had was asleep at his feet and Miz Flora was in the kitchen, frying sausages and potatoes. Without a flicker of disbelief or condescension, Doc listened gravely as Ruthie explained what the tide had carried in. When she was done, he adjusted his spectacles and nodded for her to open the lunchbox.

“Well,” he said neutrally, “Let’s have a look at it.”

Ruthie opened the box, lifting the lid carefully and exposing the hand in a bed of kelp. I more than halfway expected it would begin crawling out on its own accord and was fully prepared to run when Doc reached for it - thought better of it and called for Miz Flora to bring him a pair of gloves, pulled them on and reached again - and laid it on the concrete. Flora went white and let out a gasp and the cat suddenly woke, wrinkled its nose and ran off in a huff. Smart cat, I thought dismally.

Doc frowned and looked closer. “My, my” he said and there was just a touch of surprise in his voice, “That certainly is a hand. How interesting.” He had Ruthie re-tell about how and where we had found it, asked if we’d seen anything else in the way of body parts (that made my gut clench again and I swallowed fiercely hard and prayed not to throw up) and then had Flora fetch a plastic bag and carefully slid it over the thing. “Reckon we’ll let the law have a look,” he told us reassuringly, “You were right to bring it.”

Ruthie flashed me a smug, told-you-so kind of smile and I had a sudden urge to punch her but I was too glad to be rid of the hand to stay mad. Doc took it to the RCMP but we never did find out whose it was or what had happened. Nova Scotia was a maritime province and the Atlantic storms took many an unsuspecting fisherman. It was painful and heartbreaking but not uncommon for a fishing boat to drift home alone and the body never be recovered.

“Comes with the territory,” Sparrow often said, “The ocean, she keeps her secrets.”