The Ferryman

“We aren’t lost.” my dad said through gritted teeth. I could tell he meant to deliver that statement with confidence and finality - an immovable end to the conversation. A brick wall against which my mother’s onslaught of passive aggression would inevitably fail. Instead it echoed whiny and unconvincing around the interior of our old, rusty Subaru. 

From my vantage point in the back seat, I knew my mother was angry. She never raised her voice, but I could always tell by the set of her shoulders. My years spent in the back seat of this car had taught me to interpret my mother’s shoulders like a second language. 

For instance, right now they were saying “really Vincent, there’s only one turn you have to take to get to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminal from North Vancouver, and it doesn’t involve any logging roads”. 

With her mouth my mother said “I just asked if it was possible that your iPhone is leading us to the wrong ferry terminal.”

I was relieved by their bickering. The first part of our journey had overwhelming and claustrophobic, filled by my mother turning around to make direct eye contact, pat my knee and say things like 

“It’s okay to be sad, you know.” 

My dad had been even worse, either filling the silences with nonstop banter as if he were auditioning for an 80’s sitcom, or telling me to 

“Keep your chin up sport, it’s what the old lady would have wanted.”

He had never called me ‘sport’ before in my life. I hadn’t known what to say to either of them so I had quietly googled how to respond to condolences and had been cycling through the top three suggested answers: 

“Thank you for your sympathy and kindness.”

“I deeply appreciate your expression of sympathy.”

“Thank you for your thoughts.”

I knew my parents were worried about me and battling with their own grief, but I couldn’t scrape together the energy to be okay for them. It had all just been so sudden - one day my Grandma was there and the next she wasn’t. Where had she gone? 

My parent’s smothering concern had died off abruptly several kilometres back when my dad had listened to his navigation app instead of my mother, and exited the highway on to what appeared to be a logging road. The atmosphere in the car had changed from cloying to sour as the mist rose up around us and my father refused again and again to admit that he had gone off-route. As the pavement beneath our wheels first transitioned into gravel then dirt, and the trees closed in on either side of the car, their attention had shifted away from me to the road and each other.

We had set out that morning to catch the ferry to Vancouver Island, to honour my Grandma’s last wishes and scatter her ashes along the Parksville beach. Emotions were understandably running high. My mother had pointedly checked her watch three times now, despite the clearly visible clock in the dashboard. She had even once asked when our ferry was scheduled to sail, although it was obvious she already knew the answer. I personally didn’t get her hurry. 

It isn’t like you have anywhere else to be, eh Grandma? I thought loudly at the big black urn strapped into the seat next to me. It sat silently in agreement. At least my parent’s attention was no longer focused on me.

My mother checked her watch for a fourth time. 

“Can I please double check what you typed into Google Maps?” she asked in an overly calm and supportive voice. 

“Why are you - a grown adult man - so incredibly incompetent?” asked her shoulders. 

“I typed in ‘ferry’ ” replied my dad, trying and failing to match her demeanour. “I know it’s taking us to Horseshoe Bay. It isn’t like there are many ferries to choose from in this area.” 

It was very on-brand for my dad to double down in the face of external doubt. With 22 years of marriage under her belt, my mother should know better than to question him when he was like this.

“In 2 km your destination will be on the left” interjected my Dad’s iPhone robotically. 

“There. I told you I knew where we were. This must be a shortcut.” my dad said triumphantly.

“Vincent is that a tunnel?” my mother said pointing ahead to where the road abruptly plunged into a hole blasted into a cliff face “I don’t think…”

Her words faded away as my dad stubbornly hit the accelerator and the car jumped ahead, plunging into shadows. I felt the road drop and we began to descend beneath the earth. 

“In 1 km your destination will be on the left.” 

Outside the windows the shadows that surrounded us were a living entity, dimming the headlights and clawing at my eyes. I felt a deep sense of foreboding and had to remind myself to breathe. A blanket of quiet settled in around car, and although all my instincts were screaming at me to get us out of there, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. And still we descended. Ahead of us stretched nothing but darkness. 

The navigation app was the first to shatter the silence. 

“In 500 m your destination will be on the left.” it announced cheerily.

“Dear let’s turn around” my mother whispered. “It’s dark.”

“Fine if you don’t want to go to the Island today we can turn around. Maybe there will be space to maneuver up ahead” said my father loudly and irreverently, causing my mother and I to flinch. “I think I see something.”

He was right, in the distance two islands of light blossomed out of the gloom. As we drew closer I could see that it came from two lit torches, standing sentinel on either side of a wooden dock. Beyond, I could hear the gentle roar of a river, but although I could see the torchlight reflected in the water the other side was obscured by blackness.

The car rolled to a stop and we all sat there without moving, bludgeoned into inaction by the strangeness of our surroundings. Inadvertently doing our best impressions of a hot girl in a slasher movie. 

“πορθμείο” said my dad. 

“What?” chorused my mother and I. 

“It means ferry. On that.” My dad replied, pointing at a hand carved wooden sign propped up by the side of the dock. “Your Grandma grew up in Greece, and would take me back some summers when I was a boy.” 

I never told you how brave it was to move to Canada I thought to the urn, feeling tears prick my eyes. 

“That sign wasn’t here when we arrived.” said my mother. 

“Get us out of here!” said her shoulders. 

I blinked and a man was standing at the end of the dock holding a long pole. His face was shrouded in shadows, and the edges of his outlined seemed blurred, as if he was made of the darkness that surrounded us. One foot rested lightly on the gunwales of an ornate a gondola which was tied to the dock and bobbing with the current. Although I could not see his eyes, I instinctively knew they were focused on us. I was almost certain he hadn’t been there a moment ago. The terror in my chest hadn’t had a chance to solidify when my father said 

“Maybe I should ask for directions” moving to unbuckle his seatbelt while nodding at the Ferryman. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” said a familiar voice next to me. I turned so fast that I wrenched my neck. The urn was gone and in its place sat Grandma, hair freshly cut, cheeks flushed with health, lipstick impeccably applied. “He’s waiting for me. Not you.” 

She looked at me, hand raised as if to reach out and pat my hand, but seemed to think better of it and instead smiled in that special way of hers that always managed to make the world around me calm. “Goodbye dear. It seems I do have places to be! I love you. I love you all. I’ll be waiting.” 

She stood up, feet passing through the floor of the car to rest on the ground below, and strode towards the Ferryman. Two steps away from the car, Grandma faltered and turned back, brow creased. 

“Dear do you have a coin I can borrow?” she asked me. “I need to pay the Ferryman and I seem to have left home without my wallet”. I shook my head and looked at my parents who were staring at her, mouths open in a caricature of astonishment. 

“Dad do you have any money?” I prompted after a moment of silence. 

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before managing to ask

“Does he take credit?” 

I grabbed his wallet from the cupholder, pulled out his platinum Visa and held it out to Grandma wordlessly. Grandma reached through the car door and delicately pulled the card from my grasp. 

“Thank you dear” she said smiling, and turned away from the car, walking confidently on to the dock and towards the darkness’ open arms. Right before she reached the Ferryman she turned back to wave. Then as suddenly as she had appeared, she, the Ferryman and the dock were gone. We were left alone with nothing to hold back the shadows but our headlights and the two torches which flickered in a nonexistent breeze. 

Grandma’s disappearance had shaken my dad out of his reverie. He hit the accelerator so hard the tires squealed. As we drove back up the tunnel towards the watery daylight visible in the distance my dad turned to my mother. 

“I - I don’t think that was the Horseshoe Bay Ferry” he said. “I think Google Maps was taking us somewhere else”. 

“I think so too Vincent.” said my mother. 

“I told you so. But I love you.” said her shoulders. 

In the back seat, although my vision was blurred with tears, for the first time since Grandma’s funeral I could feel a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.