he was fifteen or sixteen. He’d been injured in a terrible boating accident and when I came to visit, he was just home from the hospital. He was out on one of the verandas. Lying on a big wicker couch with a hundred pillows and a tray nearby, looking quite the romantic invalid. And handsome, oh, just the handsomest boy. I fell terribly in love, so I was paying attention to details. Funny how I can still remember. He was wearing a grey bathrobe over blue pajamas. His vision was still doubled—I think he’d had a severe concussion—so his brother was reading to him. He was easy on the eyes, too, and—”
“Wait, what?” Erik said. “Who was easy on the eyes?”
“Byron’s brother.”
“My father didn’t have a brother.”
“His half-brother. Andrew?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“They had the same mother. Your grandmother Astrid married twice. Kennet was her second husband.”
“Oh,” Erik said. He looked at Daisy and shrugged, his bottom lip curling in cluelessness.
“Your grandmother was such an interesting woman,” Vivian said. “She spoke, I think, four languages.”
Erik’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. “She did? I only heard her speak English and Swedish.”
“She was fluent in Spanish.”
“Spanish?”
“Oh yes, I remember it quite well. Anyway, back to the subject, the second time I met your father was at his brother’s funeral. In nineteen sixty-eight. I was a senior in high school. It was another boating accident. Andrew and Elsa drowned on the river.”
“Elsa?”
Vivian’s silence seemed hesitant. “Another relative. It was a terrible tragedy.”
“And you were at the funeral?”
“Oh yes. It was devastating for the family. They never found the bodies. Just the wrecked boat.”
The hair was up on the back of Erik’s neck again. On her sketched-out family tree, Daisy drew a new box under Astrid, labeling it Andrew. Nearby she wrote Elsa? and circled it several times.
“The last time I saw your father,” Vivian said, “was some time in the early seventies. I was either a junior or senior in college. It was a quick passing-through. I was going from New York to Montreal and I stopped in Clayton with…oh, whoever I was wearing on my arm at the time. And I had dinner at the hotel. Byron was there with his wife. I remember a little blond boy running around which was you. It made an impression because it seemed you were the only thing that could bring a little light back into your grandparents’ eyes. They’d become withdrawn and reserved since Andrew’s death. But whenever you came close to them, they came back to life.”
“What was my father like, do you remember?”
“At that time? Somber. Both him and your mother. Their second child—forgive me, I can’t remember boy or girl.”
“Boy,” Erik said. “My brother, Pete.”
“He was sick. Or something. I can’t remember, but your parents were occupied with it.”
“He’d gone deaf.”
“I see,” Vivian said. “It had just happened. Or just become evident.”
“So,” Erik said. “All three times you saw him, he was…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what I’m saying.”
“You could say I always came into contact with him when he was down on his luck.”
“Right. Exactly.”
Vivian yawned audibly. “I’m sorry. The day is catching up with me. I’m so pleased to talk to you and know now at least two of the fish charms are accounted for.”
“This has been really interesting. I’ve wondered a long time where this necklace came from.”
“I’m so glad you got in touch. If you’re ever in Montreal, do look me up. I’d be delighted to show you the watch and the other fish.”
“I’d like that.”
“Well, cheers, my dear. Until we talk again. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
PUMPED UP WITH MYSTERY and intrigue, they signed up for a 30-day trial on an ancestry website. Erik laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles, then did a search on Fiskare in the riverside town of Clayton.
Census records were the top search results. He didn’t know what to do with them so he scanned past, looking for…
“I don’t know what to look at first,” he said.
“Why not refine it on Andrew Fiskare,” Daisy said. “Your father’s half-brother.”
He did, and the search results tightened to newspaper archives from The Ogdensburg Herald.
He clicked on one dated April 27, 1968. He dragged the digitally scanned copy until he saw Fiskare highlighted in yellow, and zoomed in. “‘Search continues for Fiskare youths,’” he read. “‘No hope for survivors.’”
“It’s always April,” Daisy said behind the fingers steepled over her nose.
Coast Guard officials confirmed the search and rescue has become search and recovery