“Hold on, Missus,” he advised, adding with a wink, “and no singing and dancing out here, mind!”

She laughed at the absurdity, and the elderly white-haired man already at the rail turned and laughed too.

As the ferry reached full speed, Catherine stared through the twin arcs of spray and could just make out the toy-town figures of her brothers waving to her from the end of the harbor, the family ritual when someone sailed away. Years ago they, not she, had been leaving their home, the island on which she’d lived for more than sixty years. The youngest of six children, she’d had an idyllic childhood, indulged by the whole family.

She looked at the white-haired man’s hands gripping the rail—brown hands, long and slender with impeccable nails—and smiled to herself at thinking them surprisingly sexy. Looking up, she caught the man’s eye; he was also smiling—at her. She blushed, feeling that he knew what she was thinking. A small child wriggled in between them, and the moment was broken.

The harbor was fading; only the Harbor Master’s office on top of the seawall remained in view. As a little girl waving her brothers off to war, Catherine had slipped away from her parents, ignored the No Entry sign and tiptoed up to the top of the steps leading to the office, so that she could see the boat for the longest time, and in her mind Cyril, Hedley, and Phillip would be waving to her forever. When a stout, red-faced man saw her, he threw open his office door, and shouted at her to get away. She fled back to her father, who was just then approaching the foot of the steps. Furious with her for worrying her parents, he gave her a sharp rebuke and an even sharper slap on the back of her legs.

She and her mother had cried all the way home—but for different reasons. Catherine now understood her mother’s sorrow that day, prompted not only by the fear for her sons’ lives, but also by a deep foreboding that if the boys lived through the war, mainland life would change them; they might never want to return to the island to live. Poor mother, thought Catherine. Losing three sons to English wives before the war was over hit her hard. Try as she might through the long years that followed the boys’ departure, Catherine appeared to be of no comfort to her mother and certainly no substitute for “my boys over there” as her mother always called them. Catherine also endured a sense of loss without her three big brothers to protect her one minute and tease her the next. But no one asked her how she felt; the family only ever acknowledged her mother’s loss.

Catherine had assumed she would marry, just as most girls in their late teens and twenties did, but somehow that didn’t happen. Many of the Island’s young men did not return after the war. Some had been killed, others emigrated to Canada or Australia, and some, like her brothers, met English women and stayed in the UK, where there were better prospects and higher wages. And, as her family agreed whenever Catherine was out of earshot, “It’s not as though she puts herself out to be nice to any men she meets” and “She’s no oil painting so she really ought to make more effort.”

Catherine didn’t feel she should have to make an effort; at least she’d never met anyone she wanted to make an effort for. So there it was left. Eventually her father stopped canvassing friends in his club for access to their eligible sons, and Catherine was relieved not to have to be polite to any more of them.

As the years passed, Catherine’s sisters married and had children. Every year, her brothers brought their families to the island on holiday, but the balance had shifted. Catherine no longer felt special and cherished; instead she lived vicariously through nephews and nieces. She drifted, with no thought of defining her own future, until somehow all opportunities except shop work had passed her by and she became the useful but dull spinster aunt. As her parents aged and became infirm, she became their caretaker by default. She was never asked for an opinion on the matter, nor offered any thanks; as the unmarried, unemployed sibling living at home, she took on extra tasks as they became necessary.

Catherine had always helped her father grow vegetables for the whole family. “Can’t eat flowers,” he’d growled when she suggested a few annuals to brighten up the garden’s borders. Increasingly debilitated by arthritis, he sat in a chair and barked orders while she did more and more of the heavy digging, hoeing, and weeding. And as her mother grew weaker from both physical and mental disease, Catherine also took over the weekly baking for her sisters and their growing families, who, over the years, had come to rely on mother’s ready-meal contributions to their working week. They praised Catherine for being indispensable; she thought of it as being trapped, as if everyone else had a life and only included her when they needed something or came to call. She felt guilty for that selfish thought and wondered what else she could do with her life now that it was too late. She couldn’t see any opportunities on the island for 50-year-old unmarried ladies.

Finally, she found a part-time job in Wesley’s Newsagents, which belonged to an elderly friend, Mrs Wesley, who needed the help. The store was close to home, so she could run back quickly when her parents needed her.

When her father died— “Heart just gave out,” the doctor said—her mother collapsed. They had lived intertwined and interdependent for 60 years, and she couldn’t accept that he was no longer there to shout at the world, to be nagged, to enjoy her cooking, to fuss over the grandchildren. She died within the year, quietly and without regret.

After Catherine’s father died her brothers and sisters urged her to move with her mother into a smaller property; “Better to sell,” they said, “and buy something smaller and comfortable for the two of you.” Catherine resisted and was glad that her mother died where she’d lived for so long.

“Now will you move?” her siblings persisted. “What do you want with that big garden?”

“I’m happy here, I’m not going anywhere.”

The family shook its collective head and left her to it. Her parents’ will had given her the right to live in the house for her lifetime, after which the proceeds from selling the house were to be divided among the surviving siblings.

The ferry moved steadily onward, leaving the island far behind. Catherine looked up to see that the cobalt blue sky was laced with yellow and orange streaks; it would be a wonderful sunset. Squinting toward the forward horizon, hoping to see the coastline of France, she chuckled inwardly. “Luckiest thing I ever did, not managing the garden,” she thought. Leaning over the rail, watching the amazing shapes and colors the ferry was creating in the otherwise calm sea, she wondered what would have happened had she not been on “earlies” that one fateful morning.

She’d been working more hours at the shop. Phyllis Wesley had worked hard to make the business a success after her husband died, but she could no longer take the cold mornings. Catherine, still mourning her parents, took over the early shift, opening the shop each day. The paperboys arrived just after six. A cheeky lot but funny and lively, they cheered her up, even if they did try to pinch the sherbet dabs and gobstoppers.

One morning after showing the boys out of the door, she went through to the back to make tea for Mrs. Wesley. Before it was ready she heard a noise in the shop. Assuming one of the boys had sneaked back in to help himself to sweets, she charged triumphantly through the brightly colored strips of plastic separating the stockroom from the shop, ready to catch the little devil red-handed, shouting, “Jimmy Morris, if I catch you pinching Love Hearts again….” She skidded to a halt in front of someone who was definitely not Jimmy Morris.

“Oh, I thought you were …”

“Pinching Love Hearts, I heard. You have a very good set of lungs, my dear. I’m more a Milk Tray man myself.”

“I’m so sorry, we have a bit of trouble from time to time with the paper boys, you see. I thought, oh dear …” She shuffled backwards, installed herself authoritatively behind the counter, and began again. “Good morning, sir, what can I get you?”

She felt her face reddening under the man’s amused gaze—which fortunately shifted away from her briefly as he unbuttoned his shabby beige raincoat (“not warm enough for this weather,” Catherine thought to herself) and reached into the inside pocket of his equally shabby suit. As he brought out a handwritten card, Catherine noticed his slender, brown hands with impeccable fingernails and wondered what he did for a living.

‘Would put this in the window for me, please? I promise not to raid the Polo mints while your back’s turned.”

She smiled despite her embarrassment and read the card aloud.

“Retired gentleman wants odd jobs, gardening, etc.” She glanced at him doubtfully. “You don’t look like a gardener.”

‘ “That obvious?” He sounded disappointed.

“Those nails are not accustomed to weeding,” she said simply, showing him her square hands with their ragged nails. “What did you do before you retired?”

“I’m a … was a watchmaker, but my eyesight’s not good enough now.” A look Catherine couldn’t fathom passed briefly across his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …” What had gotten into her? She was known for straight talking, but she wasn’t usually this tactless with a stranger.

“It’s quite all right. My son has the business and the property now and I don’t mind, really,” he said lightly, but with a rueful look that spoke volumes to Catherine.

“I’ve downsized, as they say, but I get so bored.” He paused. “I can do heavy work.”

She put the advert in the window, but there were no takers. He came in almost every day for the next couple of weeks, and she looked forward to seeing him. After a month, mindful of the fact that her own garden was returning to the wild just as her family had predicted, Catherine hired him for a few hours work.

Paul started in the spring at the beginning of the planting cycle, and Catherine usually contrived to be at home when he worked. She insisted he wear good gloves to protect his hands as they gardened together side-by-side, growing flowers and vegetables, aware that a mutual trust and understanding was growing between them. They had much in common, both being superfluous to their families unless they were being of practical use. While that superfluousness rankled each of them when they were alone, together they found it a source of wry amusement. By the summer love had blossomed alongside the garden produce. Catherine kept this a secret from her brothers and sisters—she wasn’t sure why, just knew it was best. The family grudgingly acknowledged that she was managing the house and garden quite well, and she wasn’t going to tell them that Paul was helping her.

Every week she put money aside to buy her siblings’ shares of the house. She would own her home outright and be as good as they were, a person with property—and a woman with love in her life. Paul had long since stopped taking a wage for his gardening, saying it was now a labor of love, and he wanted to shout about it. Catherine was more cautious. “Wait until the house is mine alone,” she said, so Paul offered to help purchase the siblings’ shares. But Catherine’s independent spirit would not allow that; this was something she had to do by herself.

When Mrs. Wesley died unexpectedly at the end of the summer, the last link with her parents was broken; her mother had gone to school with Phyllis, and they had been each other’s bridesmaids. Catherine felt a strange lightness: no higher authority remained; after years of tending to other people’s needs, she was her own person at last. After the funeral she was summoned to the office of Mrs. Wesley’s lawyer, where she expected to be told that the shop would be sold and she would no longer have a job. Instead, the lawyer handed her a copy of the will and stunned Catherine by explaining that she was the new owner of Wesley’s newsagents.

She rang Paul as soon as she got home, and he was soon there bearing a bottle of champagne—which probably helped give her the courage to ask him to move in with her. Like a pair of excited schoolchildren, they made their plans. A couple of evenings later, under the cover of darkness, he arrived with an old suitcase full of books and a few clothes.

The family reacted predictably to her new arrangement. Answering the phone one evening, Catherine was aurally assaulted by the righteously indignant voice of her brother Hedley. “What do you think you’re playing at, Cate?”

“Being happy!”

“But you’re over sixty, for God’s sake!”

“And you’re older than I am; so have you stopped being happy?’ Catherine could feel herself reverting to her six-year-old self, so used to squabbling with her brothers.

‘ “Don’t be ridiculous!” Hedley said impatiently. “What will the neighbors say?”

“Well, Hedley, as you live in England, I don’t suppose your neighbors will ever know— unless you decide to put up a banner outside your house.”

There was a moment of deafening silence, then: ‘You’re being very unreasonable, as ever, and irresponsible, very irresponsible.’

Catherine’s irritation suddenly subsided as she realized how little Hedley’s opinion mattered to her now. “What’s your problem, Hedley?” she asked, suppressing a giggle. “Worried about unwanted pregnancies? We’ll be careful, I promise. Goodnight.” As she hung up, Paul let out a huge belly laugh.

“Cate Le Sueur, You. Are. Wicked!” he shouted as he swept her up in his arms.

The sun was disappearing, and land was now in sight. An arm stole round her shoulder. She looked down at the hand with the impeccable nails resting on the railing and was thrilled, once again, to see the shiny gold band on its third finger. She placed her hand with its matching band over his and looked up into his face.

“Happy?” he asked.

“As happy as any woman who’s just been frog-marched down the aisle by her brothers and sisters!”

“You don’t regret it, do you?” he asked, even now unsure of himself.

“Certainly not!” She kissed him, just as the loudspeaker invited them to disembark in St. Malo.

Modern Women: 21st Century Dance, A Coloring Book

by Julie Lemberger, edited by Elizabeth Zimmer

Women, the largest and yet most unrecognized population of the dance arts community, are spotlighted in renowned dance photographer Julie Lemberger’s Modern Women: 21st Century Dance, a coloring book, edited by Elizabeth Zimmer. Lemberger, who has been photographing dance for almost two decades, transformed her photographs into illustrations almost ready to color and then added psychedelic, floral and abstract backgrounds for the figures “to dance in.” The 92 page volume features today’s leading dance innovators and interpreters, and celebrates their diverse genres and perspectives. Modern Women: 21st Century Dance is a perfect gift for children-of-all-ages including grandparents and grandchildren, especially those who love women, dance and art. Two options available: Coloring book for $20 Shipping & handling is $5 each for U.S. addresses. Please contact for International shipping costs.

Available at etsy.com/shop/dancecoloringbook or julielemberger.com

Find this and more in ArtsMart