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Despite Wilbur's claims of marrying a salmon, Fundy's memories of his mother always featured a very human woman. He remembers her wild mane of red hair that she would let him braid. Her bellowing laughter at his father's jokes. Her sun kissed arms that would give him the warmest hugs. And her smile, a constant fixture on her face. She would comfort him with her scent of rain and hibiscus, and a distinct undercurrent that he could never place no matter how hard his young mind tried. It was a scent that made the old wooden cottage on the beach truly feel like home.
At night she would read to him, the daring tales of swashbucklers and buried treasure being a shared favorite between the two of them, especially Treasure Island. And in the day, even when she was working, she would make time for him, letting him sit on her lap and play as she worked on this or that. Other times her, Wilbur, and himself would have picnics on the coast.
But despite all the joy those moments brought Fundy whenever he thought of his mother two certain memories would never fail to surface and bring down his mood. On some occasions, when she thought he wasn't paying attention, a look of guilt would fall upon her face like a steel curtain. A look that was always directed at him. He'd be playing with her one second and the moment she thought he had turned away the remorseful look would be directed at him. But these moments would rarely last long, only as long as a toddler's attention span would stray from his mother.
Then, there was his final, somber, memory of her.
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She clung to his father, tears pooling at both their eyes before she turned to him, her face somehow becoming even sadder. He can't remember what it was she said to him, what it was that caused his oh so strong mother to shatter like glass and hold him like she was off to war, but whatever it was it was her last words to him. If he had known that was the last time he would see his mother he would have clung to her and never let go. But as it was five year olds don't have the best understanding of goodbye. The last he saw of her was her walking up the gangplank of a ship off to who knows where, leaving with a promise to write.
Wilbur and him remained standing on the wharf long after the ship carrying his mother vanished over the horizon. The rest, as they say, is history. 6 months after they last saw his mother, 2 months after her letters stopped coming, the two of them would leave behind the only home he had ever known and move in with the rest of his father’s family.
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Now as Fundy looks upon the crater-turned lake and the spruce buildings of New L'manberg he yearns for that old cottage by the coast, with its sand and creaking porch, and his mother. He desires a simpler time, when all he had to worry about was the waves knocking down his sandcastles instead of a hitlist with his uncle's name on it and avoiding the sad specter that is all that remains of his father. The sad attempts by Ghostbur to cheer him up with 'blue' were a poor facsimile of his childhood. He wanted him to plaster on a false smile, forget all his responsibilities, and go about his day as if he wasn't the only one keeping her memory alive.
Ghostbur's mind was a broken hourglass with sands full of memories and shards of his former self being lost to the fractured glass of death. Who's to say memories of his mother hadn't fallen victim to his father’s fractured psyche, it was a toss up whether he would even remember the boisterous redhead at all.
Now he was the only one left to remember her, a place and a person long gone.