Last Light over Carolina

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “I know Josh did wrong and you have a right to be mad at him, but your daddy worked hard all his life and he did it for us. Don’t you forget that.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. He’s my daddy. That’s why I love him. And why I could forgive him.” She walked to the hall, pausing to turn and add, “But Josh was my husband. He cheated on me and I don’t have to forgive him. Not ever.”

  Carolina swallowed hard, and her hand shook as she brushed some crumbs from the table. “Girl, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do.”

  “It’s not like you and Daddy are so happy.”

  Carolina felt that comment to her bones. She leaned on the back of a chair and spoke slowly. “Every marriage has its hard times. We’re working it out. The point is, we stayed together.”

  Lizzy tightened her lips, holding in a retort. She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, calling, “Will! Hurry on down. We’re going to be late!”

  Carolina sighed and moved to lean against the doorframe and watch the commotion of her daughter and grandson as they gathered Will’s homework, his lunch box, Lizzy’s pocketbook, and tumbled out the door amidst a flurry of complaints, orders, and good-byes. When the door closed and peace was restored, Carolina closed her eyes and felt the dull throbbing of her back molar. Sometimes being a mother and a grandmother caused her more pain than this bad tooth.

  The hardest part about being a mother was realizing she couldn’t save her daughter from her own decisions. When Lizzy was a little girl, Carolina could give an order and Lizzy did as she was told. But since she’d become a woman—since her decision to leave Carolina and Bud’s home and become another man’s wife—Lizzy’s life was her own.

  The lethargy of the morning hung about her like a shroud. The start of a new school season without her teaching had thrown her rhythm off. She slumped into a kitchen chair and wrapped her hand around a mug of coffee, feeling its warmth in her fingers. The pale yellow kitchen with the bright green trim had been inspired by photographs she’d seen in a book about Monet’s house. Clay pots of herbs sat in a row at the mullioned windows, and on the lower cupboards were brightly colored paintings of trees and birds and boats and the sea, all done by Lizzy when she was young. What colors that child had seen in the world! The paintings had faded and chipped over the past twenty years, and Carolina didn’t want to think of the obvious analogies.

  Poor Lizzy, she thought, worried about the anger bubbling in her daughter. Lizzy’s words played again in her ears. I don’t want to be a shrimper’s wife.

  Carolina felt again the strong emotions stirred by her dream. She rested her chin in her palm and thought how being a shrimper’s wife was all she’d ever wanted to be.

  3

  September 21, 2008, 5:30 a.m.

  On board the Miss Carolina

  The engine rumbled beneath him as Bud maneuvered the Miss Carolina away from the dock. He looked back. Under the dull light over the warehouse, he saw Old Tom step outside and wave. Bud lifted his hand. The Miss Carolina was the last of the shrimp boats to leave McClellanville that morning, but she was on her way at last. He knew the murky water of the creek as well as he knew the narrow stairwell of his home. Overhead, a guard of gulls flew in sloppy formation around the Miss Carolina like tugboats.

  He motored through Jeremy Creek. Lights from houses shone like stars through the fog. He crossed the Intracoastal Waterway and moved into Five Fathom Creek in the dim light, past barrier islands with their maze of winding creeks and lush acres of marshes. Then, suddenly, the vista opened, and in a breath, he was on the Atlantic. The pitch of the engine rose and the diesel fumes filled his nostrils as he throttled up. The wheel vibrated with the power and the water churned into whitecaps and froth in the wake. Above, the gulls began their raucous screaming.

  At long last, Bud released the ear-to-ear grin he’d held in check throughout the early-morning hours. This was the moment he lived for. This was what he rose early each morning in search of.

  Freedom!

  Out here, all the problems with his house, all the worries about money owed, the fights with his wife, the struggles with Lee, his father, Pee Dee—all that was behind him on shore. All that lay ahead was the majesty of a dawn breaking across a horizon that went on forever. Out here, he was his own man. Bud wasn’t looking back. He was rushing forward, standing wide-legged with his chin up and his hands firmly clasped on the wheel. Bud took a long, deep breath, then laughed out loud, feeling the wind flow over his skin like water.

  Bud passed other boats with their nets already in the ocean. He pushed the Miss Carolina hard, racing against the pink rays of dawn already breaking through the periwinkle sky. At dawn, shrimpers all along the coastline could drop their nets.

  “They’ll be catching everything around here,” he muttered in frustration, pushing the throttle up. No use hanging around. He had a place in mind, farther out than he usually liked to go. It was his secret spot. A treasure trove to which he was pinning his last hope.

  Bud pushed the Miss Carolina faster and harder than he should have across the rolling water—and the wind pushed back. The boat was hitting the chop hard. The nets swung violently on the outriggers, spitting out bits of entangled dead fish and creaking almost loud enough to drown out the gulls. Bud locked his jaw and cut his course through the black water, leaving a wide, ruffled wake behind. Overhead, the sky grew lighter by the minute.

  An hour later, there were no other boats in sight. The gulls above and the occasional dolphins racing at his side were his only company. Bud slowed and flicked on the marine band radio. Instantly he heard the crackle, then chatter among the captains. He smiled, recognizing Wayne’s twang, then LeRoy’s gravelly voice. It was comforting to hear friendly voices out in the middle of nowhere. Usually Bud joined in to exchange jokes and trash talk as much as important information. Most of the time, they were lying about their catch, same as him.

  He sat back in his chair and steered with one foot, stealing a precious moment to sip hot coffee and chuckle at one of Buster’s off-color jokes. They might be friends, but when it came to making a living, each man was on his own. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was headed this morning. Friends were friends, but family was family. Blood was thicker than water. That’s what his father had drummed into his and Bobby’s heads.

  Morrison pride ran as thick as saltwater in their veins. Bud chuckled low and thought how he and Bobby sure had some good times together back in the day. Back when money was running as plentiful as the shrimp. Back when their credit was good. He and his brother didn’t have a care in the world besides getting cash in their pockets. Their bodies were lean, their hopes fat, and their heads lush with thick hair.

  Bud leaned farther into his ratty old cushion and brought to mind one of the last times the Morrison men had fished together. Twenty, thirty years ago? Could it be that long? Damn, where did the time go? He remembered it now, all of them on one boat, the Miss Ann, a fine wood-frame vessel named for his mother. It was a great day with a record haul.

  Yes, those were the days, he thought. It was a golden time when he’d learned what it meant to be a son, a mate, a man.

  December 1973

  On board the Miss Ann

  The north wind was wet and bit through Bud’s slicker, sending shudders down his spine. It was colder than a sea hag’s teat, and the flaming sun on the horizon didn’t do much to warm up the day. With the engine off, the Miss Ann was rolling and pitching like a watermelon in the waves. His father stood firmly at the winch, wearing a yellow slicker and thick gloves on his big hands. Oz was undeniably the captain of the ship. Beneath his cap his sideburns were long and slivered with gray, his chin stuck forward like a masthead, and his eyes glittered as he guided the thick iron cable evenly across the drum.

  The Miss Ann grumbled as the winch revolved, raising the big nets. Bud watched and waited, his gaze trained on the water, his hands tucked into his armpits to keep them warm. His breath was a plume of steely steam. When the
great wood doors broke the surface, his anticipation shot skyward. He swung his head toward Bobby and Pee Dee standing across the deck. Nearing twenty, both men stood rooted to the rocking deck, ready in their yellow slickers, their deeply tanned faces alert under knit caps. All eyes were now on the prize.

  The Miss Ann listed under the weight of the rising nets. The men held their breath, leaning forward. Oz shouted curses at the machinery as he maneuvered the outriggers up and over the deck. The moment the nets emerged from the water, they knew what they had.

  The cone-shaped mesh nets were bursting with the translucent gray bodies of shrimp. Water cascaded from the nets in sheets, and icy droplets caught the sun like shards of diamonds. The outriggers groaned with the weight of the booty. Below the nets Bud saw two, maybe three sharks circling.

  “Whooeee!” Pee Dee punched his gloved fist into the air.

  “Fellahs, looks like we hit pay dirt!” Bud called out, grinning ear to ear.

  “That’s my car payment in that net,” Bobby shouted, slapping his brother’s back.

  “Hell, that’s beer for a month!” Pee Dee added.

  “Let’s go, boys!” Oz hollered, his impatience ringing clear. He had to get the nets out of the water and lowered onto the work deck—fast. With one eye on the nets and the other on the winch, he guided them with a master’s precision.

  Bud vaulted toward the nets, throwing his full weight into untying the rope at the bottom of the net. In a tremendous whoosh, the webbed bag exploded like a popped balloon, flooding the culling table with untold pounds of commercial shrimp.

  There were good hauls and there were bad hauls. And then there was a haul like this. Bud had never seen so many shrimp before. He dropped to his knees in the payload and scooped up two fistfuls of shrimp by their whiskers and with a jubilant whoop lifted them for his father to see. These were big shrimp, jumbo and prime, in time for Christmas feasts. A bonanza crop.

  Father and son shared a glance of victory, their eyes gleaming. They were all laughing out loud for the joy of it. This was a day for the books.

  “Stop goggling and move your asses!” Oz barked.

  Bobby gave a war howl and scrambled to obey. Pee Dee grinned from ear to ear as he shook the empty nets. Small fish and stray shrimp were flung loose to join the squirming mass on deck. Oz was itching to drop the nets again, lifting them almost before Pee Dee removed his hands.

  Oz headed for the pilothouse. “I’m bringing her around. I want to hit the exact spot.”

  Bobby retied the nets, then jumped back before they dragged across the deck to slink over the side back to the ocean like some green sea creature. Bud felt the jerk and heard the low throb of the engine as the big nets began to tow. Bobby and Pee Dee joined Bud at culling through the squirming pink, gray, brown, red, and silver sea creatures.

  Their teeth chattered and their fingers felt numb, but the men didn’t slow down. When a catch like this came around, adrenaline raced through the system and they were immune to cold. They moved swiftly through the pile, separating crustaceans from fish. They tossed the big shrimp into one set of baskets and the medium into another. Pee Dee worked with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Bobby wiped his brow, stretched his back, and then went back to work. Bud was almost giddy, a grin plastered on his face.

  After they finished culling, Bobby and Bud swept the bycatch through the scupper holes. Immediately, hungry dolphins, pelicans, and screaming gulls swarmed and swooped to feast.

  A few hours later, the excitement built again. The Miss Ann shuddered, the winch rattled, and once more Oz brought up a bloated net. In another great whoosh, the deck was filled with shrimp.

  “This is just too much!” Bobby bellowed. “Merry Christmas!”

  “Happy damn New Year!” shouted Bud.

  “Damn,” was all Pee Dee could come up with. What he lacked in eloquence he more than made up for in sincerity.

  Bobby and Bud punched each other’s shoulder. The season was almost over and they’d caught a run.

  “It seems we’re finally getting the hang of this job, eh?” Bud joked.

  Pee Dee laughed so hard he started to cough, a deep smoker’s cough.

  “Don’t die, fool!” Bobby roared. “You ain’t been paid yet!”

  “No way. I got a date with these here shrimp.” Pee Dee jumped into the enormous pile of life released by the net.

  The sky was dark when they finished sorting the catch and loading the shrimp on ice. The decks were scrubbed till they gleamed and the holding bays were crammed full with more than three tons of shrimp. They couldn’t take on another shrimp. The ice was maxed out. It was a record day, and they knew it.

  The Miss Ann lazily cut through the water, following the blur of faint white lights along the creek toward home. In the warmth of the pilothouse, the men drank beer and smoked the special cigars Bud kept in his sleeping quarters. Fatigue set in, but they continued to tell and retell memories of the great catch that day. Bobby’s and Pee Dee’s eyes were glazed, and Bud knew they’d been smoking something else below deck.

  His father was in rare form, feeling magnanimous. In such a mood, he often liked to regale them with stories of what it was like growing up near Bulls Bay when life was simple and he and his brothers ran barefoot and wild with the creeks as their playground. They’d had the adventures of Tom Sawyer and remembered building forts on hammocks and seeing devilfish as big as cars leaping from the water and slapping down like thunder. Those were the old days before boats had modern conveniences like winches and depth finders, and shrimpers relied on their memory and skill.

  Bud leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying the cadence of his father’s voice against the omnipresent rumble of the engine. He’d heard the stories before. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to pull up a net with the brute strength of his arms.

  Bud pried open an eye and glanced at the irascible old coot. Oz’s shoulders and arms still strained the checked flannel shirt, though his belly had grown paunchy. He loved his father something fierce. And he respected him—even if he was a tyrant and hell to work for. Everyone knew there wasn’t a better captain along the South Carolina coast.

  A good captain knew the uncharted bottom of the sea like the back of his hand. Where the rocks hid that could snag and tear his nets, where the sunken vessels lay like dangerous skeletons, and where the tall grass could swamp his engine. The captain knew, better than any fancy high-tech equipment, where the shrimp were. His tools were experience and instinct.

  But this catch was a record even for this stoic old fisherman.

  “Boys, I’m right proud of you,” Oz said, dragging deep on his cigar. In the dim light, his hair was silvered and his weathered face looked like shoe leather. He released a long plume of smoke.

  “You taught us all we know, Daddy,” Bobby said. He patted his father’s shoulder with affection.

  Oz ruffled the thick curls atop his younger son’s head. Anyone could see the old man doted on the boy.

  “You learned it from your daddy,” Oz told him. “I learned it from mine. And he learned it from some Portuguese fishermen. They knew the old ways.” He sighed and leaned back, the chair squeaking under the weight.

  “Times are changing, boys. There are lots of fancy new things for boats, and they’re all good. But a captain worth his salt knows how to pick out his markers, and I hope I learned you that. The spot we fished today is a honey hole. It’s our secret spot, eh?” He narrowed his eyes and cast a warning glance at each of the three young men. “We ain’t gonna tell nobody about it. That’s our ace in the hole when times are tough. Right?”

  “Yes, sir,” they mumbled.

  Oz nodded, satisfied, then puffed again on his cigar. “The way I figure it,” he continued, “this haul is the mother lode. I been waiting for this one. Setting store on it.” He paused. “Bud!”

  Bud blinked, opened his eyes, and grew alert at his father’s tone.

  “You’re my eldest boy, and you’ve proven you’r
e ready to captain your own vessel. I’m of a mind to settle the Miss Ann on you.”

  Bud straightened, stunned by the unexpected gift. “Thank you,” he said with disbelief but a boatload of pleasure. It felt so little a reply for so much, but Oz knew what it meant to his son without words. Bud’s pride at receiving such a boon was written all over his face.

  “Bobby,” Oz continued, turning to his youngest, “I guess that means I need a new boat. With my take on this haul, I’m able at long last to build my own. I’ve been planning this trawler for years, down to the tiniest detail. It’s going to be my pride and joy.” His face softened. “As you are. That’s why I’m gonna call it the Cap’n and Bobby, ’cause it’ll be your boat someday.”

  Bud grinned with pleasure at the startled expression on his brother’s face. With his untamed curls and sleepy, handsome face, Bobby still looked like the sweet kid Bud used to carry on his back through deep water. They’d all known that one day Bud would take over the Miss Ann. But it was a surprise that Oz would build a second boat for his second son. It was a good thing, too, since Bobby liked to party and money flowed like water through his fingers. He’d never afford his own boat.

  Bud looked over at Pee Dee sitting against the wall. He was as skinny as a pole and his blond hair fell over blue eyes so wide with expectation it was painful to witness. Bud glanced at Oz, and he felt sucker-punched. He saw in his father’s face that there’d be no announcement for his cousin.

  Oz caught his expression. “What?”

  Bud shrugged.

  “What about Pee Dee?” Bobby asked. He was close in age to Pee Dee and had always stood up for his cousin. While the boys saw their cousin as a brother, Oz had never regarded Pee Dee as his son.

  Oz looked somewhat surprised by the question and rubbed his grizzled jaw, stalling. “Yeah, Pee Dee…” he said slowly. “Tell you what. I know a guy who knows a guy in the Coast Guard. Seems this fellah is looking to lose one of their boats, if you catch my meaning. I might could set it up that you’d know where to look on the particular day that boat gets lost. Sure, it’d need some fixing up to make it right for shrimping, but it’d be a nice boat once you were finished with it.”