Home to the Harbor--A Novel

by Lee Tobin McClain

  “I’d forgotten what rowing felt like,” he said now, pausing and resting his arms on the oars. “I don’t even use the rowing machine at the gym.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You got citified.”

  “Some.” He took up the oars again and pulled steadily. “I live in a small suburb of Baltimore and take the train into the city. I still see some green and some water.”

  “Not like this, though.”

  “No,” he said, looking around. “There’s no place like this.”

  Gulls swooped and cawed, and the water lapped against the boat. The smell of the bay’s mixed salt-fresh water was distinctive, she’d heard people from other places say. As for her, she’d never been away from it long enough to know anything else.

  There was a shout from another boat, and Bisky lifted a hand.

  “Who’s that?” William asked, rowing.

  “Elmer Gaines and his son. They’ll spread the news all over town.”

  “What news?”

  “That we’re together,” she said.

  He didn’t answer, and when she met his eyes she caught a strange expression in his. She reviewed what she’d said. They were together. Well, she hadn’t meant that like it had sounded. She opened her mouth to say so, but he spoke first. “We were lumped together through our teen years,” he said, “we might as well be lumped together now, I guess.”

  She smiled, remembering. “It was good when you were here,” she said. “I never minded having it thought that you were my boyfriend. Kept people from bothering me.”

  “Did they bother you after I left?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling as he watched her.

  “Just the usual.” She thought about high school days and shook her head. It was a hard time for unconventional girls, even confident ones like herself.

  “What’s the usual?” He sounded like he really wanted to know.

  She shrugged. “I mean...look at me.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Boys were hitting on you?”

  “More like teasing me,” she said. “I’m too big and independent.”

  “Men don’t like that?”

  She shrugged, suddenly self-conscious, and looked away from his piercing gaze. “Well, they didn’t in high school.”

  “And since then?” He’d stopped rowing, letting them drift. The boat rocked, gently.

  Bisky rubbed the back of her neck. “There have been men. But mostly, I’ve focused on Sunny.” She looked down. “I never wanted to have to explain why some guy was at the breakfast table in my bathrobe. So I’ve stayed away from sleepovers.” Which was also a way to limit involvement; she knew it and even embraced it.

  “You light up when you talk about Sunny.” He was watching her, his head tilted to one side. “Being a mom suits you.”

  “She’s been everything to me, a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to work hard, set a good example. She’s pretty much been my goal.”

  He nodded, glanced behind him to set their course, and then started rowing again, slowly, his expression pensive.

  She suddenly realized why.

  “I’m so sorry to go on about her when you...” She cleared her throat. “When you lost your daughter.”

  He rowed once, hard, and then let the boat glide. “I don’t begrudge other people their children. I just hate it when people don’t seem to appreciate what they have. You do.”

  “I do.”

  “Where’s Sunny today?” He obviously wanted to change the subject.

  “She’s on a school trip to DC. They’ll stay through Sunday night and then get home late.” She sighed. “I’m realizing that there are going to be more and more days like this, going forward. She’s growing up, and I’m going home to an empty house.”

  “There’s no reason a beautiful, talented woman like you has to be alone.” He glanced behind them and adjusted their course as the tip of the island came into view.

  “Head down toward that hummock,” she said, gesturing.

  He swung the boat around and rowed toward the spot she’d indicated, his powerful strokes bringing them rapidly toward the shore. “I mean it,” he said. “You don’t have to be alone.”

  The sun was setting behind him, the water turning pink and gold, the seabirds swooping and rising. He wasn’t looking at the scenery, though; he was looking at her.

  She’d wanted to get him enthusiastic on this trip, but maybe he was getting enthusiastic about the wrong thing. “Come around and I’ll tie us up,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “And then we should really stop talking about ourselves and focus on the teen program.”

  It was cowardly, but she was afraid to probe at what he meant when he said she didn’t have to be alone.

  * * *

  AS HE JUMPED ASHORE and then helped Bisky pull in the boat, William could tell she was uncomfortable. She’d been too quick to change the subject, and now she was chattering on about the program she wanted to start for teenagers, in a fast, scattered way that was uncharacteristic of her.

  He knew her so well.

  But in other ways, he didn’t. He’d known her as a child and young teenager, but Bisky the woman had some new layers. Why had talking about her personal life made her so uncomfortable? Why didn’t she have a man in her life?

  Not because she couldn’t find one, he knew that. Pleasant Shores wasn’t exactly a singles’ paradise, but the main industry was commercial fishing, so there were far more men than women. Bisky was kind, and good, and undeniably attractive. She didn’t dress to accentuate her looks, but she didn’t have to. Plenty of men would take notice of her just as she was. Her faded jeans fit like a glove, and her hair shone in its long, slightly mussed ponytail.

  It struck him that he’d almost never seen her with her hair down. What would she look like, that way? What would she look like dressed up for a night on the town?

  She glanced sideways at him, eyebrows raised in a question, and he realized he hadn’t been paying attention to her words, even though he’d been staring at her. And he should have been listening. He should definitely focus on her words and not her appearance.

  “Sorry,” he said. “This place brings back memories.” He looked around, seeking to add evidence to his assertion, and frowned. “It looks different.”

  She nodded. “It’s eroding. The island’s probably lost a quarter of its landmass in the past twenty years.”

  He’d read about that, but this was the first time he’d really seen it, really felt it. “It’s sad. Coming out here with you was one of the highlights of my childhood. It would be a shame for the island to go away.”

  She nodded and beckoned him over to a tidewater creek that emptied out into the bay. She knelt down and pushed aside a rock. “Bingo,” she said, pulling up a crab by one of its jointed arms. It opened and closed its claws, and she set it gently back down into the water, where it disappeared into a sandy swirl.

  William kicked off his boots and socks and rolled up his jeans, then stuck his feet in the water. “Whoa, that’s cold.”

  She snickered. “You notice I’m not taking my shoes off.”

  “You used to.” He remembered following her around the island, his own bare feet stepping into the same spots hers stepped.

  Later, as they’d gotten older, he’d tended to take the lead; he’d gotten faster and stronger in adolescence. But she’d still kept up with him just fine.

  She beckoned to him now, in the lead again and rightly so; this was her territory now, not his. “I’d like to have the teenagers experience the kind of fun we did. Fall in love with the land. So many of them live on their phones when they’re not working the water. They see the water as a chore they want to escape.”

  “We saw it that way, too.” He paused to look back across the bay toward Pleasant Shores. He couldn’t see it, but his eyes went unerringly in the direction of h
is own family’s dock.

  “We did,” she admitted. “I used to say I wanted to escape the drudgery. But here I am.”

  “Does Sunny say the same thing?”

  “Nope. She’s a harder worker than I am.” She perched on a log, looking over the water. “I want her to have a better life, easier. I don’t know whether to wish she’d stay here, or wish she’d go.”

  “Makes sense.” He studied her. “She has a lot of potential, it seems. But you want some of the kids to stay around? The teens in the program?”

  “I want them to want to stay around. To catch the passion for the land and the water. Maybe some of the more academic ones would even want to study it. Marine biology, or ecology or whatever you’d call it. Figure out some way to help the bay stay healthy and keep the land from sinking into it.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “It is. But the people running the program up the shore are all about community involvement. Get the kids to connect with business owners, learn the history of the area, understand the issues.”

  It was a worthy goal. “How do you...how do we...get teenagers interested in something like that?”

  “Give ’em high school credits for it, maybe even college credit, for those who are headed that way, which isn’t many.” She looked off into the distance. “That’s what the program up the shore does. Those that aren’t headed for college, I’d like to see some of them stay around. Especially the ones whose families have businesses here. I’d like to see our population stay the same, and not just because there are tourists moving in.” She looked at the sky. “We’d better have our supper.”

  He nodded, and they strolled back toward the boat. “Remember that day we stayed out here too late?”

  “I’ll never forget it.” She glanced sideways at him. “I don’t guess you will, either.”

  “You’re right. I made a mistake, not getting home before Dad.” He’d never forget that sinking feeling when he’d seen his father’s truck already in front of their place. Dad generally sold the day’s catch and then stopped at a bar up the peninsula. By the time he got home, William had tried to be in bed, normally.

  That day, he hadn’t made it, and his father had greeted him with an expression of rage. Not only had William gone somewhere without permission, but he’d taken his father’s spare boat. “I never had a beating like that, before or since.”

  “I was so worried. I thought he’d killed you.”

  “I’m tougher than that.” He remembered coming to in his front yard with Bisky and a couple other neighborhood kids leaning over him. Bisky had helped him to his feet and slung his arm around her neck so she could walk him back to her house. There, her mother had cleaned up his cuts and put ice on his bruises.

  “Mom was bound and determined to call child protective services,” she said, “but Dad talked her down. Said it would only make things worse for you.”

  “He was probably right.” Like usual, William deliberately turned his mind away from thoughts of his father. “That’s all in the past, fortunately.”

  Back at the boat, she made him sit down and opened the soft-side cooler she’d brought. Inside were seafood salad sandwiches, two for each of them, on thick slices of sourdough bread. They both dug in, and William finished an entire sandwich before he spoke. “Lord, I remember these sandwiches. Your mom’s seafood salad was the best, and you’ve got the same talent.”

  “I wrote down her recipe before she passed,” Bisky corrected. “I made her slow down, and I watched every step and wrote it down. It still says things like ‘a pinch of salt’ and ‘a handful of celery with leaves’ but I got enough detail that I can make it and teach Sunny how, too.”

  What would it be like to have family traditions to pass down that weren’t ugly? William had kept his past a blank slate to his ex-wife and Jenna. He’d just tried to avoid being anything like his folks, having Jenna’s childhood be anything like his own.

  Bisky handed him a foil-wrapped package, and when he opened it, his eyes widened. “Your mom’s coffee cake?”

  “I remembered how much you always liked it,” she said. “I make it for Sunny all the time.”

  He took a big bite and closed his eyes, relishing the explosion of cinnamon and sugar and butter, surrounded by light, moist cake. “Delicious.”

  She’d wrapped her second sandwich back up, but she took a piece of cake and was enjoying it, too.

  “Did you teach Sunny how to make this, too?”

  “Not yet. She’s a typical teenager, doesn’t want to get up early if she doesn’t have to, and that’s when I make this. She’ll learn.”

  He nodded and finished the coffee cake and studied her. She’d managed a lot as a single mom.

  “What?” she asked, her cheeks going a little pink.

  “You. You’ve done well. Better than me, despite all the degrees.”

  She didn’t argue. “I came from a good family. You had more to overcome.”

  They both sat for a few minutes. The bay was glasslike, with fog starting to rise, making wisps above the water and among the trees. The sinking sun blinked in and out, half-hidden by clouds. In the distance, loons wailed, a long, mournful call and response he hadn’t heard in years.

  “This is what our teenagers need,” she said. “More simple pleasures. More pride.”

  For the first time, he started to understand what she wanted to do with the teen program. Besides Bisky’s family, who’d given him a hand when they could, the land and the water had been what had saved him. He’d loved it. Maybe more kids could learn to love the bay, and to help it thrive, too.

  He sucked in the salt air and a vision came to him: what if he just left the city behind, left all the grief behind, built a life here?

  Had another family?

  As soon as he had that thought, guilt slammed into him. Nice that he could think of starting over; Jenna never would. Jenna couldn’t even grow up, and it was all due to his failure as a father and a protector.

  Bisky nudged at him with her foot. “So you think you can get into it? Take this new program for teenagers seriously, make it a success?”

  He looked at her steadily, knowing he had to manage her expectations, because fulfilling them felt like too much fun, more than he deserved. “No,” he said. “I’ll do my part, what’s needed, but don’t count on me to have a passion for it. This is just a means to an end.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SUNNY PAUSED IN the middle of the road and sucked in breaths of fresh, rich-smelling air. “What better way to spend Saturday morning than hiking, am I right?” she said to her friend Kaitlyn.

  “I can think of better ways,” Kaitlyn said, and giggled. “Like watching the sunrise cuddled up with Marcus Cunningham.”

  “Come on.” Sunny rolled her eyes. “Let’s head this way and forget about your new hot squeeze.”

  “He’s hard to forget!” And Kaitlyn proceeded to rhapsodize about the latest boy on her list of conquests.

  Sunny was glad for her, mostly. Kait had gone through some terrible things in middle school, and had been treated badly by a few of the boys in town. With the help of Sunny and another friend, she’d gotten over it and the boys had been thoroughly punished. Now, Kaitlyn was happy and, as Mom said, “healthily boy crazy.”

  Even Mom thought it was normal to be obsessed with boys at her age. Well, too bad. Sunny had other things to do, and most of the boys she knew were dumb.

  Speaking of boys...a few minutes later they passed the Blue House, and Sunny reflexively glanced over, just in time to see a flash at the window. Interesting. Did Caden have nothing else to do but spy on people from his hiding place? Come to think of it, probably not. It must be boring to be cooped up all day, hiding out from whatever he was hiding from at home.

  Sunny and Kaitlyn kept going, and soon they were at the hiking trail that led off their
little peninsula and into the woods. The ground was a mix of sand and dead leaves, and some of the trees sported tiny, pale green sprouts. The trail started out wide and then branched off into several narrower ones. Sunny was hoping she could get Kaitlyn to go a few miles.

  “This is great,” Kaitlyn said, waving her fancy watch. “I’ll get in so many steps!”

  Sunny blew out a sigh. “Can’t you just do something for fun, instead of worrying about it being exercise or making you thin?”

  “This is fun,” Kaitlyn said, and hugged her. “And it’s getting me fit to hike with Marcus, because he’s, like, super outdoorsy.”

  “As long as I can help with Marcus,” Sunny said, and immediately regretted her snotty tone. She didn’t even know Marcus, beyond to say hi. Maybe he was an amazing human being. And Kaitlyn was a good friend, even if she was in an annoying phase. “Seriously, I’m glad you came.”

  They hiked for a while, and Kait asked Sunny about her mom, and her classes, and the school trip to DC, which had been cut short when some of the kids had been caught smoking pot. That had been a disappointment, but it would be rescheduled, and meanwhile, she was just glad Kait had agreed to do something else fun.

  The sun rose higher, and with as fast as they were moving, Sunny was sweating and hot. The sound of frogs and crickets, and the rippling waters of a small creek beside them, cleared Sunny’s head. She loved being outdoors.

  A high-pitched yelp made them both spin toward a big pine. There was a little movement and a flash of reddish-brown fur.

  Fox or dog? Sunny rushed over, Kaitlyn behind her. It was the dog she’d seen before, the dog that had been bleeding, only now it was lying on the ground, struggling to move. Short hair, muscular, some white markings on its chest. A pit bull mix, most likely.

  Its brown eyes were cloudy with pain and Sunny’s heart nearly broke. “I’ve seen this dog before,” she said as she knelt near it. “Someone dropped it off near...” She broke off, realizing she shouldn’t tell Kaitlyn about the Blue House and its occupant. “Near Victory Cottage. It was bleeding then.”