Home to the Harbor--A Novel

by Lee Tobin McClain

  “But teenagers don’t care about it.” Her hands moved quickly while she spoke, weaving a clean, white piece of twine into a W pattern on the side of a trap.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  “Biodegradable,” she explained. “If the trap gets lost, it disintegrates. Gives the crabs or whatever else gets caught inside an escape hatch. Government regulation these days.”

  “And you have to replace them every year?”

  “Pretty much,” she said, nodding. “I don’t mind. It’s a better way.” Peaceful. She’d always seemed peaceful when she worked with her hands, worked near the water.

  He watched how she did it and then grabbed another pot with a rotting twine section. He cut it away and then took a new length of twine and wove it through, tying a tight knot that his fingers remembered, even though he couldn’t have said how he did it.

  “Think back,” she said. “What would we have liked to do as teenagers? What would have benefited us?”

  “Knowing there’s another place in the world besides here,” he said immediately. With his words came a memory: the time they’d done a school trip to DC, and he’d caught the dream of escaping his family and doing something on his own, something different and maybe even better.

  But Bisky was frowning. “I want them to see the good in this place, to stay here.” She snapped her fingers. “Maybe the new museum,” she said.

  “We have a museum?” That was hard to believe. Pleasant Shores was a small town, and back in William’s younger days, it had been rough around the edges, with most people just trying to get by.

  She nodded, putting aside her work and facing him, cross-legged. “It’s really cool. Mary donated the money to get it started. Drew, you met him yesterday, he’s one of the curators.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “It’s new. It’s focused on the history of the place, and the science, the ecosystems. They’re still raising money to add more exhibits. It’s only open a couple of days a week, now, but come summer, they’re hoping to open up every day. Show the tourists that Pleasant Shores is about more than a beach and ice cream.”

  He smiled to see how enthusiastic Bisky was about their hometown. She loved it. She was a lifer here.

  Just another reason they couldn’t be together. William had no intention of staying in this area beyond the two months of the Victory Cottage program.

  He refocused on her idea. “Having the kids help with the museum is a good plan. Especially if they could make an exhibit for it themselves, or otherwise get involved. Hands-on, that’s the direction education is going in now, anyway. It’s how people learn best, they’re finding out.”

  “Y’all scholars are only now figuring that out?” She gestured at her stack of crab pots, then grinned. “I know what you mean. Sunny has a lot of projects these days.” She frowned, her forehead wrinkling in thought. “Maybe they could do social media for the museum, make videos or something, appeal to the tourist kids and teens.”

  He high-fived her. “Great idea.”

  And then they were just smiling at each other like fools.

  There was a bang from the dock next door. “If I can interrupt the gabfest,” Rooker Smits called from the next dock, “I could use a hand.”

  William stood, but Bisky did too and put a hand on his arm. “I’ll do this, it’s personal,” she said.

  She made her way over to Rooker’s dock and they disappeared into his shack.

  That left William to finish twining the rest of the crab pots and stack them up. And reminisce, really experiencing all he’d left behind. The smell of the docks, oil and salt and fish. A seagull atop every piling. The clouds that scudded high across the sky, and the breeze that never really stopped, making it comfortably cool even in the height of summer.

  He’d been away a long time, and he’d tried not to think about the Pleasant Shores of his childhood. But as he’d blocked out the rough parts, he’d also blocked out the good things. Like the beauty of the sun sparkling on the bay that stretched for miles. The way people helped each other, the easy invitations to church or supper, the slower pace of life that gave everyone time to stop and chat when the day’s work was done.

  Because of his friendship with Bisky and her family, he’d experienced some of that good side. He needed to be grateful for that.

  He wished he could have introduced Jenna to this side of his background. She’d been so social. She would have loved it here.

  Bisky and Rooker came out of his shed. Rooker said something gruff to Bisky and she nodded and patted his back. William couldn’t make out the words, but he saw the old man look up at Bisky and smile, his face breaking into a thousand wrinkles. She was almost a foot taller than Rooker was.

  She came back over to her own dock, and she was smiling too. “Thanks for finishing my work for me,” she said.

  He nodded toward Rooker. “What was that about?”

  “He has trouble with his leg,” she explained. “Kind of a lingering bacterial thing, and they’re afraid it’ll go to sepsis. He needs someone to help him change the dressing.”

  “You do that for him?”

  “He’s alone, except for his granddaughter, and she’s young and busy,” she explained. “Doesn’t want the nurse to come every day just for that, so I help him out.”

  “That’s good of you.”

  She shrugged, then smiled. “While I do it, he pumps me for information about Mary. I think he wants to ask her out.”

  William looked over to Rooker’s dock and watched him limp out toward his boat. “He’s a little old for her, isn’t he?”

  Bisky shrugged. “Love’s love,” she said. “He’s in his eighties, and she’s only seventy. And she already has a sort-of boyfriend. But I don’t discourage him. Mary deserves to have men flocking around her.”

  “She seems great.”

  “She is. And she’s had a tough time.” Her expression changed, softened. “In fact...she knows what it is to lose a child to violence. Maybe you and she will talk about it some day.”

  “I didn’t know.” William blew out a sigh. He was sorry, truly sorry, that Mary had gone through a trauma like he had. He also knew that connecting with other survivors was one of the only things that helped when you were drowning in the pain. “I’ll talk to her. Maybe. Sometime.”

  “I’m sorry.” She bit her lip. “Is it wrong of me to bring it up? I don’t want to make you sad.”

  “I think about Jenna every day,” he said. “I like it that you’re not afraid to mention it.”

  At the same moment, they both reached out. Their hands touched, clasped. And then they were looking at one another, hard.

  William felt that intense connection again, something he hadn’t felt with anyone else.

  Her lips parted a little, and he saw her suck in a breath. What would it be like to kiss her?

  Too good, and that was bad. He pulled back his hand like he’d touched a flame. They’d been talking about Jenna. Where did he get off having that kind of stirring when he’d been the cause of his daughter’s death?

  He stood, spun, and got very busy restacking the already-neat crab pots.

  * * *

  AFTER THEY’D WASHED UP, Bisky and William ambled through town toward the museum, hoping to get the chance to meet with someone there and assess their interest in getting the teenagers involved.

  Bisky glanced up at William and smiled. It was pleasant to walk beside a man she could look up to physically. There were a fair number of men her same height, but not that many who were significantly taller. With William, she felt like a normal-sized woman.

  It was around eleven o’clock. The shops that stayed open year-round were doing a brisk business. She pointed out Mary’s bookstore and the struggling new toy store, and they talked a little about Goody’s, which had been around forever.

&nb
sp; She thought about offering to take him to the Gusty Gull, the bar-restaurant that stayed open all year and was where all the locals went to drink and dance, but she snapped her mouth shut. It might seem too much like she was asking him out, and that, she definitely didn’t want to do.

  Despite, or maybe because of, that weird little zing that kept happening between them.

  William was a friend, part of her childhood. And he needed a friend more than anything else, as evidenced by the fact that he was still so grief-stricken about his daughter.

  You never got over that, she was sure. But William’s pain seemed acute, complicated. Maybe what she should do was set up William to take Mary to the Gull, where they could have a drink and Mary could share her wisdom about how to live on after you’d lost a child to violence.

  She’d talk to Mary, see what she thought.

  The point was, Bisky wanted to be a friend to the man beside her, and she didn’t want to ruin that friendship with an attempt at a relationship that wouldn’t work out anyway. Her relationships with men never worked out, and she’d resigned herself to that fact long ago.

  Best to just enjoy the fact that they were going to be awesome working with the dock teenagers together.

  At the museum, he held the door for her, and she wondered where he’d picked up a gentleman’s manners. Definitely not from his father.

  “Welcome,” Drew Martin said from behind the museum’s front desk. “Are you interested in a tour, or just want to look around on your own?”

  “Hey, Drew, it’s Bisky,” she said as they approached the desk. She turned to see if William had caught on to the fact that Drew had a visual impairment. He hadn’t seemed to notice yesterday.

  He did now, apparently, because he quickly introduced himself. “William Gross. We met yesterday at the church lunch. How’s it going?”

  “Good, good,” Drew said. “Feel free to look around, get a taste of our heritage here.”

  William smiled. “I’m somewhat in touch with that, since I grew up here. No, we’re looking for a way to get some teenagers involved with the museum.”

  Drew raised his eyebrows. “Good luck with that. My daughters won’t have a thing to do with it. Boring, they say.”

  Bisky explained the program they were planning with the dock teens. Then she frowned. “If your girls are bored with this place, our teens will be, too.”

  “Unless we can get them really involved, give them a stake in it,” William said.

  Bisky leaned on the desk. “What if they lead some tours? Or help with social media for the museum?”

  “Now that, we could use,” Drew said. “Neither I nor Mary is that good at social media, but we need to improve. Need a website, too.”

  “Do you think any of the dock kids are good at website construction?” William asked Bisky.

  “Maybe a couple of them. But they often don’t have wireless. Nor computers, in some cases.”

  “They could use our computers here. We’ve got pretty good service.”

  “Would that be a motivation?” William asked. “Giving them a chance to be more digitally connected, like their peers?”

  “It’s possible,” Bisky said. She liked that William wasn’t giving up easily. “I think we have to get them at least a little excited at the beginning, and then they might catch a real interest as they get more involved. But how do we do that, with a bunch of mostly boys?”

  Drew looked in William’s direction. “Pizza,” he suggested.

  “Yep. Free pizza,” William said.

  “Free food will motivate any teenage boy,” Drew said. “How well I remember.”

  William laughed. “If we’re on the same page, will you work with us on this? It’s my volunteer gig for Victory Cottage and I’d like to do a good job for Mary’s sake.”

  “Mary will get to you,” Drew said. “She’s great. Sure, I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  Watching them made Bisky’s heart twist with a sudden ache of longing. She liked men, especially men like Drew and William. Somewhere inside her lurked the hope that she’d find love, find a man who would embrace her strength and size and still see her as a woman, and attractive.

  She had more time than ever before now, with Sunny so busy. She was, she had to admit to herself, lonely.

  But men like these wouldn’t find her attractive, because she wasn’t the petite, feminine type. Drew had Ria, who was curvy and womanly. William...who knew what he wanted, what his wife had been like?

  Anyway, she needed to get off this track of thinking or she’d be depressed. She pretended to hear her phone, pulled it out and looked at the blank screen. “Hey,” she said to William, “can you work out a few details with Drew and then find your own way home?”

  “What about lunch at Goody’s?”

  “Rain check?” she asked.

  “I’m off in a bit,” Drew said. “I’ll go with you. Could use a milkshake.”

  So that was that. William was fine, had made a new friend.

  The fact that Bisky felt empty inside, well...too bad for her. She’d just have to get busy, find some new project to work on, maybe even check out a dating website and see if there were any interesting men over six feet tall in their tiny community or willing to travel there.

  Yeah, right.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SUNNY WASN’T MUCH on delays, but even less did she like to hear the word no. So when she beckoned Mary to come out of the bookstore and talk to her, she had a good buffer against both: the new dog, Muffin, cowering on a leash beside her.

  “Is this that poor dog that was abused?” Mary knelt and put a hand out to Muffin, who reared backward, quivering. “Oh, my goodness, she’s so sweet and so scared.”

  Inside the shop, Mary’s poodle mix, Coco, was clawing to get out. “Have you found out how she reacts to other dogs?”

  Sunny shook her head. “Not yet. We’re going to let her wounds heal before exposing her to other dogs. That’s what the vet suggested.” She cleared her throat. “Um, so I was wondering if you’d thought any more about the therapy dog program. Would you want me to try to start training Muffin for it, sort of as a test case?”

  Mary frowned. “I can’t see that, dear. She’s scared of her shadow. Besides, she’s what amounts to evidence in a police case. I don’t think she should be involved in any kind of training program, really, until that’s cleared up.”

  Sunny narrowed her eyes. “Plus, you haven’t found anyone, right? And William’s not a dog guy, so that’s not working out.”

  Mary sighed and nodded. “I need to find an adult trainer, but it’s not easy.”

  “Why not?” She sounded definite, but maybe if Sunny could get her talking about it... “Is the pay too low? The benefit of a teenager—me—is that we work for cheap.”

  Mary smiled. “The pay’s actually good, but it’s a part-time job in an isolated community. And to find someone who’s entrepreneurial...”

  Sunny nodded, pretending to know what that meant.

  “It’s tough because we want creative thinking, a dog person who works well with people, someone who’s flexible and can accept feedback...it’s a tall order.”

  Sunny wanted to scream, I can do all that!

  Mary put a hand on Sunny’s arm. “I know you want to do it, and you probably could, if it weren’t for all the regulations and the trust factor. For those things, people need an adult in the role.” She paused. “Tell you what, if there is a good adult leader found, and if he or she needs an assistant, you’ll be first in line for the job.” She glanced into the store. “I have customers. You take good care of that sweet pup, won’t you? And Sunny,” she added, “try to be a kid for once. Hang out with your friends. Do what teenagers do.”

  Sunny sighed as Mary went inside. The trouble was, she didn’t really like doing what teenagers did. She didn’t especial
ly enjoy hanging around her boy-crazy friends these days.

  With nothing else to do, she texted Kait and her other close friend, Venus, and sure enough, they were together. The good news was, no boys were involved, for once. “Come over!” Kait ordered, and Sunny clicked her tongue at the dog and turned in the direction of Kaitlyn’s house, right beside the Chesapeake Motor Lodge that Ria, her mother, owned and managed.

  She held out hot dog pieces to Muffin, trying to encourage her to stay at her side, and in fact, the dog seemed to be in favor of that. When a loud car went by, bass music rumbling, she practically slammed herself against Sunny’s leg. And when another dog barked from behind a fence, she ran in the other direction, nearly pulling Sunny into the path of an oncoming car. For a medium-sized dog, she was strong.

  And okay, maybe Mary was right: she did have her training work cut out for her. But she was fine with that. She wanted to help Muffin overcome her fears.

  The afternoon was balmy, and she shed her sweater and tied it around her waist. Warm sun beat down on her. Summer, and tourist season, would be here before they knew it. With that would come the requirement to help Mom with crabbing, all day, every day.

  Sunny didn’t mind helping, working, but crabbing wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life.

  “Over here!”

  Sunny looked over to where the voice had come from. It had sounded like Venus, but where was she? Then, as she headed across the lawn in front of Kait’s house, she found her and Venus in the shadow of a big tree, a full-length mirror propped in front of them. They were decked out in shorts and bikini tops, with makeup and hair fully done.

  “Come see us! We’re doing a St. Patrick’s Day photo shoot!” Kaitlyn posed, hands on her back, pushing out her rear end.

  At that point, Sunny realized that their clothes—what little there was of them—were mostly green, and that Kaitlyn was wearing a shamrock headband.