by Liz Johnson
Meg tilted her head in Oliver’s direction. “Well, you know that Oliver and I are working the business for him this summer. He’s made no final decision about selling his license.”
A sweetness Oliver had never heard before danced through her words, her smile matching every sugary syllable.
“I don’t suppose you saw anyone go out last night or leave especially early this morning? We’d sure like to know who cut our traps.”
Tommy’s pale green eyes darted toward Jeffrey Druthers’s boat tied in front of the Pinch, but he shook his head. “No. I didn’t see no one. But I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“Thank you.” Meg lifted one hand from Oliver’s arm and gave Scanlan a little wave. “Tell your wife I said hello.”
He grunted and stalked away, his angry footfalls echoing back to them.
Oliver couldn’t look away from Meg’s profile and the perfect line of her lips. “I wasn’t planning to hit him, you know,” he said as he pumped his fist.
She jumped, pulling away her other hand, a tangible absence in its wake. “No, of course not. I didn’t . . .”
But he was pretty sure she had thought he was going to. After all, he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been about to do—planned or otherwise.
She didn’t wait around for a confession or any sort of change of heart. “You think he did it?”
“I think we’ve broken new rules, and no one outside Victoria cares that the Pinch has a new captain and first mate.”
“First mate?” She flashed a row of straight white teeth at him, spinning on her toes in his direction. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He hadn’t meant to call her that now. But if she was intent on taking on her half of the job, he’d give her her due. “You’ve got a call to make about some lost traps.”
“All right. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find the jerk who cut our line.”
Meg hadn’t turned into an early bird in the span of a couple weeks, but neither could she stay awake past ten most nights. Her lids felt heavy and her muscles were slow to respond to everything.
Still, she trudged up the road to the harbor that night, the only sign of life the intermittent beam of light gliding over the water. Even the Lobster Barn’s windows were black against its gray-shingle siding at the far end of the wharf. The angled parking spots reserved for customers were empty, every last one of the old pub’s regulars at home for the night. The parking lot by the shanties was empty too. Oliver had probably left his truck at home. Maybe he hadn’t even left yet. Maybe he’d allowed himself more than a couple of hours of fitful sleep before dragging himself back to the boat.
But she had no doubt he would join her. If he wasn’t already there.
The dock was empty, the boats silent save for the rhythmic creaking of the inflated fenders. This time of night was a different kind of dark. In the morning, even hours before the sun rose, there was a promise of light. At this time, that promise wasn’t even a whisper on the wind.
Thick clouds rolled across the sky, blotting out the moon and hiding the stars.
She found her way from the road down to the dock more out of habit than out of sight. The lamp at the end of the row of boats before the pub left only a puddle of light. Tiptoeing down the way, she held her breath as she reached the Pinch, knowing it too out of muscle memory.
Suddenly a bright light flashed in her face, and she jerked her arm up to protect her eyes. The light disappeared in a split second but left her blind for a long moment.
“What are you doing here?” Oliver. Of course.
“Same thing as you, I guess.”
“Night fishing?”
She snorted, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands until the flashing slowed. “Funny.” By the time she could make out his figure—hands on his hips and feet squarely on the deck—he’d turned off his flashlight.
“Seriously, Meg, what are you doing here? We have to be on the boat in a few hours.” He sounded an awful lot like her father.
“Seriously, Oliver. I could say the same to you.”
He sighed, dropping his hands to his sides and relaxing his shoulders.
“We agreed that we were going to share the responsibilities. Remember?”
“And you reported the lost traps and I’m taking care of whoever lost them for us.” He grumbled something under his breath just as a gust of wind rocked the boat and cut through both of her sweaters.
She couldn’t fight the shiver that raced down her back as she wrapped her arms around her middle, hunching against the chill. Maybe it hadn’t been smart to leave her apartment without a coat. But once she was on the boat, she’d be more protected from the biting wind.
“That division of labor is hardly equal. Besides, I want to be here.”
Shoving a hand through his hair, he sighed. “You’re freezing already, and it’s going to be a cold night.”
“Then let me aboard so I can warm up.”
He hesitated as though he was going to argue the flaw in her logic, but finally he stepped aside and reached out to help her step down. She took his hand, automatically leaning into his warmth, wishing he’d hold all of her cold parts with his radiator palms.
She pulled away the instant that thought materialized. Holding herself as tight as she could, she turned in a slow circle. “So what are we doing out here?”
“Waiting.”
She raised an eyebrow but realized a second later that he couldn’t see more than her silhouette. “For what?”
“For someone to show up when they shouldn’t.” He motioned toward a dark spot on the deck along the port side. “Care to join me?” He lowered himself, then patted the seat beside him. Whatever was on the ground muffled his movements, and she shrugged. Couldn’t be worse than standing in the wind.
Kneeling, she touched the dark spot, which turned out to be some sort of cushion. Then she settled in next to him, pulling her knees up under her chin. “Nice setup. Where’d you get it?”
“Nicked it off Mama Potts’s patio furniture.” He put a finger to his lips. “Shhhhh.”
She chuckled, scooting just a little closer to him. Not so close that they were touching, but close enough that his body heat made at least half of her feel like it might not go numb. Close enough that she could smell the crisp, clean scent of his shampoo and the subtle hint of lavender facial lotion. She thought it was her own cream until she remembered that she’d failed to put any on after her shower. She opened her mouth to ask him how he liked it, but he spoke before she could.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” he asked.
“You said this morning that no one outside of Victoria cares that my dad is thinking about selling. The only ones who do are right here, in our harbor. If you were looking for him, I figured you’d start here.”
He chuckled, and she could almost feel the vibration through the fiberglass deck. “Smart.”
“I know.”
He laughed out loud at that, and it felt like a shot of espresso straight down her throat, warm and piercing.
They settled into the silence then, the boat rocking gently. All she really needed was a blanket and a lullaby. The cool air seeped through her jeans, and she hugged them a little tighter.
“Here.” Oliver didn’t ask permission before tossing his heavy jacket over her extremities.
Immediately her shivers stopped. “Thank you. But won’t you be cold?”
He turned his head toward her. Maybe her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, or perhaps she imagined it, but she could almost see the slightest uptick of the corner of his mouth. Of his perfectly formed lips. The rest of his face might have been filled with imperfections, but his lips were regal. Full. Perfect. Unmarred by the chafing wind.
Not that she’d been noticing or anything.
She looked away, pulling his jacket closer to her chin and snuggling into its warmth.
“I guess you’ll have to share if I
get cold too.”
“Oh.” She grabbed the coat by its collar to hand it to him, but his paw clamped over hers before she could move.
“Kidding, kid. I’ll be fine.”
It was supposed to get down to eleven or twelve overnight—lovely weather with the sun shining. But without even the light of the moon and the air heavy with water, it would soon be too much. “I’ll share.”
“You’re going to share my own coat with me?”
“Well, when you put it like that . . .”
She could practically feel the grin radiating off him when he nudged her shoulder with his own.
“So have you seen anyone out here?”
“Yeah.”
Her shoulders tensed. “Who?”
“You.”
Her laugh broke free, and she shook her head. “Right. Except me.”
“No.” He leaned back against the boat, stretching out his impossibly long legs and crossing them at his ankles. “I haven’t seen or heard anyone else.”
He kept his voice low, and she wondered if he was worried that someone else would hear them. But the very air seemed a blanket that protected them, kept their presence a secret. They’d hear someone approaching long before they’d be heard themselves, so she leaned back and stretched her legs out next to his.
“Did my dad teach you to do this?”
“This?”
“Yeah.” She freed an arm and swept it across the breadth of the boat. “How to catch a thief.”
He shrugged and chuckled. “I guess not. Never had a reason to go looking for someone before. But it’s something he would do if he was here. He’d protect his business.”
True. Her dad would have done anything to keep the family legacy alive. He wouldn’t have flinched at sleepless nights. So why would he make a poor choice about who would take it over?
“When’s your dad getting back?”
She pushed her own questions out of her mind and focused on his, despite the clench in her gut at the change of direction. “Next week. Dad called this afternoon. They decided to stay in Toronto for a few more days. Do some touristy things.”
“That’s good. Make some memories.”
She nodded. “Listen, about my mom and dad . . .” Well, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t exactly about her parents. It was more about the last time she and Oliver had talked about them, and how they hadn’t talked about them at all since then. About how she’d fallen apart in his arms and then barely spoken to him since.
“Everything . . .” he started, then paused. “Well, I know it’s not all right. I mean, any new news?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that—I mean—I didn’t mean to . . . I’m sorry I was so angry with you. You didn’t deserve it. Not like that.”
“Huh.” He grunted, and she had a feeling that a stiff breeze would have knocked him over. That wasn’t altogether surprising, given how long she’d been angry with him. “So you’re not mad anymore?”
She shook her head, letting her chin rest on her chest as she thought through the truth. “I’m still mad. Just maybe not at you. I’m mad that I’m losing my mom. I’m mad that there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m mad that half the time I don’t think she even remem-bers me.” Her voice caught, and she swallowed down a hiccup.
His hand slipped beneath the coat and squeezed her knee. “I know.”
Ugh. How could he be so sure that he understood? What made him an expert?
“When my dad left, I felt a lot of the same things.”
Oh. Right.
“Mostly I was mad at my brothers,” he said. “I was mad at the world. I was mad at God.”
She snuck a peek at him out of the corner of her eye. He’d dared to speak the words that she’d been afraid to, to admit the truth that had been bubbling deep inside but never named. “You were?”
He squeezed her knee again. “Oh, so much.” There was almost a note of laughter in his voice, as though admitting it was a lifted weight.
“Is that why you kicked my robot?”
He lifted his face toward the sky. She matched the direction of his gaze, searching for a lone star and finding two sparkling side by side. “In part.”
She surprised herself when she pushed. “Then why?”
“Do you think kicking something would make you feel better?”
Letting it slide that he hadn’t actually answered her question, she thought about his. “I don’t know. But it couldn’t hurt anything but my foot.”
He chuckled. “Or, you know, if you kick something important to someone else.”
“I suppose.” Her smile dimmed, the memory of that loss paling in comparison to what she knew now. “How do you deal with it? How do you say goodbye to your parent?” Saying the words aloud made her tremble, and he slipped his hand from her leg to her shoulders, pulling her into the hard angles and firm lines of his body. She sank into him, dissolving whatever barrier she’d erected between them.
“I don’t know. I never got to say goodbye.”
“Oh, Oliver.” The regret in his tone made her temples ache, and she wrapped her arms around his waist in a quick hug—for once to comfort him instead of the other way around.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“But don’t you regret it?”
“What? His choices? His actions?”
She nodded into his shoulder, his cable-knit sweater soft against her cheek.
“I went to bed one night and woke up the next morning, and he was gone. His part of the closet was empty, his boots next to the door up and vanished. Every morning I’d get up and see his plate in the sink, crumbs from the eggs-and-bacon sandwich my mom had made him before he went out on the boat. That morning, there was no plate.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Leaning his cheek on her head, he whispered softly, “Me too,” before letting out a short breath.
There was a weight to his words, a regret that she couldn’t deny. She wanted to ask him what he wasn’t telling her but didn’t want to interrupt him.
“Mostly I’m sorry that I don’t have any good memories with my dad.”
“None?”
“Maybe when I was really young, but . . . he was a hard man. A bitter man. Even so, if I’d known he was going to disappear from my life completely, I think I’d have tried to make some happy memories, some moments I could look back on.”
“What would you have done?” It was none of her business, but she’d never heard Oliver talk this much in her entire life, and the low timbre of his voice surrounded her, warmer than any blanket. It settled low in her chest, more soothing than his mama’s miracle muscle cream. He knew where she hurt because he hurt there too.
“I don’t know. Never thought about it.” His dry chuckle didn’t hold much humor. “Guess I figured it wasn’t worth stewing over what might have been. What about you?”
“What about me?”
He lifted his shoulder. “What kind of memories are you going to make with your mom?”
“I guess I’m already doing everything I can—taking care of her and Dad.”
“Really? Seems more like you’re picking up after them.”
She jerked away from his embrace, nearly falling off the seat cushion, her heart thudding against her ribs. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m doing what they need me to do.”
“And that’s great. But are those the memories you want to look back on? When she’s gone, will remembering that you did the dishes and folded laundry fill you with joy?”
“You . . .” She stared into his shadowed face, ready to lash out. But she wasn’t mad at him. She was mad at . . . at . . . “It’s what they need.”
“Maybe so. Or is it what you need to tell yourself to keep some distance from your mom? To keep it from hurting?”
fifteen
Meg hoisted the suitcase out of the trunk of her mom’s car, thankful for the muscles she’d gained hauling in traps. Without them, it might have toppled her.
&
nbsp; “Okay there, kid?” her dad asked.
“Just fine,” she said, settling the suitcase on the ground and pulling out the retractable handle. The wheels clicked and clacked over the cracks and bumps in the garage floor as she joined her dad at the passenger-side door, where he helped her mom out of the car.
“Hi, Mom.” Meg leaned in and pressed a kiss to her pale cheek. “I’m glad you’re home.”
Her mom didn’t give any indication that she’d heard the greeting. She simply slipped an arm around her husband’s back and shuffled toward the door to the house.
Meg lagged behind, her smile fading and the pressure in her chest building. She’d been silly to hope for some improvement. Her mom wasn’t going to change. She was only going to deteriorate. And all Meg would have to remember this time were hours of laundry and dishes and heavy rolling suitcases.
Oliver’s words from nearly a week before still echoed in her mind. Maybe she’d been a coward, but she’d changed the subject and refused to talk about her mom anymore that night. She hadn’t let their conversations any night since circle into the same dangerous waters.
Yet she couldn’t shut off the sound of his voice on repeat in her mind. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard the questions that required answers.
Was she just keeping her distance, knowing what was to come?
She yanked the suitcase over a small cement step and past a perfectly organized set of metal shelves filled with plastic tubs of family history and Christmas decorations.
Oliver didn’t know what it was like. He thought he understood loss—and maybe he did. But he only understood the surprise of it, the shock of everything changing. He knew nothing of preparing for it.
And Meg had to prepare. She had no other choice. If that meant protecting her own heart so she could care for her dad afterward, then that’s what she’d do. She had to make sure her heart was ready to sustain the blow that was coming. It wasn’t like she was purposefully building a wall between her and her mom. It wasn’t even about her. It was about making sure she could be there for her dad.
