“He was looking for my mother. He left her some flowers and said he had to take care of some things.”
I turned and looked through the screen door into the house. On the table was a vase full of roses. “That’s it?” I asked.
His forehead creased. He paused, thinking, it seemed. “No. He was rambling. Sort of manic. He said he wanted me to know that things would be different from now on.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. His face was a mess. Black eyes, crooked nose. But he was sober. I figured that’s what he meant. He said to tell my mother he’d be out on the water for the next couple of hours. That he had traps to bait. Then he left.”
I heard his voice, but it seemed far away, and the world was suddenly spinning. I heard him call my name. But I was walking away, already in the truck, heading back to the water.
Things would be different.
Finn would have banked some money selling my catch. The roses, the new outlook. I’m sure everything looked brighter now that he’d moved in on my territory. Now that he had a way to make money.
Traps to bait.
My cell phone buzzed on the passenger seat next to me. I must have left it in the truck while I was out on the boat. I picked it up, and saw Boon’s name on the screen. I let it ring, not wanting to go another round with him. I saw that he’d called a dozen times. I tossed it on the seat. He never knew when to leave it alone.
I drove as fast as the truck would allow, slowing only when I reached the dock, the truck skidding sideways and lurching into the parking lot. I didn’t bother parking, just drove straight to the loading dock and jumped out, leaving the keys in the ignition. I heard Boon calling my name from above when I reached the boat. I ignored him, untied the lines, climbed aboard, and started the engine, reversing out of the slip.
In less than five minutes, I passed the No Wake Buoy, pressing my palm against the throttle, the engine screaming, the hull slamming against the swells, the buzzing in my head deafening.
Ten minutes later, I swung the boat around Turner Point, my territory in front on me. A boat with twin engines idling, surrounded by my traps. My empty traps.
I headed for the stern of the boat, steaming for it, my head screaming, a fury inside that had slipped away from me, uncontrollable now.
When had he pulled them? Saturday maybe.
But most likely Sunday, when it was illegal to haul. When no one would have seen him. And then he’d had the girl sell the catch.
The Hope Ann was less than twenty yards off Finn’s port side when he looked up, his face registering that a forty-foot lobster boat was bearing down on him. He was at the rail, my buoy on his deck, a trap at his feet. He put his hand up, words coming out of his mouth that were lost in the air.
I headed straight for his twin engines. Finn waved at me to stop, the bow of the Hope Ann barreling at him, the engine needle pushing into the red on the tachometer on the dash. Finn put both hands up now, screaming STOP over and over.
He scrambled to the middle of the boat and crouched in a squat, clutching the seats to steady himself against the collision, against the blow of my boat plowing into his stern.
But I threw the engine into reverse at the last second, spun the wheel, slamming her into neutral. The Hope Ann rocked violently with the motion, throwing me to the deck but barely scraping against the side of Finn’s boat. I’d planned to be on his boat before he even had time to think. But suddenly I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move hardly, the pain in my back making me gasp for air. I was flat on the deck, gulping, a fish out of water.
I closed my eyes and made myself get up, my knee underneath me, pushing up onto one leg, then the other. When I stood, Finn was lifting his head up from his hands, his eyes wild.
I ignored the pain, letting the rage inside of me do all the work. The knife was next to me in the sheath at the rail, but I knew if I took it on his boat, I’d use it. My fists would have to do the work, and the black bruises on his face told me I’d done some damage the other night.
I grabbed hold of the pot hauler, put a leg up and pulled myself up on the narrow rail. The boat pitched in the waves, and I grabbed the metal bar of the hauler with two hands, clinging to it to steady myself.
Finn saw me and screamed something I couldn’t hear, motioning for me to get down.
The rail was slick, my boots sliding, my legs screaming under the strain of trying to balance on the thin strip of wood. The wind had kicked up, the swells crashing into the side of the boat, and suddenly I knew I wouldn’t make the jump over to Finn’s boat, that whatever sickness I’d been fighting had won.
My legs were rubber underneath me. The water and wind swirling around my head. My hand was clinging to the metal bar of the pot hauler, stopping me from falling to the deck or into the ocean below.
Finn’s boat was drifting away from me, the water dark and swollen between us. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop the spin in my head, the numbness that was spreading through me.
My foot slid off the rail. My head smashed off the metal bar, and for a moment, I was balancing on one leg, my arms around the hauler, straining to hold my weight.
The heel of my boot slammed against the rail, and I was on two feet again. A voice in my head screamed at me to get down, or maybe it was Finn, standing across from me, pointing to something behind me.
I turned, but it was too late, a wave already cresting over the bow of the boat, slamming into the hull of Hope Ann.
My legs collapsed. There wasn’t anything left in me to hold on. The hauler slipped through my arms. My body pitched forward, the black water below me rising with a swell, coming, it seemed, to swallow me.
There was no sound when I hit the water. Just the enveloping cold. And the tug downward. The pull of the water against my drained body.
My head was above the water, my face tilted to the sky, but there was no air left to breathe. Black stains edged in from the corners of my eyes.
And then there was nothing but darkness and a paralyzing cold and Hope’s voice, begging me over and over and over to go to the doctor.
?22
Jess
I could’ve slept in on Monday. Boon said not to come in until noon. But my eyes opened and it wasn’t even eight o’clock and I was wide awake.
I gave it another half hour before I finally gave up and got out of bed. There was a note on the kitchen table from my mother that she was out to breakfast with my grandmother and Kat. I poured a glass of orange juice and sat down at the kitchen table when my cell phone buzzed. I looked at the screen and saw Alex’s name. I felt my heart speed up.
I reached over and answered it and heard a rustling noise on the other end.
“Jess,” Alex shouted. “You’re there.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my heart jumping at the sound of his voice.
“I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. It’s your dad. He came to my house.”