by Lisa Duffy
Turner Point was a narrow slab of rock jutting out into the water. I rounded the tip, followed the curve, and slipped in closer to shore, where massive walls of jagged rock sprung up from the ocean, a dense wall of trees settled on the edge. On a sunny day, the cliffs looked as if they were on fire, the light turning the reddish-brown slabs of granite into a blinding wall of orange flame. Today the granite face of the cliff was dark, the water below it an inky dark blue.
The ache in my back had turned to flat-out pain. The fever was back. I felt it in every inch of my body. It was hard to concentrate. The choppy water had turned to five-foot swells by the time I pulled alongside my strings, cranking the wheel until I was next to the buoy. I put her in neutral and pulled off a couple of layers, stripping down to a T-shirt and Grundens. I was burning up as it was, and looking at a full day’s work. I’d pulled almost three hundred pounds from this patch of bottom last week, and now the soak time had been more days than I’d planned with missing Saturday. Plus, I needed the traps to be full, needed to pull at least three hundred pounds. Or more, for that matter. The bank had called again, looking for this month’s payment on the Salt House. They’d left a message reminding me it was a week late. As if I needed a reminder of the money I didn’t have.
I leaned over, gaffed the buoy, and put the warp in the hauler. When the trap came to the surface, I pulled it up, balancing it on the rail. I stared at it, squinted, not sure I was seeing things correctly. The door was wide open, the trap empty except for a few crabs and some kelp.
I moved the trap off the rail and set it on the deck, examining it to see if the closure had somehow failed. But there was no damage to it.
I’d repaired these traps in the beginning of the season, replacing all the J clips and rigging new cord for the mesh hooks that secured the trap. The white clips still looked new, not one missing, and the hook was intact.
There were only two ways for a door to open: either the door failed or someone opened it. And this door was brand-new.
I turned and flicked on the hydraulics, pulling up the second trap. The whir of the hauler matching the buzz in my head, my body tighter than the line rising out of the water. The trap cleared the surface. I didn’t reach for it, just shut off the hydraulics, and watched as the trap twirled, suspended over the water, the door swinging wildly.
Water poured out of the empty trap. Not even a crab in this one. Just a dead dogfish, its mouth slack, hanging open, almost as if it were laughing at me, mocking me.
I looked at the water, trying to think clearly through the pounding in my skull, a deafening drone in my head. I pressed my hands against my ears, pushing back at the pain, the noise swirling inside, growing louder and louder until I felt my mouth open and a shout spill out. I kicked at the trap on the deck, sending it sliding to the stern.
By the third trap, I knew before it was fully out of the water that the door would be open, the trap empty. That the lobsters had been taken out, stolen. I didn’t need to pull all of them to know what I was going to find. Every trap on this trawl would be empty, as would the ones on the trawl twenty yards off my port side.
The conversation with Gwen earlier at the dock ran on high speed through my mind. Her voice slamming into me, she sounded high, drugged up. I looked at my hand, felt it split against Finn’s nose, and saw the girl weaving as she left the dock.
I threw the traps back in the water, tossing the buoy over the side. I turned the boat and headed in, pushing the diesel engine as hard as she would go through the swells. I kept my hand on the throttle, my full weight pushing against it, the gash in my knuckle opening against the pressure, a circle of red appearing on the bandage. The hull pounded against the sea, water slamming into the windshield and over the rails with each wave.
The radio cackled above me, and I heard Boon’s voice, saying Kelly, pick up, Kelly, pick up. I turned the radio off, tried to concentrate on keeping the boat from taking a wave sideways at the speed I was going.
I turned the corner into the cove at full throttle. I slowed at the No Wake buoy, looking over at Finn’s slip, but his boat was gone, the slip empty. The roar of the diesel engine matched the thunder in my head. I came in too fast and threw her in reverse to avoid hitting the dock. I shut her off, jumping over the rail before the boat came to a stop.
I tied the bow line in a quick figure eight and took the gangplank in two strides, heading to the parking lot. I heard my name, once, then again. I kept walking, reached the truck, climbed in and reversed, the tires kicking up small stones under the tires. I pulled out of the space and saw Boon, in the doorway of the shop, less than fifty yards away, his mouth forming my name. I put the truck in gear and drove off.
Drops of water rolled off the bibs I was wearing, and the windows fogged as soon as I pulled into traffic. I turned west off the main road, my foot itching to slam down on the gas pedal.
The streets just outside the center of town were a maze of narrow, tree-lined roads with cedar-planked houses, one resembling the next. Widow’s walks sat perched on rooftops high above the tree line, and cobblestoned sidewalks hemmed the road. Every inch of me wanted to drive as fast as my mind was racing, but I kept to the speed limit.
It wasn’t until I crossed the railroad tracks onto Route 45, the street opening wide and flat, that my leg gave in to the tension, my foot pressing the gas pedal until it touched the floor of the truck. I wasn’t even sure I could find Finn, but I remembered Hope had said something about Peggy hating the house, with the train tracks right on top of her. There was only one neighborhood where the tracks ran through, a large cul-de-sac of duplexes known as the circle when I was growing up.
There was a new sign at the entrance of the circle with Magnolia Hill written on it—even though the street sat at the bottom of a listless stretch of road, and the only trees that rimmed the pavement were a handful of scruffy, overgrown pines. It was adjacent to the town dump, and when I turned into the circle, a whiff of decay seeped in the crack of the window.
I pulled over at the first duplex with a car parked in the driveway. An old guy wearing nothing but a bathrobe over his basketball-sized stomach answered the door and didn’t know Finn, but his wife came up behind him and pointed to a house farther down the street.
I pulled in the driveway next to an older truck, hopped out, and was up the steps in two. The doorbell didn’t ring when I pressed it, so I opened the screen and used my fist to bang on the wooden door. The sound of it echoed, bouncing around the semicircle of houses.
The door opened, and a boy wearing a baseball hat looked out at me. A look of surprise washed over his face, or it struck me at first as surprise. I waited for him to ask who I was, what I wanted, and I realized the look on his face wasn’t so much surprise as recognition. He knew who I was. That much was clear.
He stepped back from the doorway, and I could’ve easily stepped in, but I backed up down the stairs.
“Come out here,” I said.
I thought he might hesitate, but he stepped out of the house quickly, followed me down the steps, and stood across from me on the front walk. He took off his hat and held it in his hands. It struck me as strangely polite, considering the circumstances.
“You know me,” I said, more of a statement than a question.
“Yeah, I mean, yes, sir.”
I studied him. He was a boy, about Jess’s age, I guessed. I wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess.
“And you know why I’m here?”
He nodded, his cheeks coloring.
“I meant to come talk to you. I mean, I should’ve come to talk to you,” he said.
If it’d been Finn standing in front of me admitting to stealing my catch, I don’t think I could’ve stopped myself from lunging at him, but this was just a kid, half my size. And he didn’t give the impression that running away was an option. It struck me as too easy, too cordial, this confrontation.
I’d expected teeth knocked out, possibly even mine. I’d been itching for it,
to let go of everything, funnel the past year out of me, through my fist and straight into Finn’s face. Now this kid with his wide eyes and baby face was standing here instead of Finn, offering up some sort of apology?
“You’re lucky I have a kid your age, because my first instinct is to knock your block off.”
He took a step back and folded his arms across his chest, a look of distaste appeared on his face, and then left just as quickly, as if he knew enough to hide it. But I saw it, and it fueled me.
I stepped closer to him. “Does that surprise you? You look surprised.”
He stepped back again. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I mean; I know you deserve an explanation.”
“An explanation? You think that’s what I’m here for?”
“And an apology,” he said quickly. “I mean, that goes without saying.”
I felt my neck tense. He seemed to sense that he was making things worse, and he backed up another step, until he was standing several feet away from me on the small patch of grass that pretended to be a front lawn.
“Look, Mr. Kelly. I know I was wrong, but . . .”
“Wrong?” I took a step forward and grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to me. Not hard, but enough that he tripped forward a step.
“Whoa,” he said, his eyes wide and his arms in the air, palms outstretched.
“Stand up,” I told him. I gave him a frustrated shake, and dropped his shirt.
“I was standing,” he said, a look of disbelief on his face, “before you dragged me over to you.”
“You’re lucky I’m not dragging you down the street by your neck, you little shit. That was mine, what you took,” I said. “Wrong doesn’t even come close to describing it. Around here, people die for doing what you did.”
He looked bewildered, which made me even angrier.
“What the hell did you think was going to happen when I found out?” I asked. “A slap on the wrist?”
I grabbed him by the collar again, his shirt bunched in my fist. He didn’t resist, just kept his hands at his sides, making it clear he was going to let me beat him to a pulp without defending himself.
“I didn’t take anything,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“It wasn’t like that.” He shook his head at me, and gave me a look that suggested I’d let him down in some way.
I let go of his shirt and stepped away. “What the hell are you talking about?”
His face was as red as the Sox cap on the ground. “Look, I don’t know why you’d think that. But I promise there was no . . . taking . . . I mean doing . . . with Jess,” he stammered and then stopped, looked me in the eye. “Whatever you think happened didn’t. Not even close.”
I squinted at him. “Did you just say Jess?”
He looked at me sideways. “Um, yeah.”
“Jess, as in Jessica? My daughter?” I asked, dumbfounded.
He nodded slowly, as if now he wasn’t so sure either.
“You’ve got two seconds to talk.”
“I don’t know what to say.” His words came out fast, desperate. “I’m sorry Jess is upset—it was my fault. And I was going to say sorry to you and Mrs. Kelly—I promised my mother I would apologize for not introducing myself to you, but I only got home last night . . .”
His words swirled around my head, clogging my ears, blocking the air from my nose. I blinked at the kid. He was standing in front of me, but he seemed to be getting farther and farther away.
I bent over, put my hands on my knees, felt a tightness in my chest.
“Mr. Kelly? You all right?” I heard him say from miles away.
I felt his hand on my back, then his arm on my elbow, leading me to the front steps. I sat down heavily, leaned against the railing.
“Shit,” I heard the kid whisper.
The pain in my back had turned sharp, searing, and the air seemed to be thick and cumbersome. The roaring in my head was back, as if that train that ran through their backyard had suddenly rolled in and taken a left turn straight through my skull. I tried to stand, but my legs gave way until I was sitting back on the step. I blinked and forced myself to take a deep breath, and the kid’s face came into focus. He was on one knee in front of me, a cell phone in his hand.
“Mr. Kelly. Should I call for help?”
I shook my head, stood up on wobbly legs, sat back down again.
“Um, I think I should. You don’t look good.”
“Stop talking,” I said, rocking slowly back and forth. I breathed in deep, tried to block out the noise, tried to get my heart to return to its normal pace.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“Alex Chester. Peggy’s son.”
I opened one eye, took in the slim build, the darker skin tone, not one feature resembling Finn. I heard Hope’s voice from the other night talking about Peggy, and Jess, and some kid I didn’t know. I remember she’d said, Are you awake? It’s important.
“Chester? Finn’s not your father?”
“Stepfather. Well, for now.” He glanced up at the house. “He’s not living here anymore,” he said.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He came by earlier, but he left. He’s probably on his boat. He keeps it on the waterfront. Not far from your boat.”
“You’ve been on my boat?”
“No . . . I’ve seen it, that’s all.” His face went red again.
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m positive. We sat at the slip when you were gone, and I’ve seen you motor in and out, but we never went on the boat. You can ask Jess.”
“Right,” I said, “Jessica.”
“Mr. Kelly,” he said, “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I came here for Finn. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about with Jessica. When you apologized, I assumed it was for stealing from my traps.”
He let out a long breath. Then he bent and put his hands on his knees, breathed out.
“Jesus,” he said. “I thought you thought . . . you know, that something happened with me and Jessica. I mean, something more than what happened.”
“Tell me what he said when he was here. Finn. Where was he going?”
“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.