I nodded briskly, still slightly stunned at his willingness to follow through with my suggested plan for Robbie.
“Good. Let the others know what's going on, then send Decker up here. I need to have a word with him.”
He set his gaze back to the sea before him and I walked out in silence, stunned by my father's trust in my judgment. Unable to be contained, a smile painted my face while I made my way down the steep stairs to the kitchen area. Once there, I informed the crew about Robbie's condition and my father's orders about having me on deck while Robbie rested. Then I told Decker that his presence was required in the wheelhouse.
He brushed past me on his way to the captain, giving me a tight smile along the way. Needing to check on Robbie, I quickly returned to his room, where I found him asleep against his pillows. He looked pale but peaceful. Grabbing the blanket from the foot of his bed, I pulled it up over him, tucking it in around him so that it wouldn't fall off. I then plucked my duffel off the floor and turned to leave, nearly walking into Decker on my way out.
“How's he doing?” he asked quietly, trying not to disturb Robbie. I pressed my index finger to my mouth and pushed him back out of the room gently, closing the door behind me.
“I'm not sure,” I replied softly. “He's not good, but he's also a strong SOB and stubborn as hell. If he gets the rest he needs, he might just be able to stay here.”
“Good. I'm glad to hear it,” he returned, watching me as I made my way down the hall to my room. “Aesa—your dad just wanted to tell me that he's put me in charge of your safety while Robbie is incapacitated. I hope that's all right with you.”
I bent down to tuck the bag underneath my bed while he hovered outside the door to my room, awaiting a response of some sort.
“Okay,” I replied, turning my attention back to him. His formidable frame blocked out the scant light of the hallway as he towered above me. “He's putting me on deck again; you might have your hands full with that task, you know?”
“I have no doubt that you'll keep me on my toes. I wouldn't expect anything less.” A wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Just keep me away from the rails and we should be good.”
“Going overboard is one of the least likely ways to die on a crab boat, Aesa.”
“I know,” I retorted, standing up before him. “But it'll keep you from having to get wet. I thought you'd appreciate the gesture.” My delivery was perfectly dry, as was my expression. I managed to escape the room before he heard my muffled laughter. Starving, I made my way to the kitchen. I knew that I had only a little time to grab breakfast before my grunt work began. If the impending storm Dad was so concerned about was headed for the crab grounds, we had pots to pull and crab to catch in a hurry. With any luck, we could succeed in that task while escaping the storm's reach. To be at all effective on deck, I was going to need food, and lots of it.
Decker followed me to the kitchen, taking a seat across from me at the table. Judging by his absence, Damon had already cleared out and headed for the deck, and Andy was just finishing up. Brad was on his second or third helping, eating in the way that only teenagers could. I sat silently while I inhaled as many helpings of biscuits and gravy as my stomach would allow. The boys looked on, clearly entertained by my performance, but smart enough not to comment.
Finishing before them, I cleared my plate from the table and cleaned it before heading to the gear room to suit up. The boat was rocking harder than normal as the weather took a turn for the worse. It did nothing to help my food settle gracefully in my stomach. As I tossed on my jacket, I worried about Robbie, wondering whether, if his condition deteriorated enough to need outside help, the Coast Guard would arrive in time. There were only so many choppers to go out on rescues, and if the weather continued to pick up as Father thought it would, the likelihood of them being out on another call was high. That would leave me to deal with Robbie's decline alone, without the tools I might need. And it would leave him at the mercy of my skills under those circumstances, his life potentially hanging in the balance.
Illness was yet another way to die at sea.
That thought plagued me while we worked doggedly all day, pulling less than stellar pots and stacking them on deck. We never broke for lunch and continued on well into the evening hours. By the time we had the stack tied down tight, I was exhausted. I schlepped my way back below deck and managed to make it to Robbie's room to check on him. His condition was no better, but it was no worse either. Stable seemed an acceptable status for the time being.
Pushing Robbie's sweat-drenched hair gently off his face, I turned to leave his room, desperately wanting some sleep of my own. I crashed down hard on my bed, wondering if I was going to have to spend the next day on deck, and, if so, if I'd live through the process. Exhaustion was a dangerous companion when on the deck of a crab vessel. Unfortunately for me, it was mine nonetheless.
7
Much to my surprise, my next day spent laboring on deck was injury-free. Robbie's condition had been stable when I checked him in the morning, leaving me free to take his place on deck yet again. Since it appeared the growing storm cell was continuing on its projected path and headed right for the crab grounds, the crew and I spent eighteen hours straight emptying pots and stacking them on the deck in preparation for our retreat. I may not have sliced my hand or gotten hit by the heavy pots as they swung wildly with the building winds, but that didn't mean I was in good shape by the end.
My hands felt utterly mangled and torn. I could barely make a fist, the entire thing too swollen to actually close. Though I had spent the majority of the day sheltered from the weather and dangerous activity on deck, tucked away with Brad as we prepped the bait boxes and ground more frozen bait, I found the thirty-five pound blocks of frozen fish nearly impossible to grasp by the end of the day. Brad seemed impressed with my ability to keep up, but it was a front on my part. Inside I was crying, the pain in my hands nearly intolerable. I didn't want to embarrass myself or my heritage by bowing out, so I continued until exhaustion and limited function threatened my efficacy and safety on deck. The second I started to struggle, Decker sent me inside. Thankfully, it was only an hour before the rest finished up.
Inside, I stripped my gear off and slowly made my way down the hall to my room. I wasn't interested in showering or food; I was interested in letting my body heal from the veritable beating it had taken on deck. Shutting my door behind me and locking it, I collapsed onto the bed. I didn't wake for hours, and was totally disoriented when I did.
* * *
Hunger drove me from my room in desperate need of calories to satiate the growing pain in my stomach. I found nobody in the kitchen, so I stalked the cabinets freely, without enduring the stares of the others. After I found an acceptable conglomeration of foods, I gathered my findings into my arms. Thinking my father was likely exhausted and in need of some sustenance himself, I made my way up to the wheelhouse.
“I come bearing gifts,” I announced as I crested the top of the stairs. “Do you want anything to eat?”
A pair of deep brown eyes turned to meet my gaze in the darkness.
“I'm a fisherman, Aesa,” Decker replied with a smile. “I can always eat.”
“I'm sorry,” I stammered, surprised to see him at the helm. “I thought my dad was still up.”
“You've been asleep for quite a while. He needed a chance to rest before the storm comes. It's weighing on him heavily. He needs to figure out the best course of action, and, with the size and severity ever-changing, he can't make any firm decisions yet. Andy and I offered to keep watch so that he could rest a bit.”
“Oh,” I replied softly, thinking Decker thoughtful for caring about my dad's well-being. “Have there been any updates on the radio?”
“One came in just before you came up. It's no longer a question of if but when the storm will hit. It's being classified as a hurricane at this point. They expect the winds and waves to be worse than anything the fleet has
ever seen during king crab season.”
“So it's record-breaking?”
“Yes.” His reply was tight and sobering. It seemed as though he and my father weren’t the only ones concerned about the storm.
His expression hardened as he looked back out into the night before him, clearly ruminating over the subject at hand. Not wanting to add any further stress, I tried a little light distraction to help ease his mind for the time being.
“Soooo,” I started, holding up the junk food I had pilfered from the kitchen. “What do you want? I have salt and vinegar chips or Twizzlers. I couldn't decide if I wanted sweet or savory, so I brought both. I also brought leftover chicken too, though that seems less appealing now that I'm looking at it.”
“Chips, please,” he replied, lifting his hand up to catch the bag. I tossed it his way right on cue.
“Thanks, Aesa.” The strain in his expression seemed to melt away almost instantly.
“You're welcome. Enjoy them; I'll see you later.” I turned to head back downstairs and leave him to his charge, but his voice called out from behind me, stopping me in my tracks.
“You're leaving?”
“Yeah. I thought you'd probably need to focus on what you're doing. Do you need something else before I go?”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I just don't mind if you stay, that's all. I could use the company if you're going to be up for a while anyway.”
“Sure,” I agreed with an awkward shrug and made my way to the co-captain's chair across the room from his. I tore open the bag of red licorice and pulled three free before tossing both the bag and the saran-wrapped chicken up on the dash before me.
“So, Decker, tell me something. Are you just a do-gooder by nature, or do you work hard at it?”
He turned to me with a ghost of a smile. Whatever it hid clearly was painful, and I realized that within five minutes of being in the cabin with him, I had managed to hit a nerve. It reminded me of yet another reason why I didn't have any close friends; I was terrible at knowing what to say when it mattered most.
“I'm not a do-gooder, Aesa. I try to respect those around me and do the right thing. Unfortunately, that doesn't always go as planned, but I try not to let that deter me. Sometimes a person needs to do what's right, regardless of the cost, you know?”
And I did. I knew in a way that made me uncomfortable, and I fidgeted in my seat as a result.
“I'm sorry. I'm just tired. I really didn't mean anything by that. It's just that you're always there to help. I'm not especially used to that.”
“Your father is an admirable guy, Aesa. He makes it easy to want to go a step above.”
I scoffed in response, reaching for another handful of licorice.
“We may have to agree to disagree on that one, Decker,” I replied, taking a forceful bite of the candy in my hand. “He might be that way for you guys, but he's never inspired much in me other than the urge to run.”
He looked at me curiously from across the wheelhouse, processing what I'd said.
“Then why are you here? Why would you put yourself in a boat on the Bering Sea with someone you claim to want to escape? You're an intelligent woman, Aesa. If you really felt that way, you never would have made that decision.”
I was startled both by the boldness of his observation but also the truth behind it. If I really had believed my father to be irredeemable, would I have trapped myself on a boat with him for two weeks?
“There's a lot of history there that you don't know, Decker, but you're right. I did choose to come here for a reason. It was my last-ditch effort to salvage what's left of our nearly-estranged relationship.
“That's admirable,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “It takes a lot to forgive.”
“Oh, we're far from forgiveness at this point,” I retorted. “He has a lot to make up for. I'm not even sure it's entirely possible, but I had to try. Working in an ER put some things into perspective. I've seen more regret on the faces of patients and family members than I can purge from my memory. I decided that I owe it to myself to try to make amends. That way, should something happen to him, I would know that I did all I could to set things right.”
“Do you think it will? Get worked out, that is?”
“Not sure,” I replied with an ambivalent shrug. “I will say that he's surprised me a few times since I've been home. I've seen a side of him that I never have before. I guess that's encouraging.”
“Not the man you remember him being?” he asked leadingly.
“In some ways he's exactly the man I remember. In others not so much.”
“It'd been nine years since you'd seen him, right?”
“Yes.”
“A lot can change in a person over that amount of time, Aesa,” he stated, his voice distant and reminiscent. I couldn't help but wonder if he was speaking from experience, but I didn't dare ask. I had already hit a nerve earlier. I didn't want to chance doing it again.
“We'll see,” I said plainly. “The good has outweighed the bad thus far. That has to be a sign.”
“It is. It always is.”
An awkward silence fell over us both as we stared out at the vast, dark night. It seemed to go on forever, unchanging. I hoped the quiet would not. I enjoyed talking to Decker, his polite but frank nature a refreshing change from the inauthentic people I'd long dealt with in college. They did nothing to instill trust in me. But Decker, for whatever reason, seemed to. I found it fascinating and was drawn to it.
“Do you want any of these?” he asked, extending the bag of chips toward me.
“I'll make a trade,” I offered, rifling through the bag of Twizzlers for one last handful. I had somehow managed to eat nearly all of them, chewing on them nervously as Decker asked me questions about my father.
I stepped out of my chair to span the distance between us, handing him the licorice in exchange for the chips. He smiled at the gesture.
“I wasn't sure you were up for sharing those, judging by the way you inhaled them.”
“I'm an ER doctor. It's code for sugar and caffeine junkie,” I informed him. “I guess we're not all that different from fishermen in that regard. Staying awake is the name of the game—at any cost. Caffeine tends to make me jittery. I prefer going the sugar route.”
“I can see that.”
“What about you; what's your vice?”
“I don't have any anymore,” he replied thoughtfully. There was a subtext there, but I couldn't read it, his words too vague to be interpretable.
“Okay . . . ”
“I don't like being a slave to anything, that's all. I like to be in control of myself at all times. I don't like anything driving my behavior or altering it.”
“So I should add control freak to your list of attributes then?”
“Only if you view it as a positive.” He turned almost playful eyes my way, and I quickly found something else to focus my attention on.
“I have OCD when it comes to certain things. I guess I would see that as a plus in a man.”
He laughed in response.
“I'm sure that you have a lengthy list of requirements for the men you date.” He chuckled lightly before his tone regained its seriousness. “You should. Standards are important.”
“I don't have a list at all,” I countered. “I don't really date. I don't have time, but, on those rare occasions when I do, my finding is that men typically want only one thing from me. What's even more fascinating is that, whether or not they get it, the outcome is the same.”
“And what's that?” he asked, his playful expression hardening.
“They leave.” My voice was softer than I had expected to hear it, implying a certain sorrow that I didn't really feel. At least I didn't think I felt it.
“Those aren't men, Aesa,” he said, staring back out the window before him. “A man doesn't seek out a woman because he wants to screw her and leave, nor does he leave because he can't screw her at all. That's an asshole. A rea
l man goes after a woman because he knows that life with her far surpasses that without her. He should be stimulated by her very presence, lack of clothing notwithstanding. That is a man. Apparently you don't have much luck finding any of those.”
My breath caught at his words. He was an oracle, a beacon of wisdom, found in the most bizarre place. How and why he knew what he did was still a mystery, but I couldn't help but think of the story behind it.
He had inadvertently cut to my core when it came to men. What disturbed me most was whether I had somehow always known that the choices I made would ultimately result in those men leaving. Was it both nature and nurture leading me to recreate that which I'd always known—solitude? What I had once thought was indifference to the level of commitment I found in the opposite sex suddenly seemed like self-sabotaging behavior instead. It made me wonder if I would always be alone. Surely the “men” Decker spoke of wouldn't want someone as emotionally unavailable as me.
“I guess I don't.” It was all the response I could muster while in my introspective stupor.
“Maybe you should start a list after all,” he added, turning to face me again with an expression that was far more at ease. “'Not an asshole' would be a great number one.”
* * *
We must have chatted for hours before I was suddenly overcome by sleepiness once again, barely able to stay awake in the chair beside him.
“Aesa? Aesa?” he called, jarring me from my near slumber.
“Yeah . . . what? Oh, sorry! I think I was drifting off.”
“I think you were practically in a coma,” he joked, snickering ever so slightly at his comment.
“Yeah, I'm not sure how you guys do it. My body is barely functioning at this point, and I know it's only going to get worse.”
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