by Lynne Hugo
“No way, CiCi. The baby could have been killed. The baby is innocent. That’s not how things work. You have no right to put the baby’s life in danger for one unnecessary minute. It’s my baby too.” Rid’s face was flushed right into the half-moons where his hairline had receded, the ones that made his face heart-shaped. He was furious, yanking back his hand, but Caroline wouldn’t let it go and he wasn’t going to jerk on her because of her injuries. “Please let go,” he said.
“Just hear me out. Please. It’s all I’m asking. Okay?” She waited for him to take a couple of breaths and meet her eyes again. His were so blue, now, against the flush on his skin, maybe because they were newly wet like beach stones when the rising tide first covers them and recedes. With beach stones, their color intensifies and they glisten like joy; she was always sad when it faded.
It was a good fifteen seconds before he nodded.
“Thank you. Listen, I know you’re right. There’s some risk. But I have to take that chance if I’m going to live at all. I’ve been afraid to, because so much goes wrong all the time. But not living hurts, too. That’s the problem. You love, you hurt. You don’t love, you hurt. You trust, you forgive, you get hurt. You don’t trust, you don’t forgive, guess what?” Caroline was like sand and rockweed flying down the beach in a blow, that speed, that intensity, trying to sweep Rid along with her. “Which choices let you live the best, most decent life? Which gives you more chance at goodness? I don’t want to live in a wasteland anymore and I don’t want our baby to, either. Tell me something: who am I quoting now? ‘I throw my life savings into the bay, and hope?’ Do you recognize your own words? The way we live here is all about risk and love, isn’t it? That’s what sea farmers do. You don’t give up. This is my chance to not give up, to have a little hope that Terry and I can somehow move on to something better in our lives.”
Rid shook his head. “You don’t get it. What you’re asking is the same as…,” he cast for an analogy and hooked one, “asking me not to button down the grant before winter, just take my chance that nature, which I already know can turn lunatic-destructive, will make nice and do me no harm. Yes, I hope. But I act responsibly, too. I can’t just rely on hope.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’d go to the cops myself, but that’s not going to do any goddamn good if you won’t press charges.” Rid looked away from her, out the window toward his grant. A wet sheen was around his eyes, gathering in the bottom lids. “I’m saying you’re tying my hands, and I can’t stand that. You might as well put me back in that cage.”
She still didn’t get it. “Rid, please try to understand. I love you.” She reached for his hand where it was in a fist on his thigh, and wrapped hers over it like paper takes rock in rock, scissors, paper.
“Do you realize that’s the first time you’ve said the words outright to me? And you’re saying them to get me to do what you want.”
“But I do love you. So much I’m scared of it. I’m sorry I haven’t said it upfront before. Neither one of us has been exactly a fountain of words about our feelings, have we? Maybe we should have been. Sooner.”
“But I’ve at least given you a clue, haven’t I? I’ve said it, not just when I wanted something.” Both of them now unsheathing a blade. Rid took his hand out from underneath Caroline’s and shoved it under his own leg. It was junior high again, but he couldn’t help it.
It was the back side of the tide, coming in fast now. Clint’s truck bumped over the sand. Upon the most subtle signal from Rid he’d have pulled up and rolled down his window for a chat, but failing one, he gave a slightly quizzical look—they were in a car rather than a truck, for one—checking to make sure they didn’t need help, and when Rid waved, Clint waved back, accelerated and drove on by.
When he’d passed, Caroline said, “Wait. This isn’t about love, it’s about going to the police or not, and I can’t do that yet. I have to wait to see if she can make it stop. I owe her that.”
“You owe her that? Jesus, CiCi, If you don’t go to the police—don’t you understand? I can’t be helpless again. You’re putting me back behind bars, locking me up and telling me I can’t do what I need to do to protect what I love. I can’t sit back and wait for Moonface to come along and destroy everything. I can’t love you and the baby and go through this just waiting for him to attack you in the dark again. I did it your way, to give you time to talk to Terry. I showed my respect. But now you won’t do the same.”
“What do you mean?” Now Caroline’s eyes were full, disbelief mixing with a frantic effort to come up with something, anything. Anything except altering the decision by which she was earning her redemption.
“I can’t sit by and watch while you give those two license to hurt you and our baby again. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
“So that’s it? What about loving each other? What about loving our baby?”
Rid turned to face her, angry. “I do love you. I thought I’d made that clear. You’re the one who just said this wasn’t about love. You’re making unilateral decisions about your safety and about the baby’s safety that I can’t abide.”
CiCi stared at him, unbelieving.
“I can’t do it,” he whispered, his voice ragged. “I’ll take you back to Noelle’s now.”
Both sat as if made of stone. Caroline looked out the passenger window, positioned so her tears would slide silently into her scarf so she wouldn’t have to wipe them. Rid put on the radio so she would not hear him sniffling. He swiped at his eyes with his sleeve, glanced over and saw she was sitting at an angle and worried that her ribs must be hurting, then told himself she’d made it clear she didn’t want him taking care of her. Noelle and Walt could worry about her now.
Chapter 29
Frigid Canadian air had chased behind the worst weather of the season, freezing the harbor. Not only that, the last winter storm had come hard from the west, which meant Rid had to worry whether Mario’s stuff had come loose in the blow before the ice hit. If it had, it would have gone to the east and would be all over Rid’s raceways, putting holes in his nets or even scraping them off his quahogs. Typical Mario. He hadn’t pulled out his cages for the winter, playing fast and loose with his own and other people’s livelihoods.
Rid hadn’t let himself call Caroline, hadn’t let himself go to his grant since he’d taken her back to Noelle’s. Going to his grant would mean seeing her house, and how would he be able to keep himself from checking it? From checking on her? It was taking all the self-control he could gather. And it didn’t help that he’d slept better in prison than he’d slept in his own bed lately. He was fitful, a wing beat of a bad dream he couldn’t remember troubling him again and again. Still, he was determined to ride it out. He hadn’t finally learned to do things by the book—after so many wasted years and impulsive mistakes—to deliberately unlearn it now.
On Thursday, he couldn’t stand it anymore. There was enough dark gray wind that he put on his parka rather than waterproof sleeves; he wasn’t going to work, just to look, after all, but still, he added a wool cap under the hood, it was that bone-piercing cold. Two Christmases ago his mother had given him insulated jeans that had turned out useful for cutting wood in bad weather, and he wore those, too, with long underwear.
“Come on, girl. Wake up. Let’s go.” The Lab roused from the couch and climbed down joylessly. “Oh for God’s sake, Liz. Cut me some slack, will you? I’ll give you a treat in the truck.”
He didn’t drive across the beach as he normally would, but left the truck at the end of the access road. Too much snow. He knew where the biggest rocks were, of course, and they were visible snow-mounds, more like small igloos, anyway. But he saw no point in risking his muffler by pretending he was certain where every rock huddled in the deep snow. He opened the driver’s side door and gestured for Lizzie to follow him, sneaking a glance at Caroline’s house while the Lab scrambled out and bounded into valleys between drifts. He could barely see the top of the dun
e fence between her house and the beach, the storm had blown that much snow against it. There appeared to be a light on in the kitchen window, but it could have been a reflection. It wasn’t his business, he told himself for the umpteenth time. He turned toward his grant. The wind picked up snow and flung it at his back. Twice he tripped on completely covered obstacles. There were patterns on the unbroken snow like those left by retreating waves on sand. Several sets of footprints had already traveled to and from the grants.
Mario was down on the beach, between his own and Rid’s grant. The wind obscured the sound of his feet in the snow until Rid was almost on top of him, but as he approached, Rid saw what Mario was looking at: the detritus of cages frozen into the front of Rid’s grant, which would certainly be over raceways. Who knew what kind of disaster the back would be in?
“Jesus, man, I’m sorry. Caroline’s already been down here. I’ll make it right—I’ll clean it all up. Whatever stock is lost, I’ll replace it.”
Rid looked at the grant and then looked at Mario, trying to process Caroline’s name at the same time he took in the probable devastation to his quahogs. “You don’t know that your cages didn’t take out all your clams along with mine,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. He couldn’t ask about Caroline, about what she’d been doing down here in this weather. It was too much. It was all too much. “How’re you gonna fix this? How you gonna replace mine if your nets and stock are gone, too? Goddammit, Mario. This is all I’ve got, and I did everything by the book. Everything by the goddamn book.” His voice was raw, sad, spilling anger.
“Look, next year I’ll button the grant. This summer I’ll dig a pit and next winter I’ll button the grant, my word on it. I promised Caroline this wouldn’t happen again. She made me see I’m not being fair. I promise I’ll clean this all up, and I’ll make it right. You know, man, we’ve got to wait to see—maybe it’s not so bad. There’s no telling right now, not till it thaws. Okay?”
Rid swallowed and breathed hard a couple of times. His mouth grim, moving only his eyes, he took the measure of his grant, the seasons of work that lay beneath the ice, where seed had been planted and nurtured like something sacred. Where he’d done all he could to not mess up again like he had in the past. Where he’d done his damnedest to carry on his father’s legacy and build something that would last.
“Man, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Give me another chance, will you?” Mario’s voice was hoarse. Like Rid, he was in a heavy parka , but he wore high waterproof boots, too. Footprints onto the frozen bay revealed that he’d tried to dislodge the closest displaced oyster cage a corner of which was jutting out of the ice. It had been an exercise of equal parts desperation and futility.
“The damage is done, Mario.” Rid’s tone said he wasn’t necessarily referring to the grant.
Rid turned to meet Mario’s eyes and saw tears.
“I swear I’ll make it right,” Mario said, a naked plea. “You gotta give me a chance. We’re partners, right? I keep thinking how you helped me when I sank my truck, and I probably never said thanks. And now I let this happen. I know I fucked up. Just give me a chance. We’re in this together. I swear I will make it all right.”
Mario’s words washed over him like a rip tide, and Rid looked back toward his grant, not seeing it this time. Oh God, he thought, is there only one story in the world? He put his head down on his chest a long quiet moment while his eyes filled and he closed them. Finally he lifted his head and met Mario’s anguished gaze. He nodded and put out his gloved right hand for Mario to shake.
“It’s okay, man. I know you’ll work it out.”
Rid left Mario behind him and headed back toward his truck. A light snow had started up again, magnified by the wind so it swirled around him like a cloud. He didn’t stop at the truck, but lumbered on, Lizzie bounding ahead, then coming back and circling behind as if to gather him in. The land and water were indistinguishable now, and because of the frozen harbor and sky, they too merged until the world seemed all of one substance and he and Lizzie alone in it. He crossed the horseshoe beach and turned to face Caroline’s house where now he saw smoke mounting from the chimney. A fire had been lit. She was there. Thank God, she was there.
Chapter 30
The day’s warmth was a bonus for late April. Spring was often late, then chilly and damp on the outer Cape. Usually the sea farmers fought rain clouds for breathing space, but this year, they were all coatless thanks to days of robust sun. The lilacs were budding early beneath Caroline and Rid’s window, their fragrance faint but present enough that she and Rid lifted the sash at night for the scent as well as the sound of the bay.
Caroline sat on an overturned milk crate on the beach with a slotted box, culling oysters. Rid, sweaty in waders, bent from the waist in shallows picking stock to fill what order they could. He filled a crate and hauled it up to her. Lizzie thumped her tail where she lay next to Caroline but didn’t get up.
“Yeah girl, I know who you love best now,” Rid said, leaning over to scrub behind her ears. He pulled a treat from his shirt pocket and fed her at the same time he leaned over and gave CiCi a kiss on the mouth. She had sunscreen on her lips which made them slippery as she returned it. “How was that last bunch? Any of ’em need to go back?”
“Those,” she said, pointing. “Not legal size, but all healthy.”
“I can’t figure how those got in that rack. Mario probably,” Rid mused, rubbing his face, tired-sounding.
“I guess we can’t complain about his trying to replace some of the stock you lost, even if he gets it in the wrong cage.”
“There’s no way he can....” He shook his head to cut himself off. “Okay. You all right?”
She pointed at her belly this time, sunk between her spread knees. She wore denim shorts and a green top that revealed advanced pregnancy, swollen breasts. “I can’t sit like this. We need to bring a real chair out here, and find a way to lower the box. Maybe you could dig a hole in the sand?” She stretched, pulling her elbows and shoulders back.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Geez, I should’ve realized.”
He’d told her to stay home and rest for this tide, the second of the day, but she brushed him off, teasing, “You think you’re the only one with the blood?”
Now, with mounting frustration, he said, “Look, there it is again, you’re putting your hand on the same exact spot that asshole broke your ribs. You do it all the time, and I know damn well it means you’re still hurting, no matter what you say. We should’ve pressed charges. We still can. Jerry said so.” He made a visor of one hand to shield his eyes while using the other to stroke her neck and back.
“Haven’t we had enough of the law? Terry seems to have stopped him, and—”
“Except for the air outta the truck tire in February,” Rid interrupted. “The mailbox busted in March. And the skiff loose last week. If Mario hadn’t spotted it on his way in, we’d be doing without.” As he recited this litany, he ticked off the fingers of his right hand.
She inhaled then spoke on the exhale, to calm him. “Sweetheart, you and I both know stuff like that happens all the time. We can’t assume.”
“You’re naïve. You don’t want to believe there’s crazy or evil that can’t be fixed your way. I wish you were right, but look at how things spiral out of control.” This was a practiced conversation he’d not found a way to advance against Caroline’s conviction. He hated it when he begged. “I want to be done with that asshole. What if it’s something bigger and more dangerous next? Then will it be time to call up the posse?”
Caroline winked at him. “Hey, I know one asshole we’re done with. Pissario’s whole outhouse of cards—make that glass cards—collapses around him while he sits on the toilet pants down. And here you stand, on the flats you three guys own. Now how fine is that?”
He let her deflect him for the moment. “Yes ma’am, very fine.” He gave her a quiet, satisfied grin, his eyes joining hers. “That guy who donated the money saved our l
ives,” he said, and pressed his lips together, nodding slowly for several seconds while he raised his head and scanned the shallows. But then he remembered his point and swiveled back to Caroline. “However owning the flats is not relevant to pressing charges against Terry and her psycho-agent-orange-sniffing cousin.”
He knew she’d won again by the smile she tried to hide. “It’s relevant because things do spiral out of control. And how’s this for relevance: you and Tomas and your agent-orange-sniffing-psycho Mario could be renting or selling your friends’ grants to them, but are you? Ha! Gotcha. The Indian Neck sea farmers work their grants without paying you a cent. Why? “Never mind—” she said, holding up a hand as Rid started to interrupt. “I’ll tell you the real reason, whatever garbage you’re about to spew. It’s because you three know what it’s like to be down, just like your friends did when they pitched in to help you fight Pissario. So don’t talk to me about what I’m doing, because we’re exactly the same.”
Rid closed his eyes. When he opened them he said, “Look, about the flats. That’s the way it is now, the ‘no charge’ business. That’s the way I hope we can keep it. I’ll really try on my end, but I’m one of three partners, remember. People are people. Hell, nature is nature. Things happen, life gets in the way.”
Caroline ran her hand—a working hand now, calloused, and her nails short and a bit dirty—through hair that needed a cut again, but they’d been so busy out on the grant she’d not gotten to it. Don’t worry about it. It’s okay if your hair gets long again. You don’t have to keep trying to look like a different person, Rid said yesterday; Caroline claimed he'd been eavesdropping on her mind.
“And anyway, you gotta stop talking like you’re not part of us on the flats. Don’t say ‘me,’” Rid said, pointing to himself. His face was reddening in the sun, his nose, forehead and neck, and she tossed him the sunscreen, something he’d disdained for years. “Say ‘us,’” he continued, catching the tube.