Bisky breathed in the fragrance from hyacinths someone had planted around a mailbox. Beneath that, always, the salty smell of the bay. Down the street, they could hear children’s voices. Recess time.
“You want to be out on the water, don’t you?” William asked.
“How could you tell?” She smiled at the way he’d read her.
“You sniff the air like you used to when we were kids. I could always tell when you were going to try to talk me into borrowing somebody’s boat.”
“Busted.” She loved the Chesapeake; it had been in her blood from a young age. “And yeah, I wouldn’t mind being out right now. But crabbing season starts soon enough. Until then, it’s nice not to have to get up early.”
“I bet.”
“Excuse me, have you seen a little boy?” A young, frazzled-looking woman rushed out from a picket-fenced yard in front of a run-down trailer. Roses tried to climb up a rusty attempt at a porch, and plastic ride-on toys were strewn around the yard.
“No.” Bisky stopped. “What’s the matter? Amy, right?”
“Yes, I’m Amy.” The young mother was distracted. “It’s my Bobby. He wandered off. Again.”
“We’ll help you look.” Bisky scanned the area. “What’s he wearing?”
“Bright blue jacket. He’s a redhead with freckles. You’ve seen him, right? I’m going to the neighbors.” Amy rushed toward the next trailer down.
As soon as she was out of hearing distance, William spoke. “Is it a safe family?”
Strange he’d go there first. Or maybe not. Bisky nodded. “They’re nice people. Just poor and under stress.”
“He’s over there.” William pointed at a line of bushes that separated the little trailer park from the preschool.
Bisky saw movement, a flash of blue, and they both hurried over. A grimy little boy, dressed in too-short jeans, came reluctantly out of the bushes at Bisky’s order. William stayed back, which was good, because when the little boy saw him he blanched. A man of William’s size could intimidate a child.
“You scared your mother. You can’t just run off. Are you okay?” Bisky inspected the child.
“I’ll go find his mom and tell her he’s safe,” William offered, and disappeared.
“What were you doing?” Bisky asked the little boy.
“I want to go to school!” He pointed through the bushes at the colorful flashes of kids’ bright clothing and the sound of happy voices from the preschool’s playground.
Amy came rushing over, William trailing behind her. She swept the little boy into her arms. “I told you, you stay in our yard! This is dangerous!” She looked up at Bisky, then William, still holding her son close. “Thank you so much. He’s always sneaking over here. Says he wants to go to school.”
William looked from the little boy to the pristine preschool. Then he looked back at Amy. “There’s a scholarship program,” he said. “If you’d be interested. It’s a nice school.”
“I never heard about that.” Amy looked skeptical, but there was just a little hope and interest in her eyes. “He’s a handful, always wanting to talk and look at books and dig things up. I can’t keep him busy enough.”
Bisky had never heard of any such program, either. It would be strange if William knew about a local scholarship for little kids when Bisky didn’t.
“Bisky will get you the information.”
“Thank you. That would be wonderful.”
Bisky gave Amy a weak smile as the woman walked away, still lecturing her son but with more of a spring in her step.
As soon as Amy was back in her yard, Bisky turned to William. “Why would you raise her hopes like that? Sure, there’s a Headstart program up the coast, but I don’t think she can take him there.”
“Why not?” William propped his hands on his hips like he was ready to argue.
“Because she has three other kids. Maybe four, I don’t know her that well.” She frowned at him. “Now she’s all excited her youngest might be able to go to preschool. And I’m going to have to be the one to disappoint her.”
William put a hand on Bisky’s arm. “Bisky.”
“I mean, I get that you feel bad for her. You probably would have benefited from preschool yourself. But that doesn’t excuse—”
“Bisky.” He said her name softly, looking into her eyes.
She shut her mouth and looked into those eyes, and a feeling went through her she couldn’t name. She just knew that she felt warm and breathless.
“I’m paying for the kid’s preschool,” he said. “All you have to do is figure out a way to get the money to her that she won’t suspect.”
She tilted her head to one side. “You’re paying for it yourself? It’s kind of expensive, I think.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“Wait a minute. Are you rich?”
He laughed a little, shook his head. “Not at all. I just don’t have a lot of needs.” Something passed over his face then and was gone.
Bisky knew what it had been, too, because she was a single parent. When you had a child, and not a ton of money, any new expenditure had to be carefully considered, weighed against your child’s needs, current and future.
But William didn’t have to weigh that anymore, because he no longer had a child. “You were such a smart little kid,” she said, wanting to distract him. “You always knew the answer before the teacher, from first grade on up.”
“I was a smart aleck,” he said.
“At times. Mrs. Grimstead thought so.” She smiled to remember William being scolded and sent to the principal. On the way out of the room, he’d walked over to the chalkboard to correct her math error.
That had been before he’d quieted down. Either his dad hadn’t been so bad, then, or his parents hadn’t cared if he got in trouble at school. Probably a little of both.
“I’m glad you grew up to use your smarts,” she said now. “And it’s kind of you to help that child.”
He shrugged. “It’s better for him to put his mind to use at something productive, not running away and scaring his mom. Come on, it’s time to meet with Kayla.”
Obviously, he wanted to change the subject, didn’t want to focus on his own generosity. But Bisky couldn’t help thinking about it as they walked the rest of the way to the preschool. She kept stealing glances over at him and thinking about the man he’d become.
If she didn’t know better than to let herself, she might even have fallen a little bit in love with him.
* * *
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, William picked up one end of a picnic table and, with Bisky at the other end, helped her move it from the backyard to the front yard. It was a big, solid old table, and William reflected that a lot of women would have trouble lifting one end of it.
Not Bisky, though. She was strong.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said as she set down her end, not even breathless. “This should be good. This is where we usually leave it in the summer, in fact.”
For a moment, William pictured summer here, sitting under the big shade tree, eating crabs and roasted corn. It sounded appealing; he could almost taste the traditional bay delicacies. Could imagine the feeling of being here with Bisky and Sunny and other friends he was making.
Except he wasn’t going to be here for the summer, he reminded himself.
It wasn’t summer yet, but it could have been: the temperature had climbed into the eighties, a rare hot day in March. The sun was still weak, but William could feel it on his shoulders. The yard sat a little higher than water level, sloping down to the road, and across the road was her dock and shed. That meant there was a great view of the bay, which shone like polished glass.
He’d avoided Bisky for a few days, citing counseling appointments and paperwork. It wasn’t a lie, he was busy getting settled in, but he could have made time to meet and work on
the program earlier. He’d just needed a break after they’d gone to the preschool to meet with Kayla, who was all in with having the preschoolers serve as the teens’ first audience.
His avoidance couldn’t last forever, though. Bisky had called him this morning and as much as insisted that he come over so they could start pinning down the details and get the program ready for after-school work with the teens starting next week. Now, she forked back her hair and apologized for being bossy. “Crab season’s coming,” she said, “and I’ll have a lot less time. Unless you want to develop and run the whole program yourself, we’d better spend a few hours today getting the details pinned down.”
“You’re right. Of course.” He tried not to look at her too closely. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, nothing fancy, but he hadn’t seen her dressed for summer in years, and he was reeling from the impact of her long legs.
He was just a guy, right? Any guy would notice Bisky’s legs.
And then that thought bothered him, too, because he didn’t want other guys to notice her legs.
“Yoo-hoo,” she called to him, pulling his attention back to their work. “The high school counselor gave me a list of kids who’ve tentatively agreed to come. Or their parents are making them,” she added wryly. “Having another activity right after school isn’t what every kid wants.”
“We’re not taking them out of sports or anything, are we?”
“Nope.” She reached a hand out toward the dog they’d taken in. William hadn’t even noticed the animal, skulking around the edges of the yard, when he’d arrived. “None of the kids are on spring teams.”
“Good.” William hadn’t been able to play sports, because his family couldn’t afford the gear and his father hadn’t wanted to sit down and talk to the coaches about ways to fund it. The truth was, William had been just as happy to read a book, but due to his size, everyone had always tried to get him on their teams. He liked using his body and had gotten into swimming and lifting weights back in the city. But that had all stopped after Jenna died. He hadn’t been able to do anything more than the bare minimum to get by.
That was part of why he’d gotten so stressed out, he supposed. He should have kept working out. If he hadn’t forgotten to eat half the time, he’d probably have gained a ton of weight.
“Hey, girl!” Bisky’s singsong voice brought him back to the present, and he looked over to see the dog they’d taken in, Muffin, inching toward her, trailing a leash. “She’s attached to me,” Bisky explained, “but she’s still terrified of most other people. She wants to come sit near me, but she’s scared of you.”
“She looks a lot better.” William studied the dog. “You know, I’m not a fan of dogs, but this one’s cute. And she’s more afraid of me than I am of her.” He reached out a hand, and she leaped back.
Bisky handed him a couple of dog treats. “Toss them toward her, one at a time. She’ll start to see you as a good guy.”
“So what are we going to do if some of these kids don’t like history?” he asked as he tossed the dog a treat, pulling the conversation back to the teenagers and the program they were trying to plan. “Even though the museum focuses on this area, that academic of a topic isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.”
“True.” She tapped her pen on the table, considering. “We’ll have to think of something else for them to do, some alternative activity. Like, the kids up the coast help older people with small-scale construction projects.”
“Maybe they could build something for the museum, if they’re more hands-on,” he suggested. “It backs on the bay, but it doesn’t look like there’s a dock or anything.”
“Good idea.” She made a note.
They kept talking, figuring out what they’d do at their first meeting, how they’d present the program to get the most engagement from the kids. William had always loved planning lessons, and this was like that, only collaborative.
He kept reminding himself that he was here to get well and go back to his job. Not to stay and follow through with the teenagers when the school year ended.
Not to see what Bisky’s legs looked like with their summer tan.
“I’m home and it’s hot!” Sunny’s shout came from the street, and then she came climbing up the green grass. “And it’s Friday, woo-hoo!”
Bisky reached out a hand, and Sunny came over to sit by her, close. Bisky put an arm around her, and Sunny leaned in.
“How was school?”
“Kinda boring. We have the standardized tests next week so they’re all trying to review.” She looked at William, acknowledging him for the first time. “The better we do, the more money the school gets from the state of Maryland. Which, if you think about it, doesn’t make sense. Schools where kids do poorly should get more money.”
“Pleasant Shores Academy is private though, right?”
“Yes, but we get some state money. Because there are some scholarship kids there, like me.”
William liked her opinionated ways, and he wondered whether Jenna would have turned out to have strong opinions, too. She’d been more in the awkward, “don’t look at me” phase when she’d been killed.
Man, he wished he could have seen her grow up, gotten to know who she’d become as an adult. She’d had so much to offer the world. All lost with a drugged idiot’s bullet.
He swallowed and looked down at the table while Sunny and Bisky chatted away.
The sound of a car stopping in front of the house made them all look toward the road. Muffin barked and then hid behind Bisky.
It was a police car, and Evan Stone got out and strode toward them.
This guy again. Seemed like he spent an awful lot of time seeking Bisky out.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said, and William bristled even more. Was the guy bringing presents now? While on the town’s payroll, yet?
Evan smiled and knelt, holding out his hand toward Muffin, who was trembling and letting out the occasional bark. “How does your dog get along with other dogs?”
“We don’t know yet,” Bisky said.
“She did okay with the Martins’ dog,” Sunny said. “Why?”
“I have someone I’d like for her to meet.” He walked back to his car, opened the back door, and urged a black dog to come out.
The dog hesitated on the edge of the seat, but finally, lured by a treat, jumped down and looked around, cowering.
Why it was cowering was hard to say, because it looked fierce.
“Oh my gosh. Boy or girl?” Sunny hurried down the slope toward the car and approached the dog, slowly.
“She’s a girl,” they could hear Evan say.
Muffin growled, the hair on her back rising.
“What on earth?” Bisky spoke quietly to William, sounding exasperated.
“Looks a little like Diablo,” William said. It was true: there had to be some German shepherd in the cringing creature.
“Part shepherd, part pit, if I had to guess.” Bisky picked up Muffin’s leash. “And Evan’s getting Sunny excited about it. You just wait, she’ll come up here and ask if we can keep it.”
He was glad to hear her sounding annoyed with Evan, who was now making his way toward them. The dog hung back, and Sunny walked slowly on the dog’s other side, giving it plenty of space.
“It’s another injured dog,” Evan said as he reached them, “with wounds similar to the ones your dog had. Picked it up over near Victory Cottage, actually. We’re not sure what’s going on, but I thought maybe you could take it in.”
“No way,” Bisky said. “I’m only now getting used to one dog, and she to us. There’s no way we can have a second.”
“Mom, we could,” Sunny protested. “We have all the stuff. They could share a dish and we could use an old blanket for a bed. She could sleep in my room.”
“No.” Bisky crossed her arms and glared at Eva
n. “I don’t know why you thought of me. It’s not like I take in strays all the time.”
Evan turned to William. “What about you?”
He lifted his hands, palms out. “No way. Me and dogs don’t get along.”
“Maybe it’s time to get over Diablo,” Bisky teased.
Sunny’s eyes widened. “You knew Diablo? Mom used to use him as a reason we couldn’t get a dog.”
“Not only did I know him, he was my dad’s dog,” William said.
“But Mom said...” Sunny trailed off and looked at her mother.
“I said he wasn’t treated well. That wasn’t William’s fault.”
Bisky was right about that, mostly. He’d hated the way his dad had been toward the dog. William’s few efforts to befriend Diablo had resulted in terrifying snarls and growls, and he’d given up too easily. He just hadn’t had the knowledge of how to help a dog like that. “My dad’s mistreatment made Diablo into a mean dog, but it wasn’t the dog’s fault,” he said. “That responsibility rests on my dad.”
Evan watched the exchange closely. Did he want to learn about shore culture, or find the dog a home...or get to know Bisky better?
“I didn’t like dogs much, for a long time,” Bisky said. “The way we grew up, people treated dogs differently.”
“And then came Jonathan the puppy raiser,” Sunny said slyly.
Bisky reddened. “No need to go into that.”
“I know, but it made you not afraid of dogs,” she said.
William wondered if he’d ever find out who Jonathan the puppy raiser was and what his connection to the family might be.
Probably not, but he couldn’t help being curious.
The black dog approached Muffin, who snarled louder. Then they both started barking, pulling at their leashes to get at each other, and not in a friendly way.
“Look,” Bisky said over the din as Evan led the black dog a few paces away, “they don’t even like each other. No way could we take that dog in.”
“You’re right.” Evan walked the dog down to his cruiser, put it inside, and then came back. “Sorry to bother you folks. It was a good try.”
Home to the Harbor--A Novel Page 10