by Liz Johnson
She didn’t reply, only stumbled back to him, took the miracle in a jar, and moved as fast as her stiff legs could carry her into the fresh evening air. The door wasn’t quite closed behind her before Violet began teasing Oliver, her voice singsonging a childhood taunt.
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “I was just helping a friend.”
Sagging against the pale exterior wall of the cottage, Meg sighed.
Right. Friends. Barely friends. Definitely just friends.
twelve
Be cool. Be cool.
Meg felt like one of her students before a big presentation. Only she wasn’t facing down a classroom full of her peers. She was going to have to face Oliver after all that had happened the day before.
She hadn’t meant for it to go that far. Clearly not.
And really, nothing had happened.
Except for the terrible ache in the pit of her stomach every time she remembered how she’d very nearly thrown herself at him. How could she not when he’d basically given her the ability to move again? It wasn’t like she’d tried to kiss him or anything. But those sounds she’d made. Ugh.
A monster in her belly tried to claw its way out, and she clamped a hand on her stomach as she slammed her car door shut with her hip. Leaning against the side of the car in the early morning air, she took three deep breaths. She could do this. She didn’t have much of a choice.
Except running away.
Which felt like an entirely logical response at the moment. There were so many pros to leaving. No more 4:30 alarms. No more fear of getting seasick, even with the patches. And no more Oliver Ross.
She didn’t have a job to leave, other than her dad’s business. And Oliver was more than capable of running it on his own. Sure, he’d get the whole thing at the end of the season. But she wouldn’t even be around to care.
Except she did care.
The monster inside stopped clawing and started gnawing, persistent. She couldn’t walk away from this business, from her dad’s legacy, from her mom’s stability. Even if it meant seeing Oliver every day after such utter embarrassment.
And it did.
“Morning, kid.”
Meg jumped at the greeting, forcing a smile into place despite the hour and the direction of her thoughts. “Morning, Kyle.”
He lumbered toward her from the opposite side of the small gravel parking lot, his gait stiff but familiar. “How you doing today?”
She nodded as he reached her side and touched her shoulder. His hands were the size of bear paws, and he had enough potential energy to level her. But his grip was surprisingly gentle, fatherly, as he pulled one of the coffee cups from the paper tray she’d set on her car’s roof.
“I’m okay. How about you?”
“I get to work a boat with a good captain and the prettiest deckhand I’ve ever seen. I’d say I’m better than I deserve.”
Her face flushed at the compliment, but the heat faded when she realized that he’d again called Oliver the captain. “Kyle, can I ask you something?”
He nodded and motioned for them to walk toward the trail that led around the shanties, their bright colors muted in the dim morning.
She followed a step behind as she tried to frame the question. “Were you upset that my dad didn’t offer to sell to you?”
Kyle’s laugh was rich and booming, bouncing through the still of the morning and echoing off the shanties and shacks. “Would you have tried to take it off my hands if he had?”
“Probably not.” Like a kick to the shin, the truth hit her. There was no probably about it. “But aren’t you angry? I mean, Oliver’s only been working for my dad for a few years. And . . . and . . . how can Dad be sure he’ll carry on the legacy well?”
Kyle stopped walking, the toe of his boot digging into the ground as he scratched at his short hair. “Well, your dad did talk to me about his plans a while ago. Said he was thinking of selling.” His lips twitched. “Guess he never really offered it to me, but that was my chance to speak up. And I didn’t. Know why?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t want it. Still don’t.” He took off for the dock, leaving her behind.
She raced to catch up, big boots clomping after him. “But why? It’s a good business.”
“It is. It’s also a lot of work. I like to work hard, but I don’t particularly want to be responsible for every trap, every line, and every government regulation.” He looked ready to spit on that last one. “You know that he has to report every lost trap and overboard tool? He has to worry about the weather and the environment, lobster prices and the economy. That’s too many worries for this old mind. I’m just grateful to have a job and a captain who worries about them so I don’t have to.”
Meg stopped twenty meters from Just a Pinch and worked through what he’d just said. All of those worries, all of those concerns. Oliver was carrying them. They were supposed to be dividing the work equally. But she hadn’t taken on anything more than the boat work, and he hadn’t said a word about the other things.
She marched up to the boat, climbed on board, and walked right up to Oliver. “I want to do more.”
He turned slowly, his eyes narrow and gaze heavy as he plucked the coffee cup from the tray.
She immediately remembered why she had seriously considered making a run from this whole island. And why—given their last encounter—her words could have been taken poorly.
His brows rose slowly, but the rest of his features remained still. His slightly off-balance but strong features—the crook in his nose and wide mouth. All these separate pieces, which on their own were imperfect, came into focus. And the thing she’d been refusing to admit to herself became clear.
Oliver had turned into an attractive man. A very attractive man.
But there was a fight in his eyes, an easy-to-read battle over how to respond to her.
She shoved away her other thoughts and rushed to beat him to it. “I mean with the business. I want to do more with the business. You’re doing all sorts of things that I’m not.”
He glanced toward the steering wheel, a new confusion filling his eyes. “Like navigating?”
“Yes.” She bit her tongue. Stupid. She wasn’t licensed to drive a boat. “No.”
He tried again. “Like baiting the traps?”
“No.” She shook her head so hard that her headband nearly came loose. “Not the bait.” She could smell it already, even with a lid on the bucket. Or maybe that was the scent of fish parts seared on the back of her nose for all eternity. She was happy to leave the baiting to Oliver and sometimes Kyle. “Like the stuff off the boat. Like working with the shore buyers or the . . . I don’t know . . .” Her eyes darted in Kyle’s direction at the stern. He hadn’t bothered to even try to mask his amusement. “Like the government?”
“You think I spend a lot of time with the general assembly at Province House?” He laughed and straightened an imaginary tie. He dropped his hands over his gray sweatshirt, a string of holes in the collar and another at the hem. “Think I’d fit in there?”
“No.”
“Well, you don’t have to be so blunt about it.”
Her stomach dropped through the bottom of the boat. “I’m sorry. I-I-I didn’t mean—”
He stopped her with a wink and a raised hand. “Relax, Meg. I’m only teasing.”
She sighed. Of course he was teasing. And if she’d had any sort of bearings, she’d have known that immediately.
“I’d have found a different line of work if there was any chance I’d have to buy a suit.”
“But what about . . .” Again she looked to Kyle, who was barely holding back the laughter shaking his shoulders. “Regulations?”
“I read them every year. Same as every other fisherman on the island. If the PEI Fisherman’s Association makes a bad policy, I’ll do the same as everyone else. I’ll put on my Sunday best and go to a meeting to speak up.”
“You would?”
His chin t
icked to the right. “Of course I would. Without these waters, we’d all be out of a job, eh?”
She nodded slowly, taking in the truth. He’d become a man she barely recognized, regularly surprising her. And making her surprise herself.
Strangely, though, she’d forgotten for a few minutes how awkward this interaction should have been. But it wasn’t. Not when he had a disarming habit of putting her at ease. Or at least distracting her from what had preoccupied her before.
“I want to help.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got it covered.”
She grabbed his forearm, and his muscles twitched beneath her grasp. But she didn’t let go. “I’m not asking. This is an even deal. I’ll do my share.”
He looked into her eyes for so long she was pretty sure he could see her soul. She stared right back at him.
Finally he nodded. “All right. Next time there’s an extra-fishing situation, you’re on it.”
She nodded curtly, let go of his arm, and said, “It’s getting late. Shouldn’t we be on the water by now?”
He chuckled and mumbled something about who was the boss as he pointed them toward the open water and another day of fishing.
Morning had a terrible habit of arriving too early on a lobster boat. And the earlier it arrived, the earlier the nights did too.
Meg could barely keep her eyes open past eight most nights. And she’d fallen asleep on the sofa in her little apartment yet again. But an insistent chirp tugged her toward consciousness. She swatted at the phone at her side. Just five more minutes.
Cracking one eye open, she saw her dad’s face across the screen. Grabbing it, she answered with one swipe of her thumb. “Dad?”
“Hi, kid.”
“Dad.” She sighed his name, the only word she seemed capable of getting out. She wanted to ask about her mom, but the words lodged somewhere in the back of her throat.
“How’s the Pinch?”
Seriously? He’d been in another time zone and meeting with doctors for almost a week, and all he could do was ask about his silly boat. No, not silly. It had been his livelihood, his trusted friend, for more than thirty years. And right about now it was probably the only thing that didn’t feel like it was falling apart.
“She’s good. Still floating.”
He let out a booming laugh. “Glad to hear that. I wondered if you and Oliver would go at it and send her to the bottom of the bay.”
“No. I’ve been a model team member.”
“And Oliver?”
She wanted to rat him out. Problem was, he didn’t have a habit of making mistakes. And he was more than a little good at his job. “He’s been . . . surprisingly helpful.”
“Helpful?” His tone turned skeptical. “How?”
“Oh, you know. Finding work clothes, seasickness patches, his mom’s magic muscle cream.”
Her dad sighed. “Megan, I should have thought of those things.”
“No. It’s all right.” She rushed to reassure him. A heaping dollop of guilt was the very last thing he needed. “I’ve been fine. He’s showed me all the secrets. That’s why you set me and Oliver up to work together. Right?”
He didn’t respond right away. “I didn’t even think about what a toll this would take on you. You must be exhausted.”
“Not at all.” Well, that was a lie. There had to be some sort of middle ground that was honest but not quite the brutal exhaustion that made it hard to lift her arms or carry a takeout tray from Carrie’s. “I mean, it’s hard work, and I’m sleeping really well. But I’m okay. And Mama Potts’s muscle cream . . .”
“It’s magic, isn’t it?”
“You knew about it?”
He sighed again. “It should have been the first thing I gave you.”
“She took care of me. She saw me at church. I must have had all the telltale signs of a new fisherman.”
He chuckled. “Barely able to walk. Stiff movements. Hunched shoulders.”
“Exactly.”
They fell into silence. Meg knew she needed to ask the question that hadn’t been addressed, but she couldn’t bring her mouth to speak it. If it was good news, surely her dad would have started with that. And if it was anything else, she didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t do better by you, kid. I’m so proud of you, and I should have—”
“No, Dad. Don’t worry, you left me with Oliver and Kyle. You left me in good hands.” As the words sailed out, she realized she meant them.
“And you and Oliver?”
She rubbed her eyes, clearing the last bit of her nap from them. “We’re . . . we’re . . .” She wanted to say they were getting along. Despite herself. Despite the bitterness that she’d carried for so many years. She wanted him to be every bit the angry, unrepentant teenager. She wanted to have every reason to hold on to the hurt. Because at least that gave her something to hold on to.
He just wasn’t that guy anymore.
“It physically hurts me to say this,” she said, pressing a hand to the middle of her chest, where it burned. “But he’s a really decent guy.”
Her dad let out a sad chuckle. “But you still want the business?”
“What I want is to not lose our family’s history. And maybe our future.”
“Whoa. That’s pretty deep for a Monday night.”
It was her turn to laugh, this one filled with real humor. “I can’t help but feel like everything’s changing, and I want to hold on to something stable.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Everything is changing. But the truth is that lobster fishing isn’t stable. Never has been. It ebbs and flows more than the tides. One year might be a good haul, the next enough to put a business under. In thirty years captaining the boat, I never once had a sure season.”
Meg leaned forward, pulling the red fuzzy throw blanket from the back of the cushion around her shoulders and hugging it beneath her chin. “But it always felt so certain. You went out every morning, worked so hard. Tucked me in every night. Like clockwork.”
“You must have been six or seven the year we almost had to sell the whole thing. We had a terrible haul. Couldn’t catch a hard shell to save my life, and even if I had, the price had fallen to next to nothing.” His voice dropped, pain lacing his words. “I barely made enough that season to pay Kyle and had to cut my other deckhand. Thought we were going to lose the house and all of it.”
Meg swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to remember if she’d felt her dad’s stress or her mom’s worry. But even in those lean years, she’d known nothing but love. They’d sheltered her. She could do nothing but the same. She just had to know what she was sheltering them from.
“Dad, what did the doctors say?”
He coughed and then paused for a beat. “They’re pretty sure it’s something called”—papers rustled, and she was sure he was reading it back to her—“progressive supranuclear palsy. PSP.”
A lump materialized in her throat in the time it took him to say three little letters. “I’ve never even heard of that. What does that . . . mean?”
“The doctor said there’s some damage to nerve cells?” He said it almost like a question. Like he didn’t want it to be true or he couldn’t remember what was real.
“What caused it?”
He sighed. Springs on the other end of the line squeaked, and she could picture him sitting on the corner of the bed, resting his elbow on his knee and his head in his hand. “They don’t know.”
“But there must be some sort of cure or treatment, right? They have some ideas for helping her?”
He was silent for too long. Plenty long enough for her to know that answer.
“Dad, she’s going to get better. She can beat this thing.” Her mom was strong. She’d had to be to face PEI winters and summers as a lobster widow. She’d taught Sunday school for years and never complained when the kids were bratty. She’d cared for their family and made Meg believe there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do.
Yet the p
layback of the last few years flashed through her mind. Every stumbled step. Every fall. Every time her mom couldn’t make eye contact or find the word she wanted to use. The stiffness in her arms that made lifting a fork to her mouth a trial.
She knew the truth before her dad said it.
“It’s progressive, sweetie. It’s going to get worse. She’s going to get weaker and lose even more control. They tested her balance and vision and . . . it’s not good.”
“Is it—” Her throat closed, and she couldn’t get a sound out. Maybe if she didn’t ask, she wouldn’t ever have to know.
Her dad knew what she meant, because he’d been asking the same questions. “It’s not terminal.”
The disease wasn’t, but something would be. It was clear in the words he didn’t say. Meg’s mom was only going to get worse, and eventually there would be a complication, a symptom, that would take her away. She was dying.
Unacceptable.
“There are other doctors we can see. A second or third opinion. There has to be something more we can do.”
“We’re going to bring her home and love her with everything we’ve got.”
Meg didn’t hear anything after that. The ringing in her ears and stinging in her eyes shut out everything else. Everything had changed, and she didn’t have anything left to hold on to.
“You’re here early.” Oliver smiled in Meg’s direction as he climbed aboard the boat and clapped his hands together against the blustery winds.
He was always the first to arrive, Meg generally dragging in a few minutes after 4:30. She wasn’t particularly chatty on most mornings, but she outright ignored him on this one.
“Sure is cold out today.”
She shot him a narrowed gaze. “You think?” Her tone was sharp, slicing, and altogether foreign. Especially after Sunday afternoon. He was pretty sure they’d finally put the past behind them. Maybe not best friends, but she’d become less hostile. At least since she’d sent him swimming for no good reason.
“Whoa.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Someone get up on the wrong side of the bed?”
She dunked a mop into a bucket of soapy water and sloshed it onto the deck—even though they’d thoroughly cleaned the Pinch after dropping off their catch the morning before. “What side of the bed I get up on is none of your business.”