AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They’d walked all the way down to the coast, on John “Patsy” Patterson’s land. And there, moored to a dock, was theLady Luck, bobbing in wind-tossed waters.
“Want to see her?” Lew asked, sounding casual, but she knew he’d brought her here on purpose.
“Of course.”
They picked their way across the rocks toward where theLady Luckwas moored. No sand here, because the island coastwasn’t made for sunbathers and picnickers but for hard folks willing to scratch out a living on the shoals of overlapping granite that sloped down to the water’s edge.
She was small but beautiful, with a high, slanted bow in front of the windshield and a broad, flat stern. Clean enough, but stark and bare without all the ropes, crates, and traps they’d used every day.
“Looks like he’s taking care of her, anyway,” she managed through the sudden squeezing around her heart.
Lew grunted. “Pa threatened Patsy within an inch of his life if he didn’t.”
“He’s coming back, yeah?”
“Says he is.” For a moment, the only sound was the waves striking the shore. “I asked him, you know.”
She tilted a questioning look his way. “What did you ask who?”
“Why Pa didn’t find us a place to stay near the coast, where he could keep his route, just travel an extra hour instead of moving inland.”
She’d wondered that herself but had been so worked up over starting the foundry job that she hadn’t bothered to ask.
“He started out talking about how he didn’t want to keep up with the new government rules. Can’t take a radio out, have to let the coast guard do random checks to sound your fuel tanks, that sort of thing.”
“Why’s that?”
Lew shrugged. “With gas rationing on, they’re worried about racketeering. Folks stockpiling fuel, selling at jacked-up prices to other ships. Maybe even Nazi U-boats.”
Figured. Usual government meddling, complicating things for the little guy. Still, that wasn’t so big a deal, to Ginny’s mind, not with a war on. “That’s all?”
“Not just. Pa went on to say he doesn’t trust the buyer in Portland, and the price of lobster is bound to go down with the war on, and he’s getting too old for this anyhow.”
From the look on Lew’s face, they both knew it was a pack of lies, or more generously, a pack of half-truths.
She loved her pa, but if he wanted to make it work, he could have. The spirit was just plumb knocked out of him, losing the family home. He didn’t do well with change. He’d stared out the window a full week while the rest of them packed and cleaned, muttering to himself about how“it weren’t fair.”
And it wasn’t. But the way Ginny saw it, you could let the storm dash you on the rocks, or you could roll with the tide.
It was a little windy, but not a storm cloud hung in the sky, and there were still several hours of daylight left. “Wanna take her out? She could use a little attention.”
He didn’t say yes so much as give a jerk of his head, which for Lew might as well have been an enthusiastic cheer. “Can’t go to the west side. Submarine nets.”
Ginny grimaced. Sure, it was to keep folks safe, but the thought of those huge, ugly things spread out in her ocean along her father’s old route ... it was a worse change than the ferry she’d taken into the island, painted from white to gunmetal gray for camouflage.
Soon, the low putter of theLady Luck’s motor sang in harmony with the high-pitched squawks of seagulls as Lew steered the boat along the shore. That had always been his job on his days going out with Pa. Ginny liked to watch for buoys and ease the warps onto the hoister when they got close enough. The moment when the rope pulled taut, lifting the wooden trap full of wet and writhing cargo, never got old.
Today, she just watched the ocean, standing beside her brother. The tide chart was still pinned near the compass, with notes in Pa’s scribbled handwriting, and it warmed Ginny clear through the chill from the water spraying across her bare arms. “He’ll be back,” she whispered to it, flipping the calendar pages to the right month. So much time wasted. “Don’t you worry. We all will be.”
For a while, they stood in silence. TheLady Luckhad always been a two-person boat, the two of them trading off days after they turned twelve and Ma let them drop out of school.
Normally, they’d be scanning the fog for buoys with Pa’s number, marked carefully on a map. Deep down on the ocean shelves, the traps waited to be hauled up, full of keepers lured by the smell of bait into the outer compartment, the parlor. Then they’d crawled into the kitchen, where they got what they wanted ... but lost their freedom. Couldn’t get out the way they came, through the funnel-like opening. Their fate was to be bunged into a bushel basket, wet with just enough water to keep them alive. One last taste of the ocean till they went ashore to the receiving station to be unloaded and weighed.
“I felt sorry for them once,” Ginny said idly.
“Lobsters don’t have feelings, sis,” Lew said—just like he’d said years ago, when Ginny had come back crying from her first trip out with Pa.
“But girls like me sure do,” she’d shot back then—and now. Was that a smile that tugged onto his face? Must be the salt air. It healed people, filled in the broken cracks from loneliness and grief, gave them a purpose.
