When Minnow finished reading, she sat there in a stupor. Tears slid down her cheeks and one of them landed on the page, blurring the wordshark. She had just found the thread that had sewn together her distant past with her present, plus the revelation that her life in the ocean started far earlier than she ever knew. She was born of whale song and tiger shark and undersea things. Of her mother’s fear and love and hope. Of this very place.
The back door slammed and she jumped, placing a soothing hand over her heart. Woody came over and saw the guest book in front of her, still open to her mother’s entry.
“Straight from the seahorse’s mouth,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “How you holding up, kid?”
“Hanging in there. This has all come out of left field, and it might take a while to sink in. How you explained it, it makes sense, and then reading this helps. I just can’t believe no one told me. And why didn’t she bring me here?” She leaned back in the chair and looked up at the cracks in the ceiling, fighting back more tears.
“Cliff can tell you some.”
His brother was just walking in the sliding screen door, holding a machete. There were twigs and leaves in his hair, and for the firsttime she realized just how handsome he was, in a very jungly, wild man kind of way.
“Tell her what?” he asked.
“Why Layla never came back with Minnow, and your theory on... everything.”
“Not sure if she wants my theory on everything. That might take a while. But like I said, your mother and I kept in touch. She wrote me letters and I sent her postcards. I wanted it to be out in the open, not like we had some secret thing going on. One day your dad found the postcards and went off the rails. So she asked me not to write anymore,” he said, shrugging as if it was no big deal. But the hurt was still there. She could see it in the lines of his face and the way his body contracted as that last sentence bled out.
He had loved her.
“And that was that?” Minnow asked.
He bit his lip and gave her a sad smile. “That was that. I never heard from her again, and I honored her wish.”
She felt a warmth for this man. Such a kind soul, it was hard to imagine him firing a gun at boats in the bay, or snapping, like Woody said he could. He was like Minnow—he cared deeply. Maybe too deeply. It made her think of Luke for a few heartbeats, but she recovered and stayed in this lane.
“Do you still have her letters?” She had to ask.
It took him a few moments to answer. “I think so, somewhere.”
Yes.
“Can I see them someday? If they aren’t too private?”
“I’ll see if I can dig them up.”
Minnow had a feeling he knew exactly where they were, but didn’t push. He had lost something too, long ago as it was. But love and time were independent of each other. Anyone who had ever loved knew that.
When she told them about the chum, both were genuinely surprised. Woody agreed it was an area not often traveled. Far from any boat ramps, and most fishermen were either farther out or farther in. But they were eager to go have a look.
“We didn’t see any metal cage or buoys when we drove through, but we could have easily missed it,” she said.
“What if they take the cage in?” Woody asked.
“Where would they take it?”
Neither of them had an answer for that.
They loaded up the boat with boiled peanuts, poke, a peanut butter and honey sandwich for Minnow, and enough Coca-Cola to last a week. But when Woody went to start the motor, it sputtered and she smelled gas. He lifted the can to make sure it was full, then said, “Whoa, what happened here?”
Minnow and Cliff both came over. Woody was holding the fuel line, which had been severed.
“We had no trouble with it yesterday. Though Nalu was driving so I didn’t actually pay much attention.”
The edges were neatly cut through. Was it possible something on the boat had sliced it? She glanced around, but there was nothing sharp in sight. They all stared at the line for a moment.
“Sabotage. Guaranteed,” Cliff said.
“Gotta be. Unless you or Nalu accidentally cut it?”
