You can feel it, can’t you, Min? The ocean? Calling and calling?
Yes, I felt it. Still do.
My father sits beside me, broken.
He tells me the ocean was his greatest wound.
And I tell him he was mine.
“…Minnow?”
The sergeant slips back into his seat. “We have your statement. You’re free to go. But…”
I look up, jaw tightening.
“There’s something I still don’t understand,” he begins, leaning back. “The coroner examined Luke. His coronary artery was severed. But we can’t find the knife.”
“It wasn’t on the boat?”
“No. We searched it thoroughly.” He taps his pen once against the notepad. “Luke was a fisherman. He woulda known not to remove the knife.”
“The boat was getting bumped around a lot,” I remember. “The sharks were coming in. At one point, we both went flying. I smacked my head against the hull. Luke got knocked off his feet. It was violent.”
“When you climbed back on board,” he says, “did you see the knife?”
I think for a moment. “No. I don’t think I did.”
“What kind of knife was it?”
“Fishing knife.”
“Describe it.”
“Steel blade. About twelve centimeters long.”
“Yours?”
“…Yes.”
THEN
I lunge for the boarding ladder, gripping the rail, hauling myself out of the water. I scramble up the stairs, pulling my feet up, darting glances over my shoulder as a fin ducks below the surface.
“Luke?” I croak out.
He’s slumped in his skipper’s chair, spitting blood, my knife stuck in his chest. I stand over him and wrench the knife out. The blood roars, gushing and gushing, its coppery scent filling the air. Even if I gun the engine and get him to the Pine Bay hospital, I doubt he’ll make it.
And I’m not going to gun the engine. I’m going to wait here until he bleeds out.
Knife gripped in my palm I watch him die. His eyes are cloudy, unfocused. His hand flat against his chest, blood thick and heavy, seeping through the cracks in his fingers.
He speaks in a faint whisper, pausing between each word.
“…Did…you…love…it,” he pants, grimacing. “The…woods, Min?”
The violence. That pulse in the cabin. Hot and maddening. Blood boys and one blood girl.
His eyelids flutter, each breath a labored effort. I stare at the knife, thinking. I’m back in that A-frame cabin in the woods, the hot wind winding through, smelling like gore and new meat. Trav and I stand side by side, shoulders bumping.
