“The hauls have been good though, Dad,” Declan assures him and claps his shoulder encouragingly. “I know you’re not getting out as often as you want.”
“Never do in the winter.” Dad sighs but then blinks and looks back up at us with a more pleasant expression.
River emerges from the tiny interior, life vest on. “Wanna help me steer?” Dad asks him, and he nods vigorously.
Dad leads him up to the wheelhouse, and Declan and I pull on our water proof slickers over our winter coats and tug on our hats and get ready to sail. It takes twenty minutes to get to the traps, which means I have to sit here alone with Declan that whole time.
“How’s Nova?” I ask.
“She’s Nova,” Declan says with a shrug. “She’s great.”
The wind starts to whip around us, and despite the sun, there’s no denying it’s winter when it hits my cheeks.
“I’m happy for you, getting more time with River,” Declan says and opens his eyes against the wind long enough to hold a gaze with mine. I can tell he means it. “I never thought Bethany should have been keeping you from him.”
He’s never said that to me before, and it means more than I thought it would to hear it. I give him the most genuine smile I’ve given him in years, and he returns it. We both look at Dad, who is holding River up so he can steer. Declan points. “I guess we don’t have to worry about the next generation. Riv loves being on the boat. He’ll probably happily take over one day.”
“Right now, Jake’s profession is his favorite, but the more time he spends with Dad, the more I think that might change,” I pause and then walk through the door he inadvertently opened. “Guess you and Nova have to work on a little business man or woman to take over the marketing side.”
He chuckles, which I think is a good sign, but then he shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll leave that to the rest of you. Terra’s probably our best bet for another grandkid. I’m more than happy to teach them all I know.”
“You don’t want kids?” I say, and he glances over at me with a confused look on his face.
“You know that,” he says and his voice is firm but not terse. “Everyone knows that. I have been crystal about it for a while now.”
“Nova feels that way too?”
I shouldn’t have said it. I know…but I don’t stop myself. Declan’s blue eyes grow stormy, and he stands up, legs wide apart to manage the shifting of the boat as it cuts through the choppy water. “Nova hears her biological clock ticking. It’s natural, and it’s also not logical. Trust me, Nova understands where we stand, and she’s good with it.”
He starts toward the wheel house and I open my mouth to stop him, to apologize, but nothing comes out but a weird sound. He spins back around to face me. “Scratch that last part. I know you don’t trust me. So ask her yourself. And for the record, it does fucking irk me that you and Finn always seem to care more about Nova’s feelings than mine.”
He marches across the boat deck and into the shelter of the wheelhouse next to River and Dad. I throw on my sunglasses, pull my hood up over my head, and lie flat across the back bench Declan vacated. This was not the easy, relaxing morning on the boat with my dad that I’d hoped for.
Twenty-five minutes later, Declan and I are doing what we’ve been doing since we were River’s age—pulling the Hawkins’ traps up. River squeals with delight as the first one hits the deck. He scrambles closer and leans over the trap to inspect the haul. “Riv, give me the rules.”
“They gotta be between three and a quarter inches to five inches in the body,” he says proudly. “Any bigger or smaller and we toss ‘em back. If it’s a girl and she’s got eggs on her, we scratch a little mark onto the end of the tail. That doesn’t hurt her at all. It’s like scratching your toenail.”
He looks up to my dad for reassurance. This was his big thing last month when he saw my dad do it to a fertile female. He was very concerned she didn’t get hurt. Dad nods and River continues, “And then she goes back in to have babies, and when someone else pulls her out, they’ll know she’s a mama and let her stay in the water, not in someone’s belly!”
Dad claps his hands and beams at River. “Good job Riv! Now Logan, open ‘er up and tell me what we got.” Dad pulls his knitted hat tighter on his head as I open the first trap.
Because it’s winter, my dad only goes out two times a week and only one of those days do we use the majority of our traps. Today is a small trap day. In the summer, we’re out every day with triple the traps we have in the winter. By the time we’re halfway done, even River’s glee for tossing back the lobsters we can’t keep has dwindled in the cold wind, and he’s disappeared to go play in the quarters underneath with the matchbox cars he keeps there.
When River’s gone, the mood darkens and after the tenth trap, my father finally can’t take it anymore. “So this little family outing is going just like I thought it would. Are you two ever going to get out of each other’s way and be brothers?”
Declan and I freeze. He’s got a lobster in one hand and the measuring stick we use for them in the other. I’ve got the bander machine that puts rubber bands around their claws in my hand. My dad is standing on the other side of the deck, working to rebait a now-empty trap. “You know, I’m gonna be dead one day and so will your ma, and her biggest fear is that once we’re gone you two never speak again,” he says and then snaps the lid on the trap closed with more force the required. “She didn’t have so many kids so you’d take care of her when she’s old. She had so many kids so you’d take care of each other.”
“I can take care of myself,” Declan mutters.
“I’m not going to abandon anyone,” I reply. “In an emergency.”
Dad points a gloved finger at me and then shifts to Declan. “Don’t you two do that to your ma. I’ll have to hear about it in the afterlife every damn day. Don’t think I won’t haunt your asses.”
Declan and I can’t suppress a chuckle at that one. As we laugh, Dad does too but he stops short. “I’m trying to be serious here, boys. She is worried about you two, and frankly I am too at this point. Even before all that crap five years ago, you two went out of your way to be hard and unforgiving to each other and not in that typical brotherly way Finn pretends to be to everyone. For real.”
Declan and I glance at each other with remorse. It’s not that we want to fight, it’s just that we have never found common ground. Declan pulls off his glove and scrubs his face with his hand as if trying to rub away the pained, annoyed look he’s been sporting almost this entire time. “I’m not going to disown him when you’re dead. I can tell Ma to her face if it’ll help.”
“Deck, buddy, just show her, don’t tell her,” Dad advises, his tone still sharp.
