I felt better about the evening, and myself. Disappointment and relief are not an uncommon mixture, in my experience.
The question was, what about tomorrow?
Don’t go alone. How many times had I been told that? Didn’t matter. If Sabin Martinez couldn’t rearrange his schedule, I’d find someone else. Or not. What I’d told Kermit was true. I’ve spent much of my life alone in small boats, and it is the rare waterman whose knowledge exceeds my own.
A sense of freedom and confidence are a less common mixture. That’s the attitude I embraced. I had a window of one, maybe two days. Come hell or high water, I would go. It was sixty miles to what I thought of as Choking Creek. The wind had settled, but the Gulf would still be rough. It was wiser to trailer my skiff, drive to Marco Island, and use the public boat ramp. I-or we-would have to be on the water by sunrise. There was no guessing how long it would take to clear the tunnel my uncle had cut years earlier. The same was true of finding an orange tree on an island thick with catbriers and vines. By noon, the sun would be high. Reptiles would be on the move. I wanted to be long gone by then.
Such a trip required preparation. First, though, I needed socks and shoes.
My lord, it was cold standing there barefoot on that dock.
A little before ten, my phone beeped with a text. I’d given up on Kermit so was pleased to see it was from him.
Sorry worked late, then home. I always tell Sara a bedtime story. U mad?
Not after reading his excuse. This began an exchange that felt oddly comfortable. Texting negated the tension of speaking face-to-face yet ensured privacy. Secrecy-another way of looking at it.
Back and forth we went after I wrote:
Not mad. Sarah comes first, business second. Will it freeze tonight?
Probably not. Forecast low is 40 degrees. U on for boat trip?
Think so. Seems smart what you suggested.
Is that a yes?
Yes.
Tomorrow morning?
Very early. I’ll tell you how it goes.
Not without me. What time R U leaving dock?
Kermit had bypassed my indecision. He was also my only choice unless Martinez showed up. So far, not a word from him.
I wrote, I’m trailering my skiff to Marco Island. Hang on.
In the Marlow’s galley, the propane oven was lit for heat. Atop the table was a nautical chart, a tide table, and a list of Florida boat ramps. The tide table provided information that I passed along.
Sunrise is 7:01 a.m. I want to be on water by then. You don’t have to go.
I WANT to go. Meet U on Marco at 6:30? Will bring doughnuts and coffee.
There. It was settled.
I sent directions to the public boat ramp on Collier Avenue, a mile inland from the Marco Island Bridge. There were a few things I suggested he bring: gloves, heavy boots, a machete, but omitted firearms. It was better he didn’t carry a gun if he’d had no training. After a pleasant, easygoing exchange about the weather, smudge pots, and how pretty the stars were tonight, the man signed off abruptly, writing, Sara is up. Bye.
That was okay, too. Family first. Always.
Or was it…?
I reviewed our texts. His daughter’s name was spelled with an h. I’d seen it on her sketchbook, yet twice he’d spelled it S-a-r-a. Children, girls especially, were fickle about such things. It was possible she had added the h as an affectation. It was also possible that texting has made us all lazy and inarticulate. Kermit’s many shortcuts proved it, as did my own.
On the other hand, an adoring father wouldn’t do that. No… the h had to be an embellishment from Sara’s imagination. It’s what I wanted to believe, but the inconsistency nagged at me.
It was quarter after ten. Outside, my skiff was already trailered, secured with straps, and hitched to my SUV. Sandwiches, drinks, an emergency kit, were packed and stowed. My destination had been entered into a Garmin GPS mounted on the boat’s console. A handheld VHF radio was charging. I needed fuel, but the tank could be topped off on the drive to Marco Island.
I went inside, bolted the cabin door, and showered. This took courage. The Marlow’s “water heater” consisted of a few heating elements built into the cabin’s AC. The system is impotent as a cheap toaster. I was shaking before I got my hair rinsed well.
Cocooned in sweaters, sweatpants, and a blanket, I checked the thermometer a last time.
Thirty-nine degrees. Already, colder than the married man had predicted.
I should have slept fairly well after seeing that, but I couldn’t. After midnight, I was up again, the galley propane stove on high. The warmest spot on the boat was at the helm, where the cabin roof is elevated. Warm air rises. I sat in the captain’s chair, lights off, looking at stars while more details nagged at me regarding Kermit Bigalow.
That afternoon, while helping load plants into his Silverado, my eyes had seen the truck bed as empty, save for a detritus of hay and straw and a few other things commonly carried by ranch hands. But Kermit wasn’t a rancher. He grew citrus. He had no livestock to feed or stalls to muck. Straw might be useful around the base of a tree, but why had he been hauling hay?
My imagination moved to the Chatham ranch, where, that afternoon, I’d heard a truck start. The doors of an amber barn opened. Lonnie was there, straightening her collar as if she’d dressed in haste. Within was a hidden space, redolent of clover hay freshly cut. And freshly delivered, Lonnie had said.
The scene switched to the boathouse, the day I’d surprised Kermit swimming. This was only minutes after he’d witnessed Lonnie with a lover, or so he claimed. But it was Kermit’s clothes hanging on the railing…
Stop it, I told myself. The prospect of a woman like Lonnie seducing a common citrus grower was absurd. Mean-spirited jealousy had launched my suspicions, not reality.
Jealousy.
There it was, the truth. I was jealous of a man who wore a ring and adored his daughter. Was that where my life was headed?
At the helm, the captain’s chair is stabilized by a locking lever. I disengaged the lever and spun to see the star-glazed windows of the house my grandfather had built and where my mother lives alone. Always alone. Echoing within an empty porch, Loretta’s claims about no regrets, of loving a man purely for love’s sake, rang with the timbre of hollowed bone.
It was the way she was. A tactic. Loretta was not above manipulating me into an affair after pretending to warn me of the dangers. Guilt, like pain and loneliness, is more bearable if shared.
I slipped from the chair and went down the steps into the cabin. My phone was on the table. Next to it was the nickel-plated Devel pistol and a box of 9mm cartridges. Speer Gold Dot hollow-points. My friend Birdy had split the cost after a fun day at the range. They were expensive, highly rated for personal defense.
Staring at the phone, I released the magazine and cleared the pistol. Several times I dry-fired, pressing the trigger with a familiarity once reserved for the clarinet I played in high school.
How often, since those years, had I spared my hands the hazards of familiarity? And the allure of restless wanting; a longing to touch and be touched.