The Scent Keeper(39)

The silence on the other side of the line was long and considered.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes.” No.

“We need to talk, Emmeline.” Her voice was firm. “What happened today—”

“I know.”

A pause.

“I’ll have Henry come pick you up at eight,” she said.

“Okay.” I could almost smell her through the phone line—cinnamon, overlaid with the scent of worry.



* * *



I hung up and went to stand in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Fisher and his mother. They worked automatically and in silence, Fisher helping his mother with an easy efficiency. No wonder he’d made such a good cottage-cleaning companion. They handed each other utensils without words, their movements small and careful, no clattering of knives, no banging of pots. They were a team, and in a way it made me jealous, although I knew I had no right to the feeling. Besides, this was a different kind of team.

The shower was still going.

“Maridel!” We all jumped at the sound. Fisher’s mother opened the refrigerator, got out another beer, and disappeared.

“Are you coming back to school?” I asked Fisher when she was out of the room. I needed him to talk to me.

I couldn’t say the other thought in my head.

Are you going to be okay?

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“But that’s not fair.”

“No,” he said flatly. “It’s not.”



* * *



“I was already a fisherman when I met this woman here.”

We were midway through a dinner of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes, the comforting smells turned brittle by the strain in the air. Fisher’s mother passed the bowls often, always making sure her husband’s plate was full. Fisher’s father was on his fifth beer. He seemed to be the only person in that room who wasn’t counting the empty cans.

“Maridel was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” Martin went on, leaning back in his chair. “That long red hair, those big green eyes. I saw her standing on the side of the road; gave her a ride into town. She told me she loved the sea, too—could help me fish. She was the perfect woman, I thought, and I’d found her, like in a fairy tale.”

He told the story with great relish, his hands and face moving, filled with energy. It was hard not to stare.

“So we got married,” he said. “But when we went out in the boat, she threw up every time we left the cove. The only thing that woman ever caught was me. And the fish went to shit. They know when a liar’s been on your boat.”

“Martin,” Fisher’s mother said quietly.

“It’s true,” Fisher’s father said. His eyes narrowed. His upper lip raised, just one side. Contempt.

I knew what to look for; Fisher had taught me. Nothing good comes from half a face.

“You know the kicker?” Fisher’s father shifted his weight forward, closing the distance between us. “My son always said he hated the ocean, too. I took him out once and he acted like I was trying to kill him the whole time. Fisher,” he said, and laughed. “That name sure didn’t work.”

He took a long swallow from the can in his hand. The three of us waited.

“How was school today, Emmeline?” Fisher’s mother asked. Fisher shot her a quick look.

“I wasn’t even sure if he was mine sometimes,” Fisher’s father went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I mean, look at him.”

Fisher’s mother sat up straighter in her chair. Fisher went still. They were mirror images of each other; Fisher’s father was right about that. There wasn’t a bit of his dark eyes or hair in Fisher.

Martin kept his gaze on me while he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, chose one, and lit it. He inhaled and blew the smoke out across the table.

“But a vow is a vow,” he said. “Besides, it turns out Fisher likes the water just fine. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I’ve finally got me a real helper.” He turned his gaze toward Fisher, and the look was so cold it crackled.

Fisher tensed.

“What about school?” I blurted out. Fisher’s father turned back to me and I instantly wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

“Fishermen don’t need school,” he said. He took another pull on the cigarette. “They just need to know fish.”

“Martin.” Fisher’s mother again.

“What?” The word snapped like a branch in a storm.

Fisher leaned toward me. “Doesn’t Colette want you home by seven?” he said.

I nodded, grateful for the lie.

“Can you drive her, Fisher?” his mother asked.

“We’re low on gas.” Martin’s face was set.

“We can’t just send her off into the woods,” she murmured.

Fisher stood up. “I’ll walk her down,” he said. Martin started to rise.

“Fisher,” he said, and I saw his right hand flex, once.

Fisher turned to him, his eyes hot. His mother leaned forward, her chair scraping on the wooden floorboards. Fisher stepped back.

“Let’s go, Emmeline,” he said, and pulled me toward the door.