The Water Keeper(13)

I waited. She was hurting and I needed to let her talk.

“Just wanted you to hear from me that . . . I will and I do.” She patted her chest. “With all of the broken pieces of me.”

I brushed the hair out of her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t give you what I promised you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . .” She looked away. “Something was taken from me . . . when I was younger. Once it’s gone . . .” She shook her head. “It never comes back.”

“What’re you—”

“My father.” The tears broke loose and she reached for me. Clinging. “Please don’t think I’m dirty. It was a long time ago.”

Wasn’t tough to put the pieces together.

She spoke in my ear. “Mom found out. Divorced him. I haven’t seen him since he got out of prison.”

I held her, and what started low and quiet became loud, angry, and painful. Something she’d been holding a long time. Maybe since it happened. I held her face in my hands and kissed her. Her lips tasted salty. “I loved you from before the moment I met you. Always have. Nothing changes that. Ever.”

“You still want me?”

I wrapped my arms around her waist and smiled. “Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if—”

I pressed my finger to her lips. “Stop. I love you. All of you. Just the way you are. I’m not making light of any of this, but love . . .”

Desperation wrecked her eyes. “Does what?”

I searched for the words. “Writes over the old memories. Makes beauty out of pain. Love writes what can be.”

“You promise?”

“I do.”

She pressed her body to mine. “Then write me.”

How do you bury the two people you love most in this world? The trip south to spread Fingers’ ashes would take several days, a couple weeks even. Then I had to turn around. Get back. The round trip would allow me time to get used to the idea of spreading Marie’s ashes upon my return. Who was I kidding? Get used to? I think not. The only thing the time gave me was more time to wrestle with the idea.

Which was both good and terrible.

Earlier in my apartment, standing there staring at the purple urn and the orange box, I knew I couldn’t deal with both at once. I had to take them one at a time. And while I didn’t know who to bury first, I knew I couldn’t just walk out into that water and spread Marie’s ashes. My heart wasn’t ready for that. Too sudden. Too final. So I’d moved Marie’s urn to the center of the table, kissed the lid, and tucked Fingers’ orange box under my arm.

Now the current lapped against the hull, tugging against the boat, tugging against me. Southward. My Whaler is a center-console bay boat. The steering wheel is connected to a console that rises out of the center of the boat. Which means you can walk around it while still inside the boat. The console holds the electronics and throttle and steering control, as well as space for storage and a tiny toilet. It was meant for kids or women who weren’t comfortable going over the side of the boat or just needed some privacy. I’d never used it.

When Fingers met me, I was just a teenager, no more than thirteen. He’d discovered I had a thing with fish. Meaning I could catch them when others couldn’t. He’d hire me to take him fishing. And there in that boat, I got to know this priest who wore a robe, and he got to know me, this kid with a lot going on in his head and little ability to get those words out of his mouth. Over time, he dug in and helped pull me out of me. He gave me the words.

Years passed. Sometime later he learned I had a bit of a green thumb and that I had an inherent hatred of weeds, so he offered me a permanent position at his parish. “I see what you’re doing,” I joked. “Two birds with one stone: somebody to mow the grass—and pole you through the grass flats.”

He’d smiled. He loved to fly-fish a flood tide, where he could sight the fish.

I didn’t see it then, but he was grooming me. Every interaction was purposeful. Calculated. Intentional. He was not only teaching me to see—he was teaching me what to look for. It was in those moments at early dawn, watching the sun rise as he cast off my bow, that he taught me about the one, and how the needs of the one outweigh those of the ninety-nine. It would be years before I understood what he meant.

I started to stow Fingers’ lunch box in the head, where it would be safe and protected from the elements, but I thought better of it. He wouldn’t like that. He’d want to be where he could see. Where he could feel the wind in his face. So I strapped him to a flat section on the bow and secured him with several ropes. A hurricane couldn’t rip him off there. Once he was secure, I checked the time. Fingers’ Submariner was worn, scratched, and lost a few seconds every day, but that didn’t bother me. He’d bought it thirty years prior while serving on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. Told me it was the best $600 he’d ever spent.

I asked him one time, “What’re you doing with a Rolex?”

He had smiled and scratched his chin. “Telling the time.”

I raised my jack plate, thereby lifting my engine as far up as it could go while still spinning the propeller in the water, cranked the engine, nudged the throttle into drive, and idled out of the backwater.