And The Sea Called Her Name(10)

The barrier broke in the afternoon on a day so clear and bright, it was tempting to keep your sunglasses on even while inside. The wind was coming from the west, something I realized only years later as to what may have caused the change, and the air was redolent of fall. I’d quit early that day, hoping to send in a job application for a managerial position at a local bank via email before their offices closed. It was the last day they were accepting submissions and I’d learned of the opening only the day before. When I entered the house, Del was waiting in the kitchen and immediately I could tell something was different.

“Hi,” she said as I set my gear down inside the front entry.

“Hi.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’ve been wanting to say that for the last week but couldn’t find the right time or way to do it.”

I stepped forward into the kitchen and she rose, pushing herself up with one hand on the table. Her stomach looked so large in the dress she wore.

“I’m sorry too,” I began, but she shook her head and smiled but I could see tears in her eyes, almost ready to drop free onto her face.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I don’t know what came over me in the last few months. I’ve been really cold and distant. But I was telling the truth that night on the porch. There’s no one else, there could never be.”

I tried to say something, but there were no words that could convey the relief I felt. I stepped forward and held her, kissing her with everything I’d been holding back over the months. The worry, the heartache, the longing, the jealousy, everything poured out in that single moment, and I was refilled with the love for her that hadn’t ever truly departed. She kissed me back and seconds later we were on the floor, groping at one another’s clothing, peeling it away like the barriers that had fallen from the gap between us.

We made love there on the hardwood, our caresses long and gentle, and when it was through, we held each other until evening crept in with placid shadows.

I cooked her lobster that night. I’d brought two home thinking that I’d be eating alone again on the back porch. Del devoured the entire meal with a gusto I hadn’t witnessed in weeks. When she began to playfully pick at the last few bites of my lobster tail, I slid the plate to her.

“You need it more than I do.”

She smiled. “I’ve had such a craving for seafood lately. Could you start bringing more home?”

“It’s the one thing I can do well, I guess,” I said. “No one else seems to want to hire me.”

She touched my hand. “It’ll happen when it’s time, just like everything else. Until then we’ll be just fine.”

And so throughout the next week I brought her the food she requested. Lobster, shrimp, tuna, cod. Some I caught and others I purchased from the market beside the harbor. Despite the jubilation at our relationship rekindling, a small part of me was growing more and more concerned. It was Del’s requests for how her food was to be cooked. Increasingly she wanted the fish cooked less, the shrimp boiled for only minutes. At times she caught me watching her tear through a limp and slightly slimy cut of fish, and I’m sure she saw a hint of revulsion on my face. I couldn’t always hide it, and she assured me that anything from the sea was perfectly safe to eat even raw. She would shrug and say the cravings must have come late, before popping another jellied piece of seafood into her mouth.

It was a Saturday when I brought the three small squid home for dinner. I’d spent the day in Portland, checking on several applications I’d dropped off and shaking hands with various managers at the businesses, making it a point to introduce myself personally each time. The need to be off of the boat was nearly a physical thing by then. I had even started to get seasick on days that the swells climbed anywhere over five feet. I hadn’t been seasick since my seventh birthday.

When I got home, Del was doing a load of laundry and humming something to herself. I carried the squid to the kitchen sink in the container the market had provided, the six inches of water inside slopping against the lid. I could see their shapes through the semi-transparent plastic the container was made of, their alien bodies interwoven and claw-like where their short tentacles trailed out. They propelled themselves through the water, bumping against the plastic barrier with soft thuds. Del had asked for them specifically the night before, saying she had such a craving for fresh calamari it wasn’t even funny. I had only cooked squid twice before and wasn’t relishing the thought of dispatching the live creatures with my fillet knife.