Chapter 6
MAREN
If my father were to play any character on a TV show, he’d be the mean prison guard. He’s tough, with square shoulders that almost got him a scholarship to college to play football, or so he says. He’s got shrewd eyes, narrow lips, and limited patience or tolerance.
He likes rules. Order. And punishing those who break either.
His beige uniform fits his build snugly, because even though my father is sixty, he works out like a beast to stay in shape and used to have a poster of Robert De Niro working out in the prison cell in the movie Cape Fear hanging in the gym he built in the garage.
And right now, he’s doing that psychological thing he always did when I was a kid: walking around the boathouse quietly, touching things as if he has all the time in the world before he lays into me.
He does it to make me sweat.
And I hate that it works.
I also hate that I sometimes flinch around him, when he occasionally steps close. It’s as though he’s thinking about hitting me, but he hasn’t so far. Every now and then, I can see the loathing in his eyes, and I wonder what I’ll do the first time he does.
Today, I don’t know whether I’m going to get the full blast of anger, or some “daddy’s disappointed in you” lecture.
Either way, I’m glad Knox has left and I’m alone. Disliking me might be the only thing Knox and my father have in common, and I don’t think I could handle so much disdain at once.
And as much as I hate to admit, I’m already embarrassed by what Knox has seen. I know I shouldn’t tolerate it, but I also don’t know what I would do if my father engineered the removal of any of my business licenses.
Finally, my father turns. “Are you planning on associating yourself with the very organizations I battle every day?”
Ah, it’s neither of the above. I’m going to get the grandiose and overly dramatic lecture about his town.
“I was working. He had a question. I answered it.” I begin to situate the rack holding the life vests away from the entrance.
“What was his question?” The clipped sound of my father’s boots on concrete cause my stomach to tighten.
He never uses Knox’s name. It’s always he or him or that man.
While the history between our families is deep, I think the thing that bothers my father most is the way Knox can lead without fear, whereas my father has to threaten to get anything done.
I try to think of a lie my father would believe. He’s a clever man and will see through it straightaway if it’s weak. If I tell him it’s about unpaid invoices, my father will overreact and use it as an opportunity to challenge Knox.
“He’s thinking of buying a business.”
“Your business?”
I knew that would garner his interest, as he hates this place, but I shrug, like I’m indifferent. “He asked. I said no.”
This has my father’s full attention. “You know what else he’s thinking about buying?”
I shake my head. “The man barely says two words to me on any given day.” It’s a lie, but my father doesn’t know this. “It was a short conversation. Have I ever considered selling? I said no. That was it. I didn’t ask any more questions because what he does is his concern and not mine.”
My father comes over to the rack I’m moving. “You never did have a good head for business. You could fleece the man. Make a killing. Then, get a proper job instead of running this shit hole.”
When I took on running this place while my grandfather was sick, it was losing money. Now, this shit hole is profitable and pays me a decent salary. Not enough for trips to Paris to see all the art in the Louvre, but enough to give me a sunny break once a year and keep gas in my car.
When I don’t answer, my father does that thing where he dips his chin to try to get me to look into his eyes. “You think people won’t notice?”
“Notice what?”
“You, standing out there with the president of the local organized crime gang.”
I sigh and turn to face him. “Dad. It’s a free country. I can’t stop the man asking me questions.”
“You embarrass me when you let people think they can walk in where my family runs their business.”
There it is. It’s not about me, or what Knox really wanted, or whether he intended to do me any harm.
It’s about how me being seen with him affects the sheriff’s reputation.
I feel old instincts rise, the urge to apologize, to promise it won’t happen again.
To smooth things over and make his life easier so he’ll leave faster.
But I think back to something my therapist said before I paraphrase her response.
“I can live my life without running my choices through a filter for your approval or consideration of how it will affect you. You’re the sheriff.
You do you. I run a bait and marine supply business that relies heavily on the patronage of the local community, including a group of men who identify as bikers. Your opinion here doesn’t matter.”
Dad’s nostrils flare, and his breathing gets heavier with every word I say.
“Maren,” he says, low and controlled. “I don’t know where you got all that bullshit from, but that was a new low, even for you. From childhood, I gave you rules for life, for self-discipline, to maintain control of who you are and what you stand for. I expected better.”
I huff at that. “Yeah, well, we view my childhood differently. Your actions caused me nothing but pain and loneliness.”
And maybe that’s why I’m still here, because even though both my grandparents are gone, I’m wrapped in the memory of them standing here in this building.
I practiced rollerblading in the large storeroom with my grandmother.
I learned to fish off the dock with my grandfather.
And I did hours of homework sitting behind the counter with them.
“You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me.”
“I’m sure Mom super appreciated the two minutes the sperm donation took.”
The words fall out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them. My hand flies to cover my mouth way too late.
“You bitch,” my father says, getting close to my face.
His hand goes up, and as it does, I take a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
And I was doing so well at not falling into old patterns.
“That club is dangerous. That man’s brother almost killed me. Since then, I’ve done everything I can to hold my head high and know I’d defend this town with my last breath if I had to.”
A whisper of a thought flashes through my mind: It would be better for everyone if someone took that shot.
“Men like that protect their own. So, you refused to sell to him. What happens next? If they can’t have it, they decide you can’t have it either.
You wake up tomorrow and the store is on fire, burning around you like the death trap it is.
And then, who will you come running to? Me.
Your actions will put them in my path again.
Do you want them to try to kill me too?”
Yes. Yes, I do.
“Of course not,” I lie.
“Then stay away from them, Maren. Ban them from your store, your property. Don’t have private conversations with any of them.”
“You seem to think that I’m friends with them. I’m not. I serve them a two-pound box of frozen shrimp bait if they come in to buy, and I occasionally try to upsell them hooks and ice while they’re paying. But, often, the most I say to them is that it’ll be sixteen bucks.”
My father shoves his hands to his hips. “Stop being obtuse, Maren. You know what I’m trying to say. Do you understand me?”
A fireball of answers flash through my brain, but I settle on the simplest one to make this conversation end: “Yes.”
The word comes out flat.
My father watches me for a few more seconds, and I pray he has nothing left to say. When he turns on his heel and walks out, slamming the door behind him, I let out a whoosh of breath. But I don’t move until I hear his engine fade down the road.
“You okay?” Leo asks as he appears from inside the bait shop. He walks slowly towards me like I’m a wild animal that just got cornered.
“Yeah. I’m good.” I look out over the dock to the tall cypress trees, that curve around the edge of the water, bend in the wind.
Leo puts his hand on my bicep and leads me out the roller shutter doors to the steps to my apartment. Rain whips around my face. “You should finish early today. I’ll stay and lock up.”
I look at the wooden steps, a little uncertain how I got here. I don’t remember maneuvering past the chairs outside the front of the store. “Thank you, Leo. If you’re sure, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”
I’m on the second step when Leo calls my name, so I turn to face him.
“Your grandfather knew your father was cruel,” he says.
“He was heartbroken when your mother decided to marry him, because he saw the writing on the wall. He always blamed your father for the loss of his daughter. He once said the only good thing Sheriff Caldwell did in his life was create you. You don’t owe that man anything.
And maybe it’s time you banned him from the store. ”
“I’ll consider that. Thank you, Leo.”
I push the door to the apartment open and ponder what my father said about a fire as I shake the water droplets out of my hair. If this place were burning, I’d just jump out the window, but maybe I should get one of those rope ladders.
My keys clatter as I drop them into the small ceramic dish I made when I went on a pottery weekend in Tampa.
Next to it is a picture of me and my grandparents when we went on a trip to Charlottesville, North Carolina.
I’d done well in a Spelling Bee competition, and as a reward, we’d spent a few days there.
They’d taken me out for dinner to a place that served the best fried chicken and ham biscuits.
Thankfully, my home smells so different from the diesel and bait downstairs. Up here, it’s coffee and paint and the faint scent of line-dried linen I put on the bed this morning.
The apartment isn’t huge, and the hallway opens out into the living room.
It’s only eight hundred square feet in total, but it feels expansive because of the three large, old-framed windows that stretch across the wall that faces out over the dock.
The sunlight hits the water at just the right angle to throw rippling reflections onto the ceiling.
Right in front of the middle window is my easel, splattered with years and years of dried paint.
A tall wooden stool sits nearby, although I rarely use it because I prefer to stand when I paint landscapes.
I’ve been painting the sunset more and more recently.
Cinematic hues of pink and purple and orange as opposed to the lush blues and greens during the day.
Beside the easel is a metal rolling cart filled with brushes in jars, tubes of paint, rags, and a palette knife.
And all of it sits on a cheap rug I picked up that’s covered in paint splats and drips.
At one point, I considered throwing it out to get a new one, but now it’s become my lucky carpet, of sorts, and I couldn’t bear to part with it.
The couch is small but comfortable, and it’s draped in a thick throw I made at a weaving retreat in upstate New York.
I toe off my boots and head for the bathroom, peeling off the bait-shop T-shirt and the shorts I wear for the airboat tours. My shower takes less than ten minutes, and then I pull on a pair of soft cotton shorts and an old tank top and decide to let my hair air dry.
The kitchen is barely more than a corner of the living space.
The white cabinets are old, and one of my projects for the off-season is to sand them all down and paint them an eggshell blue.
Most households no longer have a bread box, but the one I use was handcrafted by my grandfather as a birthday gift for my grandmother.
I grab some of the homemade sourdough I store in mine and slice a large chunk before slathering it in butter.
I add a little cheese to the plate and throw in a few token cherry tomatoes to pretend it constitutes dinner.
Plate in hand, I wander back to the living room and pause in front of my easel. Outside, the water bumps softly against the dock pilings.
I set the plate down, pick up a brush, and let the quiet of the room settle around me.
Usually, painting calms me, yet today I’m feeling…stirred. But it’s not the argument with my father pushing me to start a new canvas.
It’s a biker.