12. Sven
SVEN
The house was exactly as she'd left it.
I walked through the rooms that first morning after Cutter's Neck and looked at what she'd taken and what she hadn't. A few clothes. Her toothbrush. Her keys. That was all.
Her side of the wardrobe was still full.
I stood there looking at it. Eight years of dresses and shirts and the jeans she'd wear on the boat, and she'd left nearly all of it behind.
She'd taken the oldest things she owned.
The cotton shirts that were worn thin at the elbows.
The jeans with the blown knee. The deck shoes that were salt-stained and coming apart at the seams.
Everything I'd bought her was still hanging there.
I'd replaced those old things a dozen times over.
Bought her good wool coats and silk blouses and leather boots that cost more than most people made in a month.
She'd worn them when she had to. Smiled and said thank you.
And the moment she walked out, she'd left every single piece behind and taken the things she'd owned before she met me.
That hurt worse than the ring on the desk.
I called Deshawn that afternoon.
He came to the house. I had the papers ready. Full operational control, signatory authority, the works. Everything short of the ownership stake itself, which I couldn't transfer without a board vote and sixty days' notice.
He read through them twice. Then he looked up at me.
"You're sure about this?"
"I'm sure."
"Sven—"
"It's already done," I said. "I had the lawyers draw it up yesterday. All it needs is your signature."
He set the papers down. "Are you all right?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
He waited. The clock on the wall ticked. Outside, gulls were calling over the water.
"Talk to me," he said.
"There's nothing to say."
"There's plenty to say. You're signing over a company you built from nothing."
"You've earned it."
"That's not the point."
"It's exactly the point."
He leaned back in his chair. Looked at me for a long moment.
"This is about Etta," he said.
"Yes."
"You think this is going to fix it."
"No."
"Then why?"
"Because it's what I should have done years ago."
"What does that mean?"
I looked out the window. The water was flat and gray under the morning light.
"I spent eight years building this company," I said. "Every hour I wasn't with her, I was building this. And I told myself it was for her. For us. That I was giving her security."
"You were."
"She didn't want security. She wanted me."
He didn't say anything.
"And now she's gone," I said. "And the company's still here. So what was it all for?"
"Sven."
"Sign the papers, Deshawn."
He looked at me. Then he picked up the pen.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"I've got work lined up."
"Where?"
"Insley's."
He stopped, pen halfway to the page. "Orrin Insley?"
"Yes."
"Doing what?"
"Day hire. Pulling cages."
"You're serious."
"Yes."
"Sven, you haven't worked a deck in twenty-six years."
"I know."
"You're forty-six years old."
"I'm aware."
"You're going to kill yourself out there."
"Maybe."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny."
He set the pen down. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because Orrin's short-handed and Etta needs supply."
"So you're working for free so a competitor can sell to your wife."
"Ex-wife."
"She hasn't signed the papers yet."
"She will."
He shook his head. "This is insane."
"Probably."
"You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"Because it's the only thing left I can give her."
He looked at me for a long time. Then he picked up the pen and signed.
Neither of us said a word about the sourcing. We both knew where those crates were going. We both knew what it meant that I'd driven down to Cutter's Neck and come back with my hands empty and a day-hire job I wasn't being paid for.
He stood up. Held out his hand. I shook it.
"You know she's not going to take you back," he said quietly.
"I know."
I was at Insley's dock at quarter to four the next morning.
Orrin was already there, standing beside a weathered wooden shack with a light burning inside. He had a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other.
Curtis, his regular hand, was down at the water's edge, checking lines on the skiff. I could see another man farther down the dock, a shape in the dark.
Orrin looked up when I walked over. He didn't say good morning.
He just held out the clipboard. "Name on the sheet."
I took it. There were two names above mine. Curtis Mehaffey. Jesse Crowe.
I wrote Vinny and left the surname blank.
Orrin watched me do it. He looked at the name for a long moment. Then he looked at me.
He didn't say a word.
He just took the clipboard back and walked down toward the skiff.
The first tide was hard.
I thought I could be clever about it. I'd crewed Halvor's deadrise for six years when I was a kid.
I knew how to read water, how to pull a cage without fouling the line, how to check an oyster and know whether it was market-ready or needed another season.
I'd built a business on knowing what to keep and what to throw back.
Being clever didn't help.
The cages were heavier than I remembered. The pull was harder. My hands weren't used to the work anymore. Twenty-six years of sitting in an office, running numbers, working phones and contracts, and my body had forgotten what it was like to haul dead weight out of cold water at four in the morning.
I tried to be strong about it instead.
That failed faster.
I was forty-six and soft and my back started complaining an hour in. My shoulders burned. My hands cramped around the lines and I had to force them open to let go.
Curtis didn't say anything. He worked three cages to my one and never looked at me.
Orrin was working the lines on the other side. He moved like a man who'd been doing this his whole life. No wasted motion. Pull, sort, toss, reset. Every movement efficient.
He glanced over at me. "You all right?"
"Fine."
"You're favoring your left hand."
"I'm fine."
"Let me see it."
I held it out. The skin was already red and starting to blister.
"You bring gloves?" he asked.
"No."
He pulled a pair from his pocket and tossed them to me. "Use those. Otherwise you'll tear your hands apart by noon."
"Thanks."
"Don't thank me. You're no good to me if you can't work."
I put the gloves on and went back to pulling cages.
Jesse, the nineteen-year-old, was pulling steady on the other side of the skiff.
He had the rhythm down. Pull, hand over hand, no wasted motion.
Swing the cage up onto the rail, pop the door, grade the clusters straight into the sorting trays, toss the empties and the culls over the side, door closed, cage back in the water. Forty seconds start to finish.
It took me three minutes.
Orrin looked over. "You're fighting it."
"What?"
"The pull. You're fighting it. Let the weight do the work."
"I am."
"No, you're not. You're trying to muscle it. Watch."
He pulled the next cage. Made it look easy.
"See that? Let the cage swing. Don't force it."
I tried it on the next one. It didn't feel any easier.
"Better," he said. "Keep doing it like that."
By mid-morning my hands were ruined.
The gloves helped for the first hour. After that they just kept the blisters from tearing open right away. The salt water burned in the raw spots and my fingers wouldn't close all the way anymore. I tried to keep working. Tried not to let it show.
Jesse looked over at me while I was fumbling with a cage door. He didn't say anything for a minute. Then he came around the sorting trays and stood next to me.
"You're holding it wrong," he said.
Not rudely. Not kindly either. Just stating a fact.
He reached out and adjusted my grip, moving my hand farther down the rail and turning my wrist so the line sat in my palm instead of across my fingers.
"Like that," he said. "Less friction."
"Got it."
"Weight on your legs, not your back. You keep pulling like that, you're gonna wreck yourself."
He showed me. Slow, like he was teaching a kid.
"Bend here," he said, pointing to his knees. "Not here." He pointed to his back.
"All right."
"You done this before?"
"Long time ago."
"How long?"
"Twenty-six years."
He whistled. "That's a while."
"Yeah."
"What'd you do after?"
"Other things."
He looked at me, curious. "Like what?"
"Built a fleet."
"What kind of fleet?"
"Trawlers. Supply boats."
"Where at?"
"Gulf coast. Up into the Chesapeake."
"Big operation?"
"It was."
"Was?"
"Signed it over yesterday."
He blinked. "Why?"
"Seemed like the right time."
"To give up a whole fleet and come pull cages?"
"Something like that."
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Man, I don't know what your story is, but that's crazy."
"Probably."
"Well, you're doing all right," he said. "For day one."
"Appreciate it."
"Just don't try to be a hero. Pace yourself. Otherwise you'll be done by lunch."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He went back to his work. Orrin was watching from the other side of the skiff, but he didn't say anything.
We pulled cages for another two hours. The sun climbed higher. The water warmed. My back locked up twice and I had to straighten up and stretch it out before I could keep going.
Curtis looked over at one point. "You want a break?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I'm fine."
He shrugged and went back to work.
By the time we brought the skiff in at two, I could barely stand up straight.
Orrin was waiting on the dock with a flatbed stacked with empty crates. We loaded them in silence. Jesse and Curtis worked fast, two men who'd done this a thousand times. I worked slow and tried to keep up.
When the last crate was loaded, Orrin looked at the haul. He nodded once.
"Good pull," he said.
Then he looked at me. "You'll be back tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"You sure about that?"
"Yes."
"Four o'clock. Early tide."
"I'll be here."
He turned to Curtis. "Take the load up to Boone's crew. They're set up in the industrial park past the causeway. Yolanda's got the address."
Curtis nodded and climbed into the truck.
Orrin didn't look at me when he said it. He just watched the truck pull away.