Chapter 4
I hate this boat.
I freeze at the dock, staring grimly at my father’s fishing charter. I hate you back, it says, unconcerned. In the fading sunlight, the bone-white logo glows: Deep Sea Fishing Charters.
It’s a pretty evening, all golden bright and still. Three pelicans gather in an impatient knot near the dock, eager for the fishermen to hurl them slimy scraps.
I’m so nervous I keep wiping my palms on my jeans. Somewhere up ahead is my brother. I can’t see him, but I hear him call out in his easy way: “Got your fishing license, mate?”
I tap my foot impatiently. Here he is. Cotton shorts because he hates jeans, oversized hoodie that looks warm, dark blue with the Deep Sea Fishing logo.
“Got your—” Heath glances up at me and freezes, mouth falling slightly open.
“Hey,” I blurt eagerly. I want to step forward and throw my arms around him, but something tells me not to.
I wait instead, wiping my palms on my jeans again.
God, what if I’m wrong? What if my brother doesn’t want me here?
How many times has he saved me over the years?
And look at me now, running straight back to him, hoping he’ll save me once again.
It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Heath.
I came back four years ago for Jonah’s birth, sat rigid on the waiting room chair, thinking about the new addition.
We don’t add to the Greenwood name. We subtract.
Mum. Dad. Me, in a way. Heath extended the bloodline when I wanted it to drip down to nothing.
But my nephew arrived, squalling like a winter wind, and it was right.
Heath’s a father now, but to me, he’ll always be that overburdened teenager, drowning in slow motion. He stepped up without being asked, skipped meals so I wouldn’t have to, blocked my bedroom door with the dining room chair when Dad came home drunk and vicious.
It made Heath serious beyond his years. He doesn’t laugh or trust easily, and he’s slow to let his own needs show.
He’s forty-one now, and although he doesn’t look older, he looks harder somehow. His neck, chest, and shoulders are solid, and his face has that weathered look that only men who work on the sea seem to get.
The little boy in front gives us a curious look, and I can feel the man behind me becoming impatient.
But Heath doesn’t notice. Or care. His eyes soften, filling with tears, and I exhale with relief.
He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he wraps his arms around me, his left hand cradling the back of my head.
This is Heath. An open palm to my father’s fist.
He slowly pulls back. Neither of us know what to say. There’s a lot of blood under this bridge.
“Got your fishin’ license?” he finally asks, smiling.
“I’m not fishin’,” I tell him. “I just wanted to see you.”
I step forward until my shoe touches his boot. “I might need to stay with you for a bit…”
He nods once, places a hand on my shoulder, guiding me toward our family boat.
He does not ask why I’m back. Of course he doesn’t.
We’re good at keeping secrets.
—
I climb aboard the Deep Sea, teeth clenched. Dad’s been gone for over twenty years, yet my body still watches for him. Everywhere. Trauma lingers.
This boat, like his fishing knife, wasn’t just his possession. It was part of him.
Heath welcomes the tourists aboard. “Ya gonna catch a big one today, mate?” He smiles over his shoulder to the blond kid, who nods eagerly.
How different things are now. Dad tolerated the tourists, though most never booked with us twice.
Sometimes they’d pose proudly with their catch, and he’d snatch the fish up, plunge his knife through its belly, and rip the guts out with his bare hands.
I’ll never forget the horrified looks on their faces.
He always did enjoy taking what was rightfully yours.
Other times he’d hang around the railing, telling inappropriate jokes to the pretty women while their uneasy partners looked on, wondering if they should say something.
I stand behind the captain’s seat, breathing in all these time-machine scents. Water. Brine. Blood. Every now and then, Heath’s anxious gaze falls on me. I give him a tight smile, and I know he understands. The secret language of siblings.
When Dad owned this boat, it was blood-splattered, smeared with fish innards and squid ink. He painted it in rough coats of navy and black until the boat looked like a giant oil stain on the ocean.
But then he shot through, or got himself killed, depending on what you believe, and all we were left with was the mortgage payments and this goddamn boat.
I urged Heath to sell it and pay off a good chunk of the mortgage, but he wanted to keep it.
He makes his living off the sea, like our father, and his before him.
One day, Jonah will usher tourists aboard this boat, hatefully or happily, I’m not sure yet.
“Surprised you’re going out tonight,” I tell him. “Thought you weren’t doing the night charters anymore.”
“I’m not,” he says softly, nodding at the tourists. “But it’s nearing the end of the school holidays and…” He hesitates, lowering his voice. “It was hard to say no.”
What he means is, the money was hard to turn down. My brother’s no fool; if there’s money on the table, he’s taking a seat.
I hesitate before asking carefully, “How’s Jonah? Tara?”
“Good, good.” Heath’s reply is automatic, his smile tight. “They’re up in New South for a bit.”
I hesitate again, not sure whether to bring up his longtime girlfriend’s frequent absences.
Tara was a Deep Sea customer, just passing through.
Ten years later, I suspect she still wishes she were only passing through.
She doesn’t like it here, doesn’t like the men who move through it like sharks in the shallows.
The men own the town in all the ways that matter.
You don’t get in their way, and if you do, you either leave town quietly or you don’t leave at all.
Not for the first time I wonder if, in her mind, Heath belongs among those men.
I love my brother, but I know he bends the rules just enough to get what he wants without breaking anything too important.
There’s a glint in his eye that says, Don’t ask too many questions, and a smile that makes me say to myself, You owe him this.
I know it’s wrong, but when it’s your brother, sometimes you look the other way. I suspect he does the same thing with me.
I lean back, limbs loosening. I feel my brother here, in the boat.
See him in it, too. The hull gleams, the ropes are neatly coiled.
I watch him run a hand along the railing with a small nod, inspecting the rigging with a focused eye.
For my father, this boat and this business were a chore. For Heath, it’s an honor.
He looks over his shoulder directly at me and asks, “Ready, Min?”
I nod and he calls out, “Hold on, everyone! Gets a bit bumpy out there.”
With a jolt, we surge forward and the ocean rushes past. It’s a good feeling. Like you’re flying on your feet. The engine thrums in my fingers, my teeth. It’s the first time I’ve relaxed in days. Weeks, even.
The sun is sinking fast. By the time Heath pulls the throttle back, loosening his grip until we come to a slow stop, it’s gone completely, leaving us in sudden darkness.
I watch him as he makes his way to each client, speaking to them in his patient way. He crouches in front of the blond kid, shows him how to thread the silverbait through the hook.
“All right.” Heath claps both hands, grinning. “Rods in the water!”
It’s funny how quiet it gets when everyone casts over the side of the boat. Their backs are to us, silent and hopeful.
“The boat looks great,” I tell him. “You’ve done a lot to it.”
“It’s yours, too,” he says, stopping to peer at me. “You know that, yeah?”
“No,” I say firmly. “It’s yours, Heath.” Silently, I add, It’s for protecting me when no one else even thought to. Let me give you this. I have nothing else.
“We’ll see about that,” he says, before adding softly, “You here by yourself?”
“…Yeah.”
He nods, once. He’s never met Oliver, and now he never will. Thank God.
I look out at the water. It’s still and silent, hard to see now. I lean back in my seat, open my mouth to say something.
And then, from across the water, a scream rings out.
I freeze. This isn’t a shout of joy or even alarm. It’s a scream of horror.
Heath whirls around, searching the dark water. It’s deathly quiet now, just the soft lapping of the water and the murmur of the little boy from behind me, “Dad…what’s going on?”
Heath leans across the railing, squinting through the darkness. I see the outline of the pier and, next to it, a boat decorated with a skull and crossbones.
I squint. “That the Easy?”
The Reel Easy shares a long rivalry with the Deep Sea.
The two fishing charters used to butt heads back in the days when our dads were running them.
But my dad disappeared and Steven Newton, owner and captain of the Reel Easy, reluctantly retired, handing the baton to his son, Luke. My brother’s former best friend.
Heath marches up to the skipper’s seat and reaches for the marine radio. “You there, Luke?”
Nothing.
“Luke?”
Another scream rips through the air. It’s coming from the pier. Heath hangs up the radio, and calls out sharply, “Rods up, please.”
Silently, they begin reeling in. “What’s goin’ on?” the kid’s dad asks, nodding at the Easy. “They in trouble?”
“Not sure.” Heath bustles around the boat, tying everything up, pressing the winch to bring the anchor up. When the anchor is aboard, he rushes to the skipper’s seat. “We good?”
The tourists nod. The little boy sits on his father’s knee, eyes wide and afraid.
“Hold on tight,” Heath calls out.