Free Sample
Preview from chapter one
It was one of those days where the sun looked like it was trying too hard. I’d picked the cove for exactly that reason. No current, no jet skis, no possibility that someone would cruise by and want to “check out my new ride.” The bay was horseshoed by cliffs, which in the morning shaded the water a blue so dark it read as black, but by noon everything turned harsh and clinical, like a dentist’s waiting room with water.
Mom showed up right on time. I watched her walk carefully down the dock, sunglasses on. She wore the same old maroon windbreaker she’d worn since Dad was alive, the thing baggy enough now to look like she’d bought it for a different body. She shuffled, hands in pockets, as if she were cold, even though the air was muggy and the breeze was exactly zero.
“Victor?” she called, squinting, one hand cupping her brow.
I waved, made a show of fiddling with the lines. “Come on down! I’ll help you aboard.”
She hesitated at the edge, staring at the narrow aluminum ladder that hung off the dock. The water wasn’t more than four feet deep here, but it might as well have been the Marianas Trench. Mom never learned to swim. Not even the basics. A childhood trauma or maybe just a low, persistent fear of anything she couldn’t stand up in. Even when she washed dishes at home, she’d always kept the water just below the lip of the sink.
“Can you steady it?” she asked, voice already a little tight.
I jammed my foot against the gunnel, reached up a hand, and waited for her to take it. Her palm was papery, dry and soft in that weird, powdery way old people get, like the skin is just waiting for a reason to flake away. I hauled her down onto the deck, and she wobbled, then caught herself, jaw set like she was bracing for a dental drill.
“Wow,” she said, scanning the boat. “It’s beautiful, Vic. Is this really all yours?”
“Bought and paid for,” I said. “Here, have a seat at the stern. You’ll feel safer because it wobbles less.” I helped her to her seat and cast off the lines. “Don’t worry, I’ll go nice and slow.
We eased out of the cove, the engine barely above idle. The water was flat, except for the ripples left by our own hull. Mom kept her hands clamped on the vinyl, her grip so tight the knuckles blanched whiter than the deck. She never once looked away from the shore. Until the last of it disappeared under the horizon.