Kneeling, Davy dangled the net over the side. Now, in the late afternoon, the water’s surface was a sickly, deep, impenetrable green. It smelled of salt and overly-wet vegetation.
Bile rose in Davy’s throat, but he held it down.
“Here it comes, boy—here it comes!”
From the soupy depths something became visible, twirling as it reluctantly rose. Davy held the net ready. The shadow became more distinct: a long, slender shape, heavy in the water.
His father peered over the side, squinting.
“Can you see what it is, boy?”
“Yes…”
The thing broke water. Its black, thin, slick head rose out to stare up at Davy with leaden eyes—
“Snatch it with the net, boy! Can you see—?”
His father’s voice suddenly turned full of disgust. The black thing’s head held suspended for a moment, mouth opening to show the embedded hook in its jaw, its head now seeming to expand in the air, to change shape, before there was a snap and it dropped back down into the sea. It’s shadow held for a moment, as if it might rise again on its own. But then it sank toward indistinction, the curl of its long sinuous length essing once before it was gone, back into the deep.
Davy turned to see a look of abhorrence on his father’s face. In one hand he still held the tip of Davy’s fishing pole; in the other, his long fillet knife.
“‘Twas nothing,” his father said, before turning away. “Just an eel.”
The fog closed in on them then, and, without another word, his father weighed anchor, and rowed for the island.
~ * ~
Davy’s mother waited for them at the pier’s end, at the base of the jutting finger of rock, near the small second boat, a dinghy. Wrapped in a shawl, her worried look made her a specter in the early evening.
“I was worried you—” she said, putting a hand on Davy’s father’s shoulder as the old man brushed by her. “Bah,” the old man said, continuing on, arms laden with fishing tackle as he went up to the house.
In the unseen distance, the foghorn cried out again. Davy’s mother opened her shawl to enclose Davy within it, within herself. He felt her warmth through his clothes, through the damp, salt wetness.
“Come to the house and sit by the fire,” she whispered into his ear, stroking his hair.
He nodded and, soothed by her words and warmth, followed her to the open doorway, a dim rectangle of orange light against the chill and dropping night. In a while he sat in his chair in the warm corner while his mother prepared supper, and his father smoked his pipe and drank his rye in silence, staring out through the open doorway at the storm that grew and battered the island.
~ * ~
Later, Davy lay in bed and listened to them argue. Outside, the night wind had picked up. A spray of cold, salt-scented rain hit periodically against the side of the house, washing the single window in Davy’s dark room.
A thin line of firelight flickered beneath the closed door. Beneath his pile of quilts Davy felt cold and damp. His body felt leaden, empty, numb. A dull chill went through him remembering the cold supper that had been eaten in silence, his mother’s barely-disguised, frantic fear as she hovered around him shielding him from his father’s arctic mounting rage.
“It’s not like I ever wanted ‘im,” his father said now, out in the main room beyond the door. His voice was gruff, tentative. He sounded like he was treading careful waters, knew it, but had decided to proceed anyhow. “And it’s not like he’ll ever be a help to me.”
“But he’s
His father grunted, and a few moments, in which Davy could almost feel his mother’s fear through the door, passed.
“He’s no help to me at all. And no comfort,” he father continued.
“I
Again his father grunted.
“‘Twas a mistake, then.”
“No!”
Now anger was creeping up into his father’s voice, mingled with frustration.
“You should have seen him out there today, Ellie! Useless! Sat unhelpful the entire time. Like a pile of wet stones. Couldn’t bait his own hook, or carry his weight. He’s little better around the house, here. Nothing more than a burden to me.”
His mother was weeping now, and suddenly his father’s tone softened.
“Now, Ellie, don’t be like that. You know our bargain was a fair one. For your sake I met it. And now it’s time…”
“I won’t let you! I won’t! He’s all I have!”
“What of me?” his father shot back. “Do you forget that it was I who took you to myself? The boy should never have come in the bargain.” Again his voice softened. “It’s my own fault for not doing better by you from the beginning. In the future, I promise I will. I know now how lonely you must have been. Nearly as lonely as I was here before I had you. I promise that when things are like they were in the beginning—”
“I won’t hear of it!”
“My mind is set, woman.”
“
There was a sharp, quick sound, hand against face, and then Davy’s mother began to weep.
His father said, his voice strained: “You’ll see it clearer when it’s over.” He tried to soften his voice again, but it only sounded harder. “When it’s over.”
~ * ~
After an hour of silence from the outer room, the door to Davy’s bedroom opened. He tried to hide within the quilts and covers.
“Get up, boy,” his father said sharply. “We have business to attend to.”
Through an opening in the folds of material, Davy watched his father, outlined by orange light, approach the bed.
“I said rise, boy.”
The quilts were pulled back. Davy looked up into the pained but hard face of his father. He smelled sweet alcohol, a warmth of the breath.
His father’s rough hand poked at him. “Rise up and get your slicker on.”
Without another word, his father turned and walked out.
As Davy dressed, he watched his father, stoney-eyed, shrug on his own oilcloth coat, and take a final drink, emptying the bottle which sat on the dinner table.
~ * ~
Salt and rain lashed the island, the night.
The storm had risen high, driving sheets of water across the rock path to the pier. Overhead, angry banks of low, spitting clouds drove one another on. Out on the water, walls of water seemed to have risen out of the chopping waves, forming a bridge between cloud and ocean.
The rowboat rocked furiously against its mooring, roughly tapping at the dinghy beside it. His father battled with the rope, undid its knot, then fought to keep the boat steady while Davy climbed in. Davy thought he felt his father shudder when they were thrown together for a moment in passing.
His father climbed in after Davy, and cast off. He rowed furiously from the outset. Davy sat in the bow seat, ahead of the oarlocks, staring unspeaking back at his father, who concentrated on fighting the waves. Behind them, the dock pulled away into the finger of rocks and then, abruptly, the ocean surrounded them.
Davy felt his lately eaten supper began to churn in his stomach.
Far distant, the foghorn bleated, hidden and muffled by the roar of rain and wind. Water pelted them in sheets. Off, in the direction of the foghorn, a single bolt of silver-yellow lightning struck at the wet horizon.
“Bail, boy!” his father shouted, pausing in his rowing to indicate the bottom of the boat filling with water. His father pointed a sharp finger at the bailing bucket next to Davy, who made no move toward it. “Bah!” his father
