Sin looked at the hospital personnel and then down at Tommy whose color was turning blue. “You’ve got about two minutes to get him to the emergency room before he stops breathing.”
Her words snapped the nurses from their funk. Suddenly, people were yelling and Tommy was placed on a gurney and wheeled down the hall.
Bubba stood and rubbed his neck. He pointed at Sin. “This ain’t over, bitch.”
Heap backhanded Bubba, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him down the hall.
Inside the room, her father was half out of the bed: leaning and craning his neck in order to listen and watch the ruckus in the hall.
Sin expected a scowl, but instead he seemed proud.
“What are you all puffed up about?” she asked.
“You,” he said. “You are so much like your mother. She would have done the same thing. Well, sort of. She would have done it without the knife and without almost killing the Morton boy, but she wouldn’t have backed down either.”
Sin slumped down in a chair. “What the hell is going on around here, Dad?”
Her father looked around the room and reached for a pen and paper.
We’ll talk at home. I think the room is bugged.
Sin read the note and nodded.
“What did Heap want that was so important that he had to come here to talk to you?”
“He wants me to turn over the deed to our plots in the cemetery.”
“He what? What did you tell him?”
“I told him, over my dead body.”
Sin smiled. “What was his response?”
Her father swallowed hard. “He said that could be arranged.”
Sin ranted and yelled like the Tasmanian devil. Through her tirade, she heard her father laugh. Twisted in fury, she turned toward his bed.
“You definitely have your mother’s spirit,” he glinted.
“Is this how you help keep your father’s stress level to a minimum?” a voice yelled.
Sin snapped her head towards the door and saw Dr. O’Rourke standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed and she was angrily tapping her foot.
Sin pointed at her, as if she were throwing a jab. “You keep that piece of shit away from my father and I’ll work on the stress thing.”
Dr. O’Rourke opened her mouth to speak, but Sin didn’t give her a chance. “Draw up the discharge papers. My father is going home tonight!”
Two hours later, as she and Carmelita were wheeling her father toward the hospital doors, Sin saw Troy sitting in a chair outside a curtained room. He was slumped over, his elbows were resting on his knees and his head was hanging low.
“Dad, excuse me for a sec, I’ll be right back.”
Sin walked over to Troy and placed her hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing that concerns you,” he said.
“Try me.”
“A young girl was just found washed up on shore.”
“How young?”
“Too young.”
Another one, Sin thought. She remembered the real reason she was back in the Keys, back in Tumbleboat Key.
“Who is the woman screaming? Her mother?”
Troy didn’t even bother to look in the woman’s direction. “Nah. She found the body.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded.
“Come by the house tomorrow and I’ll make you lunch.”
He looked up and arched his eyebrows.
“I’m not a complete bitch,” she smiled.
“Good to know.”
11
When Sin woke up the next morning, she took a deep breath and smelled the aroma of Cuban coffee. It was a scent that could wake the dead, and it had Sin scurrying out of bed.
Carmelita was in the kitchen making banana French toast, Sin’s father’s favorite. Maria was in the den with her father. She was giggling and smiling as her dad talked to her. When Maria saw Sin, she became quiet and seemed frightened.
Sin smiled, trying to put the girl at ease, but Maria seemed to curl into Sin’s father when she came near.
Thomas whispered something in Spanish to the little girl and she broke out in a big laugh. It was a contagious laugh and soon Sin was laughing along with the two of them.
Carmelita walked from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “What is so funny?”
“I told Maria that Sin only looks like a grumpy old bear in the morning.” He laughed. “She said Sin looked even meaner yesterday.” He looked at his daughter. “Then we just started to laugh.”
Carmelita had a way with Sin’s father. Dr. O’Rourke had mentioned that his last bout of chemo left him without an appetite, but she was able to get him to eat three pieces of French toast.
Sin sat back, watched, and learned. She saw a human side to her father in the way he acquiesced to Carmelita’s calm demeanor and a sweet side of him in the way he treated Maria. It brought her joy to watch, but soon his actions began to cause her insides to twist.
Why couldn’t he treat me that way, she thought. Everything could have been so much easier growing up if he only treated me the same. The self-pity got the best of her and she excused herself from the table.
Standing on the deck overlooking the Atlantic, she noticed the large number of fishing boats off shore. She was surprised, but more bewildered at how far out they were—much further than the two she had seen the previously.
Sin picked up her government issued binoculars and was dialing in the focus when the screen door opened.
“Doing a little sightseeing?” her father asked.
She turned and put the binoculars down. “I don’t remember seeing so many boats fishing along Tumbleboat’s reefs when I was younger.”
“Yeah, that all changed when Jeremiah Heap signed a contract with the Tumbleboat Fishing company.”
“Signed a contract or bought it?” Sin questioned.
Her father looked at her with a deeper respect. “You catch on quick,” he said. “That point is up for debate, but if you ask me, I would say that he owns it. Heck, he has bought just about everything else
