Chapter 13
Two Months Before the Storm
January on Frick Island, everyone agreed, was the worst month. Until February, anyway. And then February was definitely the worst. It was so cold, so wet, so miserable that only fifty-five or so of the ninety-ish people left on the island stayed for the entire winter, living in their battened-down houses like grizzly bears hibernating until spring. To make matters worse, this particular first week of February, a body-wracking cough was winding its way through the island, showing up like an unwanted houseguest and keeping everyone indoors, under blankets.
Piper had somehow been able to avoid it thus far, but looking at Tom’s pallor where he sat at the kitchen table, intently repairing a scrape net, she thought he might not have been so lucky.
“Tom, you feeling OK?” She cringed immediately when she said it. It was the third time she had asked him that in as many hours. And she knew he wasn’t. February was the hardest month for most watermen on the island. Tired of being cooped up and docile, they were ready to be back on the water. Not just because they were eager to start making money again but because, like German shepherds, they were most content when there was hard work to be done. For Tom, who mostly felt ambivalent about crabbing, fishing, and oystering, February was difficult for a different reason: It was the month he lost his father six years earlier.
Tom grunted, all his concentration on the mending task at hand, and Piper turned her gaze back to the menagerie of puzzle pieces in front of her, squinting at the swirls of purple for the one piece she currently needed. “Aha!” She spied it, up toward the corner of the table, plucked it up in her pincer grasp, and slotted it into the perfectly sized hole in the middle of the irises.
She glanced over at Tom again. He often teased her for her overenthusiasm in doing puzzles—her small shouts of victory or glee after completing the rectangular edge at the beginning or when discovering a particularly elusive piece. He at least jovially rolled his eyes or cocked a brow in her direction, a grin turning up one corner of his mouth. But today he just sat with his overly long needle, his brows furrowed, face solemn.
Piper frowned. Though he did often get this way around the anniversary of his father’s death, her gut told her something else was eating at him. Something more. Maybe it was the visit with his mom two nights earlier, where it was impossible to ignore how much she was slurring her words over dinner (though they did ignore it) and how she nodded off in the middle of a bite of squash pie. And of course, there was the matter of the worms he had just discovered in his hull, leaving it looking like a tatted lace doily—and the fact that they didn’t really have the money to fix it. Or maybe it was his shoulder—he had mentioned last night that it was acting up again. It hadn’t really been right since he dislocated it last spring hauling in an overloaded net of snapper at a bad angle.
But at least he hadn’t brought up that other thing. Not in weeks. After their last big fight about it, Piper hoped he’d put it to bed for good.
She stood up, as if to distance herself from the thought, and walked over to the two-burner stove to turn on the kettle. When the water was ready she poured two cups of tea and took one to Tom. “Here you go,” she said, sliding it onto the table in front of him. He paused, holding on to the needle and net with one hand, and used his free one to gently squeeze Piper’s elbow in gratitude.
“Oh my god,” Piper exclaimed, when she felt the searing heat from Tom’s palm. She touched the back of her fingers to his forehead. “Tom, you are burning up!”
As if on cue, Tom sneezed. “You need to be in bed,” she said. He just shook his head, pulling a handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbing at his nose. “I’m fine,” he said. “I need to finish this and then I’ve got to get down to the docks to help BobDan pull the boat out of the water.”
“No, absolutely not. I’ll call Steve and he can help. You need to rest,” she said in her best firm voice. “Come on. All of that can wait.”
To her surprise, Tom set the net back in the basket he’d pulled it from, which was how Piper knew he really was feeling miserable. After she got him settled in their bed, tucking a quilt around his weary frame, she padded back out to the front room, retrieving her mug of tea and wrapping her hands around it to covet the heat, but the tea, in her absence, had gone lukewarm.
Piper stared out the window, at the clothesline strung between their house and the Oleckis’, bereft without clean laundry hanging from it, and found herself wishing, for what seemed like the thousandth time that month, that spring would come faster.
Chapter 14
The key is making each layer the exact same—not too thick, not too thin,” Mrs. Olecki was saying as she poured the creamy yellow batter into the same five metal tins she’d been using since she was a little girl and her mother had taught her how to bake this cake. It wasn’t really the key, of course—or not the only one, anyway. But Pearl couldn’t give away the real secret to making Frick Island cakes or everyone would make their own and have one less reason to come over
