His Letters Reached Me Fourteen Years Late, and the First Said Goodbye novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Johnboat
The johnboat had a flat aluminum bottom and a small motor that Alister cut as soon as we left the dock.
He rowed the rest of the way to the cove with the oars muffled in rags.
It was a clear night, the first all week, and cold enough that I could see my breath.
The Ohio lay black and slow around us, with the lights of Williamstown thin on the far shore.
"This was your father's boat," I said.
"Mine now. He let me have it when his knees went."
"Did you bring girls out here?"
"Once," Alister said. "She got seasick."
I laughed, and the sound went out flat across the water.
He ran the bow up on a gravel spit in a pocket of the bank where the willows hung down.
He had brought a lantern, a thermos and two wool blankets.
He spread one over the middle seat and the boards, and folded the second beside it.
"I thought about the couch in my office," he said. "I decided the river was better."
"The river is colder."
"You can tell me if you're cold."
"I'll tell you if I'm not," I said.
I took the lantern out of his hand and set it down on the bow where the light would stay low.
I stood in front of him in my mother's coat.
My heart was going. It had been going since I stepped into the boat.
"Sit," I said.
He sat on the blanket with his back against the middle seat and his long legs out, his hands open on his knees.
I knelt over him and took his face in my hands.
"I'm going to lead," I said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of His Letters Reached Me Fourteen Years Late, and the First Said Goodbye are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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