Chapter 9: What the Card Said

My father set the pharmacy bag on the counter.

"Sink fixed?" he said.

"Almost," Gabe said, from his knees.

"Good."

He took off his good jacket and hung it on the hook by the door.

He picked the toaster up off the floor, looked at the cord and plugged it in.

Then he reached into the cabinet over the stove, took down a third coffee cup and poured himself some.

None of us said a word.

I stood there in my mother's robe and watched my father drink coffee and read the label on a pill bottle.

"Gabe," he said at last. "The cradle under the customer's trawler needs shimming before the tarp goes on."

"I'll get to it."

"Get to it now."

Gabe stood up.

He put the wrench in his belt, looked once at the floor between us and walked out the back door.

He did not look at me.

My father turned a page of the pharmacy receipt.

"Vic-Vic."

"Yes?"

"Your robe's on inside out."

He said it mildly, and went out to the porch with his coffee.

I stood in the kitchen with my face burning and found that he was right.

That night I climbed the ladder to the boat with my hands full of Chinese takeout and my pulse going.

Gabe sat at the galley table with an untouched beer and his jaw set.

"He knows," I said.

"He knows something."

"He made you shim a cradle."

"He made me do it while he watched." Gabe rubbed his eyes. "I stood in front of him for two hours and he never said a word. I'd rather he hit me."

"He'd never hit you."

"I know. That's the problem."

I put the food down and sat across from him.

"Rule one's gone," I said. "You broke it."

"We broke it."

"And rule two's coming. I can feel it."

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