Chapter 10: Nine Years

I let go of his neck.

The cold came back all at once.

"Minnow," Jet said, in a voice I'd never heard him use. "Go home."

"But she should know! It's three! You did the gift and the catch and the..."

"Now."

Minnow's face crumpled.

She slid off the rock, dropped the bathrobe, and was gone into the water with a flick of silver.

I was standing in the sea in a wet skirt in the moonlight, with my arms wrapped around myself.

"What rite?" I said.

He didn't answer.

"Jet. What rite?"

"The courting," he said finally. "Ours. There are five steps. The one courting gives them. The one courted receives them."

"Name them."

"A gift," he said. "A shared catch. The tide dance. The true name. The shared breath."

I counted, standing there with my teeth chattering.

The pearls I'd let him put around my neck.

Four wild lobsters he'd caught with his hands, eaten at Margie's table.

This.

"The pearls," I said.

He didn't look away. I'll give him that.

"Yes."

"The lobsters."

"Yes."

"I thought I was teaching you," I said. "I thought you were practicing on me. For Margie."

He actually looked startled.

"Margie?"

"Brave! Loud! Diesel and coffee! That's Margie!"

"That's you," he said quietly. "It was always you."

I walked out of the water.

My legs were numb, and my skirt slapped against my knees.

I sat down on a rock and grabbed my shoes and couldn't make my fingers work the laces.

He came up out of the sea behind me on two legs and picked up Margie's ex's sweatshirt.

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