The Man My Sister Left Behind novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Broke

Gus took him out on the Marigold at five the next morning, and by six Ansel Rooke had thrown up twice over the rail.

"I've been on boats my whole life," he said.

"You've been on the wharf, boy," said Gus. "The wharf holds still."

I stood in the stern with a pair of oilskins that had been my father's, hauling the first trap of the day.

It came up heavy and streaming, with three lobsters clacking inside.

Ansel looked at it.

"Pick it up," I said.

"Where?"

"By the bridle. No, not like that, the other way."

He took the bridle in his bandaged hand, and the whole trap swung wide and caught him in the thigh.

He swore, and Gus cackled, and I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.

By noon he had banded his own thumb to a lobster and lost a glove overboard.

"Your father never learned to haul either," said Gus gravely. "He had people for that."

"Don't talk about my father."

"I buried a lot of fathers, boy. Yours was a good enough man who married a hard woman. Both things are true."

Ansel went quiet and picked up the next trap properly.

I noticed, and so did Gus, and neither of us said a word.

We came in at dusk with a hundred and ten pounds and a sunburned deckhand.

Gus counted the money into a coffee can and handed Ansel a fifth of it.

"What's this?"

"Your cut."

"I don't want charity."

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