Chapter 9: Rain

The lobster boat bumped the pier hard enough that the lobstermen's trap slid off the planks.

Brant climbed out over the rail with one hand on a piling.

He looked tired, and he had not shaved. His sweater was still clean.

"Fern," he said. "Thank God."

He said it exactly as he had on the phone Friday, and it landed on me the same way.

The two lobstermen had stopped working. The woman from the bait shop stood in her doorway with a cup of coffee.

Ben came out of the shed and stopped three steps behind me.

"I came the back way," Brant said.

"Somebody's brother-in-law has a mooring on the far side of the island. I wasn't going to ask Mom."

"You're asking me now."

"I'm here to fix it."

He took a long white envelope from inside his sweater and held it out.

"Mom authorized this. It's your money. All of it."

I did not take the envelope.

"Thirty-one thousand, four hundred dollars," he said. "A cashier's check. It's in there."

"What else is in there?"

He hesitated.

"A page. It says you won't talk about the family or the wedding. It's standard."

"And the apology?"

"She'd like you to come back to the house first. Say a few words. Everyone's upset, Fern."

"Everyone was fine on Friday."

"Everyone was shocked."

"You voted," I said.

"You wrote no on a piece of paper in front of your whole family and you handed it to your mother."

"It's a tie-break. It was supposed to mean nothing."

"It meant my ticket was struck off a list with a pencil."

"She was going to fix it at the house!"

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