Chapter 21: Moving Day

Jude's father stood in the doorway of the Harbor Hall with a wooden crate in his arms.

He was sixty, broad as a door, with a gray crew cut and a jaw that had not given an inch in forty years.

Nobody in the room had seen him in the same building as an Ashworth since the regatta brawl.

The singing died out.

He came down the center aisle, carrying the crate.

He stopped at the foot of the stage.

"Neil Ashworth," he said.

"Mr. Halvorsen."

"I told my son I'd buy your yard."

"I heard."

"I was wrong." He forced each word out hard. "I've fought your family all my life, and I never once asked what for."

"Dad," Jude said, standing up.

"Sit down, boy. I'm talking."

The old man set the crate on the stage with a thump.

"I made this for my grandchild. I started it the night Britt told me. I didn't know whose side it was on."

He lifted the lid.

Inside lay a cradle of pale cedar, planked like a tiny dory, with a curved keel for rocking.

A name was carved on the stern in neat, square letters.

The name was Gull.

Neil put a hand to his mouth.

"It's the first hull I ever built," the old man said gruffly. "I was twelve. It sank."

"Mr. Halvorsen," Neil said.

"Call me whatever you like. Just don't call me late for the christening."

Britt made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.

"He's never made a joke in his life," she whispered. "Somebody write down the date."

The hall exploded in laughter.

The old man looked at Winifred.

She looked at him.

Forty years of grudges on one side of the table and forty years of the same on the other sat between them.

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