Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus novel · Chapter 33 of 40
Chapter 33: Ice-Out
The last ice went out of the coves in the second week of April, and the first warm Saturday came up soft and blue.
Eben had been hauling alone for nine months.
I had a day off, a pair of borrowed oil pants that came up to my armpits.
I wore a hat that said DYER on the front in my own handwriting.
"You don't have to do this," he said, at the wharf, at half past four in the morning.
"You said you couldn't find a sternman."
"I can't," he said.
"Then I'm the sternman."
"You'll hate it," he said.
"I'll hate you a little," I said. "That's different."
Linwood stood on the dock in his sweater with a thermos and an expression of great peace.
"I'm not coming," he said. "I want that noted. The cardiologist has made himself plain."
"Good," Eben said.
"I'll be at the window."
"With the binoculars?"
"With nothing," said Linwood. "With my coffee."
We cast off in the dark.
By six the sun was up and the whole bay was gold, with gulls wheeling behind us and the islands standing out of the water like dark bread.
He showed me the gaff, and the hauler, and the rule about the gauge.
I banded claws, and sorted shorts from keepers, and baited bags with herring that smelled like the end of the world.
I got a trap lid on my knuckles.
I got slime to the elbows.
I got a crab in my boot.
"Language," Eben said, from the wheel, trying not to laugh.
"You didn't say they were so strong."
"They're lobsters," he said.
"I know what they are!"
"Do it again. Faster," he said.
By ten I could do it faster.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–20 of Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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