dresses, shoes. Kerchiefs. Kind of added to her charm, he supposed. Em had a wide arm of culture, however. She could belt out all the words to just about any Aerosmith song. One of kind, his sister-in-law was.
Old Jep, moving a bit slower than Em, followed, wearing his iconic baby-blue cotton overalls.
“Hey!” Emily called cheerfully. “How’d you guys do?”
“Girl, would you quit all that jumpin’ around? You’re gonna scramble my great-grandson’s innards,” Jep called after her.
“Or great-granddaughter,” Emily corrected over her shoulder.
Jep just grumbled.
“We capped out,” Owen said, stepping onto the dock. “Got top dollar at the docks. Better than last year, even.”
“Good, good,” Jep said. His thick white hair, mostly buried beneath a USCG—United States Coast Guard—cap, flipped up on the ends. “Hope to God you brought some home.”
“Dad,” Owen chided.
“Jep, you could eat shrimp every day of your life,” Matt said, wrapping his arms around his wife and placing his hands over her belly. Nathan watched as his little brother kissed Em on the top of her head, and her arms went around his waist. They both fit. Clicked. Like they were made for each other. He’d had that once.
And he’d lost it.
The grief had dulled somewhat over time, but not enough. If his thoughts lingered too long on it—on Addie, on what they’d had—his stomach would hurt, and he’d feel the hole her death had left in his chest widen a little more. It’d been nearly three years since that day in the Bering, when Nathan had been right there, ready for her. Then, she’d disappeared. The sea had, in fact, swallowed her up. If his thoughts went there too much, the memories and guilt would consume him. Being home with his family had saved his life. The void was still there, though, silently digging in when he wasn’t looking. Staying busy helped.
Nathan liked seeing his younger brother so happy. Matt’s stoic and hardened ex-marine demeanor had changed the moment he’d admitted that he’d fallen in love with his childhood friend. Well, he’d fought it for a while, and he’d been a pain in the ass to live with until he’d finally given in. Still, he damn well deserved the happiness.
“Well, of course I would,” Jep agreed. “Jewels of the sea, that’s what they are. The most perfect edible sea creatures God ever created, if you ask me.”
They all laughed. Jep had a one-track mind: his stomach. Might be why he was closing in on ninety and still going stronger than a mule.
The rest of the evening passed as it usually did once the summer shrimping season started. Early to bed, early to rise. A day in the trawler. Home-cooked meals on the back porch. And thanks to the longer days of sunlight, Nathan squeezed in a run almost every evening. Sometimes Matt joined him, but lately he’d spent more of his evenings with Em remodeling one of the rooms in the old river house where they lived—Emily’s childhood home, which was next door—into the nursery. Emily called it nesting, and Nathan guessed she was probably right. So he set out alone in the late evening; gray running shorts, black Nikes and a neon yellow handkerchief tied around his head to keep the sweat from running into his eyes. And, according to Jep, to keep his long girlie locks from flying all over the place.
“Stop by the beauty parlor on your way home,” Jep called from his rocker on the front porch as Nathan took off down the drive. “And watch out for cars!”
Another reason why Nathan wore the neon yellow headband. Jep was full of bark, but that old man loved his family like no one’s business.
It was probably the one thing that kept Nathan grounded since Alaska. The one thing he had left.
“Yes, sir.” Nathan threw his hand up and waved, hearing Jep grumble something about the mosquitoes, then headed out to the coastal road.
* * *
“MA-MUH, COME ON! Just a little walk. Just long enough to kick a pinecone until the pointy things all fall off. I want to see lightning bugs! Pleeeeeease?”
“Willa, quit all that whining,” Sean Jacobs gently scolded her five-year-old daughter. “It’s unbecoming.”
“But I can’t help it,” Willa said, and looked up at Sean with those wide, endless pools of blue eyes. “It just falls out of my throat and rolls right on past my lips. I can’t stop it! I want to go so bad!”
A smile tugged at Sean’s mouth, and she gave her small daughter a critical eye. She wore a blue-and-white-striped tank top and white shorts, and her skinny little legs and knobby knees seemed to hang straight from her ears. “Well,” Sean said thoughtfully, and smoothed Willa’s almost-black hair—cut bluntly in the most adorable of short bobs—behind her tiny ear. “Okay. Get your sneakers on.”
Willa made a dash for the mudroom. “Why do you call them sneakers, Mama? Are we gonna be busy sneakin’ around or something? It’s a funny name, Mama. Did your mama call them sneakers, too?”
Sean’s insides turned, just a little, at the irony of Willa’s words. Sneakin’ around. She inhaled. Exhaled to brush the jolted feeling away. “That’s just what we called them when I was your age, is all.” She joined her daughter in the mudroom, pulled on her navy Keds. Willa set in her lap something that seemed to be becoming a more frequent part of her wardrobe. Sean gingerly fingered the costume fairy wings she’d picked up last Halloween.
“Willa, seriously?”
“Yes, Mama! We have to be fairies all the time!” Willa argued. Rather, crooned.
Sean sighed, shoved her arms through the thin elastic bands that went around her shoulders to keep the wings in place, then helped Willa into hers. She imagined if something as simple as wearing a pair of sparkly fairy wings made her daughter happy, she’d gladly do it. They set out, with Willa nonstop chattering about everything her eyes lit upon, her little wings flapping up and down with her movements.
“Now go find a superior pinecone, Willa Jane. One that will withstand a good kicking.”
“Okay, I will!” Willa exclaimed, and took off into the dense yard of pines, scrub oaks and palms. She’d bend, retrieve a pinecone then inspect every single inch of it. Only the most perfect one would do.
Sean stared out at the saltwater property they’d leased for the summer. She liked it. A little worn down, perhaps. Unkempt. The windows needed washing. The grass needed cutting. The inside was a little musty from being closed up for so long. But she felt safe. The furniture was old but sturdy, and the refrigerator kept things icy cold. Perfect, in her eyes.
The small river house nestled in the shade beneath mammoth oak trees drenched in long, wispy Spanish moss. It looked like a picture straight out of a travel magazine. A fairly decent-size porch overlooked the back of the property, which meandered through tall magnolias and scrub palms, leading down to a single wooden dock that jutted out over the marsh and stopped at the river. At high tide, she and Willa could sit on the small wooden landing and dangle their feet into the water. This would be a nice retreat for a while.
“Mama, you’re being so slow,” Willa called ahead of her. “I found the most stuperior pinecone. C’mon! I wanna walk through the graveyard.”
“Willa, again?” Sean replied, catching up to her daughter. They crossed the small two-lane river road and headed down a worn dirt path scattered with bits of seashells that led to an old cemetery they’d come across a few days earlier. “Don’t you think it’s kinda scary?”
“Nope!” Willa announced cheerfully, and having found the perfect pinecone, dropped it on the ground. She gave it a kick, then waited for Sean to take a turn. “It’s the place where all the lightning bugs go. Probably so the ghosts can see at night.”
“It’s also a place where all the mosquitoes go,” Sean replied. “We’re going to get eaten up again.”
“So?