Page 17 of Knox Unleashed
Yes. Yes, I do.
“Of course not,” I lie.
“Then stay away from them, Maren. Ban them from your store, your property. Don’t have private conversations with any of them.”
“You seem to think that I’m friends with them. I’m not. I serve them a two-pound box of frozen shrimp bait if they come in to buy, and I occasionally try to upsell them hooks and ice while they’re paying. But, often, the most I say to them is that it’ll be sixteen bucks.”
My father shoves his hands to his hips. “Stop being obtuse, Maren. You know what I’m trying to say. Do you understand me?”
A fireball of answers flash through my brain, but I settle on the simplest one to make this conversation end: “Yes.”
The word comes out flat.
My father watches me for a few more seconds, and I pray he has nothing left to say. When he turns on his heel and walks out, slamming the door behind him, I let out a whoosh of breath. But I don’t move until I hear his engine fade down the road.
“You okay?” Leo asks as he appears from inside the bait shop. He walks slowly towards me like I’m a wild animal that just got cornered.
“Yeah. I’m good.” I look out over the dock to the tall cypress trees, that curve around the edge of the water, bend in the wind.
Leo puts his hand on my bicep and leads me out the roller shutter doors to the steps to my apartment. Rain whips around my face. “You should finish early today. I’ll stay and lock up.”
I look at the wooden steps, a little uncertain how I got here. I don’t remember maneuvering past the chairs outside the front of the store. “Thank you, Leo. If you’re sure, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”
I’m on the second step when Leo calls my name, so I turn to face him.
“Your grandfather knew your father was cruel,” he says. “He was heartbroken when your mother decided to marry him, because he saw the writing on the wall. He always blamed your father for the loss of his daughter. He once said the only good thing Sheriff Caldwell did in his life was create you. You don’t owe that man anything. And maybe it’s time you bannedhimfrom the store.”
“I’ll consider that. Thank you, Leo.”
I push the door to the apartment open and ponder what my father said about a fire as I shake the water droplets out of my hair. If this place were burning, I’d just jump out the window, but maybe I should get one of those rope ladders.
My keys clatter as I drop them into the small ceramic dish I made when I went on a pottery weekend in Tampa. Next to it is a picture of me and my grandparents when we went on a trip to Charlottesville, North Carolina. I’d done well in a Spelling Bee competition, and as a reward, we’d spent a few days there. They’d taken me out for dinner to a place that served the best fried chicken and ham biscuits.
Thankfully, my home smells so different from the diesel and bait downstairs. Up here, it’s coffee and paint and the faint scent of line-dried linen I put on the bed this morning.
The apartment isn’t huge, and the hallway opens out into the living room. It’s only eight hundred square feet in total, but itfeels expansive because of the three large, old-framed windows that stretch across the wall that faces out over the dock. The sunlight hits the water at just the right angle to throw rippling reflections onto the ceiling.
Right in front of the middle window is my easel, splattered with years and years of dried paint. A tall wooden stool sits nearby, although I rarely use it because I prefer to stand when I paint landscapes. I’ve been painting the sunset more and more recently. Cinematic hues of pink and purple and orange as opposed to the lush blues and greens during the day.
Beside the easel is a metal rolling cart filled with brushes in jars, tubes of paint, rags, and a palette knife. And all of it sits on a cheap rug I picked up that’s covered in paint splats and drips. At one point, I considered throwing it out to get a new one, but now it’s become my lucky carpet, of sorts, and I couldn’t bear to part with it. The couch is small but comfortable, and it’s draped in a thick throw I made at a weaving retreat in upstate New York.
I toe off my boots and head for the bathroom, peeling off the bait-shop T-shirt and the shorts I wear for the airboat tours. My shower takes less than ten minutes, and then I pull on a pair of soft cotton shorts and an old tank top and decide to let my hair air dry.
The kitchen is barely more than a corner of the living space. The white cabinets are old, and one of my projects for the off-season is to sand them all down and paint them an eggshell blue. Most households no longer have a bread box, but the one I use was handcrafted by my grandfather as a birthday gift for my grandmother. I grab some of the homemade sourdough I store in mine and slice a large chunk before slathering it in butter. I add a little cheese to the plate and throw in a few token cherry tomatoes to pretend it constitutes dinner.
Plate in hand, I wander back to the living room and pause in front of my easel. Outside, the water bumps softly against the dock pilings.
I set the plate down, pick up a brush, and let the quiet of the room settle around me.
Usually, painting calms me, yet today I’m feeling…stirred. But it’s not the argument with my father pushing me to start a new canvas.
It’s a biker.
7
KNOX
The storm warning has been playing on repeat all goddamn day. The radio goes from Lynyrd Skynyrd to a meteorologist who sounds way to peppy about the fact the wall of wind and water currently battering the Florida coast is only going to get stronger.
