Page 56 of Big Stick Energy
I bait a hook for myself and drop it in. If Darcy weren’t here tonight, I’d probably be working out or watching game tape. Or I’d let my mother drag out the photo albums, and I’d pass her tissues while she cried over photos of Danny. “Thank you for coming out here with me. It’s been ages.”
“Has it?” She looks around at the houses onshore and the deepening sky. “I’d come out every night if I lived around here.”
“It used to be like that. After Danny died, none of us wanted to go onto the water for a long time. We sold our bigger boat.”
She turns quickly. “It was a boating accident?”
I nod, but I don’t share the grim details. “Then, after a few years, my dad missed fishing with his pals. So he bought the skiff and tried to get back to living his life.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Really good. But my mom lost interest in everything and never really got it back. She used to run half the volunteer organizations in town, but she doesn’t anymore.”
“I feel terrible for her,” Darcy says.
“Same. She keeps Danny’s room set up just the way he left it. Nobody goes in there. Except, Maribel lived there another six months after he died.”
“Shelivedhere? Before?”
“Oh yeah. Maribel had a rough life. She grew up in foster care. It ends at eighteen, though. She and Danny were already a couple, so we moved her right in.”
“What a story.”
“Yeah. Maribel was only nineteen when Danny died. He was twenty. That was eleven years ago. They’d just gotten engaged the month before.”
“Holy shit,” Darcy says. “Kind of puts things in perspective. I have a grumpy boss and too much homework, but at least I didn’t lose my fiancé at nineteen.”
I point at the reel held loosely in her hands. “Keep a hold on that in case you get a hit.”
“Yes,sir.”
God, when she calls me sir, I almost can’t take it. “Anyway, Maribel is my parents’ bonus kid. But she mostly did everything herself—she got herself a scholarship and went off to college. She’s always had a safety net with us, but she really did it on her own. She’s fierce.”
“Sounds like it,” Darcy says. But she lifts her chin and takes me in. “But what about you?”
“What about me?” I don’t understand the question.
“You just told me the story of how everyone coped after your brother died. Except for you. Where wereyou?”
“Oh.” I shrug. “It was a horrible summer. But then I went back to boarding school, where my life was mostly the same. I felt guilty about it, but it really helped me to be there. I didn’t sit down every night to that empty spot at the table, you know?”
“Hmm,” she says.
“It was easiest on me. I could think about teen boy stuff. Like hockey and how to outwit the school’s Wi-Fi so I could watch porn.”
She laughs, and when she meets my gaze, we both get a little stuck. It’s a warm night out on the water, and there’s no place I’d rather be.
From the soft look in her eyes, I think Darcy might agree. But when her pole suddenly wobbles, she’s not ready.
Lucky for both of us, I have fast reflexes. I grab the fishing pole before it can wobble out of her hands, and Darcy gasps. “Holy cow! Is that a fish?”
“Let’s hope so. Hold ’er steady.”
She grips the pole. “Now what?”
“Give it a little tug, then start reeling.”
She does, letting out a small, startled squeak as the rod jerks in response. “Oh my God! What is it?”
