Page 48 of On Dry Land

“Welcome to lobstering one-oh-one,” Cody yells, and I know without looking that Spencer has moved closer to watch.

I feel hyperaware of where every coil and line of rope is, the dangers of the pot hauler sitting heavy at the front of my mind. I know how cold the water is and exactly how long a person can be exposed to temperatures like that before there is no coming back.

The first trap comes up, and I pull it onto the rail. I flip open the door, and my eyes flick over the contents and judge them lacking even before my hands move to toss them all back. Too small. Sliding the trap down to Cody to replace the bait bag, I await the second trap on this line. I count to ten before I let myself look back and check on Spencer. He smiles again, hands holding on to the doorway of the standing shelter. Not green yet, thankfully, and still on his feet.

The bottom two traps on this line are fuller than the first three. Cody and I work in tandem, releasing most and putting the keepers in a bin to be banded. All emptied and lined up on the rail, Cody rocks the traps along their runners and sends them back into the sea with a splash as I steer us on to the next buoy marked on my GPS.

“Dryden and I eyeballed these as keepers,” Cody tells Spencer, raising his voice to be heard over the wind and the engine. “But we’ll measure them just to be sure.”

I glance back, watching as Cody shows him how to use the tool.

“Keeper,” Cody confirms. “So we band the claws and put him in the live well.”

Spencer says something too quiet for me to hear, but it makes Cody laugh. I keep watch for the next buoy, neck prickling with awareness of Spencer on the boat. I wish I’d made him wear a life vest. I don’t care how good a swimmer he is.

“Why do you look under the tail?” he asks as Cody and I empty the next group of traps. Grabbing a cull from the cage, I step back to show him. Cody, grinning but thankfully silent, keeps working.

“It’s illegal to keep a female carrying eggs. If we kept every lobster we pulled, the ocean would be overfished and the population devastated. Not keeping eggers or a catch outside of the size limitations allows for the ecosystem to thrive.” Flipping the lobster over, I show Spencer the underside of the tail. “Females carry eggs along here. We notch their tails to let other fishermen know she’s protected, and we toss her back.”

“Not an egger, then,” Spencer fills in, nodding down at the one in my hands.

“No. We call this a cull. Only one claw,” I explain, pointing out the growth where a new one has already started to form. “It’ll grow back as he molts.”

Spencer grins and shakes his head like this is an unbelievable occurrence. “So…keep?”

I shake my head, grabbing the measuring tool to show him. As I suspected, too big.

“Lives to fight another day,” I tell Spencer.

“And make more baby lobsters,” he jokes along with me. I toss it back and push us onward to the next buoy.

I’d tried something new this year and left my traps out through the winter. Spencer had teased that I was lazy, and it’s true. I love the offseason. I love the downtime awarded during the winter months and the freedom to service my traps and take care of my boat at the pace I choose. I enjoy sleeping in and eating an entire bag of chips in my bed while I watch a documentary on Chernobyl. I like pretending I don’t also own a Land Rover and that the reason I have to stay home is because there is too much snow on the roads for my Porsche to handle. Winter allows me to be even more precise in how I spend my time and who I spend it with.

Why I ever thought lobstering the year round was a good idea, I will never know. I glance over at Spencer, once more seated inside the shelter, protected from the wind and icy sea spray, and wonder if perhaps this is simply my year for madness and rash decisions.

“Not a bad day, right, boss?” Cody asks, slapping a hand to my upper back as we work together, unloading the catch back at the wharf. To the side, Spencer is standing out of the way, filming us loading the conveyor belt. He’s steadier now, I notice, and, impressively, made it the entire day without emptying his stomach into the ocean.

“No,” I agree, thinking less about the price of lobster and more about the brown eyes that were incandescent with happiness all day. “Not bad at all.”

My hamstrings and upper back throb with a dull ache as we trudge toward our vehicles after we finish, but even so, I feel more secure than I had just a few days ago. The need to get back out there was coiled like a spring in my gut, tightly wound and growing by the day. The stress has unraveled a bit, now that most of the traps are hauled, and hopefully, by the end of tomorrow, it’ll be gone for good. This will be the last time I leave traps out all year.

“Swimming?” I ask Spencer once we’re in the car and heading home. He’s nearly bouncing in his seat, excitement rippling off him in waves.

“Maybe. I don’t know, though. I kind of just want to upload everything and start editing. I knew this would be great, but holy shit.” He shakes his head in wonder, taking the camera off his jacket and tucking it safely into the pocket of his borrowed coat. “I understand that lobster fishing is hard, the same way I understand performing surgery is hard. But now I feel like I know, if that makes sense.”

It’s just on the tip of my tongue, the offer to teach him and let him help. What better way to truly gain an understanding than by doing it yourself? But I bite the words back, unwilling to put him that close to the pot hauler, or the ropes, or the gunwale. I let him come along and watch from the safety of the standing shelter, and that will just have to be good enough for him.

“Hungry?” I ask, and he nods.

“Yeah. Starving, actually. Like I’m the one who did all the work.” He laughs, rubbing his hands together and reaching forward to turn the heat up a little bit.

Today was a blessedly calm day, and I almost hadn’t believed it when I woke up early to check the weather. Winds at five miles per hour, and not even a hint of a nor’easter on the horizon. Regardless of how little I’d wanted to leave the warmth of my bed or the coziness of my pajamas, the ability to go haul had felt like a gift just then. Apparently, all it took was not being able to do so to make me realize I actually like this job. Difficult and dangerous and wearying as it is, at the end of the day, I feel far more accomplished than I ever did walking out of the office building.

I take Spencer to the Temptress to order carryout for dinner. Snacks and frozen meals I can handle, but anything more involved than throwing things in a pot or a blender in the kitchen leaves me irritable. I’d rather go hungry than have to cook. And although I’ll die before I ever admit it to him, stopping at restaurants allows me to feed my stubborn boarder, who flat-out refuses to let me buy or gift him groceries.

Ryan, a fixture of the bar as sure as Shiloh is to the wharf, delivers our order to the kitchen before coming back for a chat. Despite the handful of times he and I have slept together, I don’t know him very well and have no interest in learning more. Ryan, I know, feels the same about me, and so our arrangement was often a perfect and certainly convenient one. Now, he barely pays attention to me as we wait for our food, instead trying to chat with Spencer, who, interestingly, closes himself off.

I watch his face and the shoulders that incrementally hunch inward, the shuttering of his eyes and the careful responses he gives Ryan. It’s the same slightly feral, mistrustful look I received when we first met. I remember how he acted around Oliver—smiling and laughing and relaxed inside a home he’d never been to before—and can’t help but compare how different this response to a stranger is. Even Cody wasn’t treated to this chilly suspicion, and I know firsthand how obnoxious he can be until you are used to him. Even then.