the floor. Ethan set the coffee to brew, greeting the retriever with an
absent scratch on the head.
The dream was coming back to him now, the one he'd been caught in just
before waking. He and his father, out on the workboat checking crab
pots. Just the two of them. The sun had been blinding bright and hot,
the water mirror-clear and still. It had been so vivid, he thought now,
even the smells of water and fish and sweat.
His father's voice, so well remembered, had carried over the sounds of
engine and gulls.
"I knew you'd look after Seth, the three of you."
"You didn't have to die to test that out." There was resentment in
Ethan's tone, an underlying anger he hadn't allowed himself to admit
while awake.
"It wasn't what I had in mind, either," Ray said lightly, culling crabs
from the pot under the float that Ethan had gaffed. His thick orange
fisherman's gloves glowed in the sun. "You can trust me on that. You got
some good steamers here and plenty of sooks."
Ethan glanced at the wire pot full of crabs, automatically noting size
and number. But it wasn't the catch that mattered, not here, not now.
"You want me to trust you, but you don't explain."
Ray glanced back, tipping up the bright-red cap he wore over his
dramatic silver mane. The wind tugged at his hair, teased the caricature
of John Steinbeck gracing his loose T-shirt into rippling over his broad
chest. The great American writer held a sign claiming he would work for
food, but he didn't look too happy about it.
In contrast, Ray Quinn glowed with health and energy, ruddy cheeks where
deep creases only seemed to celebrate a full and contented mood of a
vigorous man in his sixties with years yet to live.
"You've got to find your own way, your own answers." Ray smiled at Ethan
out of brilliantly blue eyes, and Ethan could see the creases deepen
around them. "It means more that way. I'm proud of you."
Ethan felt his throat burn, his heart squeeze. Routinely he rebaited the
pot, then watched the orange floats bob on the water. "For what?"
"For being. Just for being Ethan."
"I should've come around more. I shouldn't have left you alone so much."
"That's a crock." Now Ray's voice was both irritated and impatient. "I
wasn't some old invalid. It's going to piss me off if you think that
way, blame yourself for not looking after me, for Christ's sake. Same
way you wanted to blame Cam for going off to live in Europe--and even
Phillip for going off to Baltimore. Healthy birds leave the nest. Your
mother and I raised healthy birds."
Before Ethan could speak, Ray raised a hand. It was such a typical
gesture, the professor making a point and refusing interruption, that
Ethan had to smile. "You missed them. That's why you wanted to be mad at
them. They left, you stayed, and you missed having them around. Well,
you've got them back now, don't you?"
"Looks that way."
"And you've got yourself a pretty sister-in-law, the beginnings of a
boatbuilding business, and thisa" Ray gestured to take in the water,
the bobbing floats, the tall, glossily wet eelgrass on the verge where a