There was Audrey, sanding the deck of a sailboat in dry dock about twenty feet over my head. “Hey!” I called.
“Hi!”
“You taking it easy enough, missy?” I asked. “Don’t forget you just had surgery.”
“I’m barely even here,” she said. “Dad said I could work for half an hour.”
Another head popped over the deck. “Hi, Nora,” said Poe, smiling.
Smiling. “Hi, honey,” I said. “How’s your first day been?”
“Great. Audrey can drive a boat, did you know that?”
“I suspected. I hear we’re having dinner tonight at Gran’s.”
“Ayuh,” she said in an exaggerated accent, and Audrey and I laughed.
“What are you doing here?” came a low voice behind me.
I turned around. “Hey, Luke,” I said. “I’m here because I’m having dinner with Sully. And my niece.”
The sun had streaked his hair white blond in places, and he looked good. Tan and lean.
“Right. Your niece is working here now.” He scratched his arm idly. “She’s a pretty girl.”
“She’s a minor,” I said, just to be clear.
“Age of consent in Maine is sixteen.”
My forefinger jabbed him in the Adam’s apple before I even knew I’d moved. He made a satisfying gagging sound and stepped back. “If you lay one finger on her, I will rip you apart, Luke Fletcher,” I hissed.
“I was kidding,” he said, wheezing.
“I’m not. Don’t you even look at her.”
“Hey. What’s going on?” It was Sullivan.
I turned to be sure he’d catch everything I said. “Your brother just made an alleged joke about the age of consent in Maine regarding my niece.”
Sully grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him. “I will kill you, Luke. I mean it.”
Luke held his hands up. “Come on, bro! You think I’d do something like that? I was just trying to piss off Dr. Superior here. It was a joke. Jesus.”
“You don’t joke about sex with a teenager, asshole.” Sully shoved him back. “Pack your stuff. You’re leaving.”
“Sully, come on. It was tasteless, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Nora. I would never do that. Okay? I’m really sorry.” He gave me a penitent look.
“Are you guys fighting?” Audrey asked.
“We’re discussing in a heated manner,” Luke called up to her, grinning.
“Don’t be a loser, Uncle Luke,” she said, a frown crossing her face.
“I’m trying not to be. I’ve got you as a role model.”
She smiled, then murmured something to Poe.
“Can I stay, Sully?” Luke asked. “I swear to God, I’d never lay a hand on someone under twenty-five. Twenty-three at the very youngest.” He paused. “I don’t have anywhere to go. You won’t let me stay with Mom, and I’m working for free here.”
“To pay off what you stole.”
“Right. My point is, it’s good for me to be around you, doing all this hard work, and it’s helping me stay clean. Come on, bro. It was a stupid thing to say, and I really am sorry.”
I almost believed him.
Sully took a deep breath. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thanks, bud. You guys have a good night.” He smiled, but there was a hardness in his eyes I didn’t like. He held my gaze a minute longer, dipped his chin, then walked off into one of the buildings.
“Is he stable?” I asked bluntly. “Sober? No drug use?”
“As far as I can tell,” Sullivan said. “I’m so sorry, Nora. He likes to piss people off, and he’s good at it.”
“Is Poe going to have a problem here?”
“Excuse me?”
My words came out more sharply than I intended, given the subject matter. “Is Poe going to have any problems here?”
“No. I’ll make sure of it. You don’t have to yell. Just speak clearly, okay?”
“Yes. Okay. Sorry.”
Sullivan ran a hand through his dark hair, and I caught a glimpse of his hearing aid. “I honestly don’t think he’d ever cross that line. Luke just has this...problem where you’re concerned. Resentment.”
“Yeah, well, he needs to get over it.”
“Yes. He does. Especially if we’re gonna be a thing.”
The words took me by surprise, slamming my heart in an almost-painful rush. “We’ll see about being a thing, Mr. Fletcher, you wordsmith, you. First, you have to endure dinner at my mom’s.”
* * *
Mom greeted us with “You’re late” and sent Poe up to take a shower. “What have you been up to today, Nora? You’re sweatier than a racehorse.”
“Thanks, Mom. Glad we got that out in the open.” Tweety squawked, then dived at my head. “Sullivan, this is my mother’s pet, Tweety.”
“Cute,” he said.
“I hope you like ham,” my mother said.
The bird took another swoop at me. I ducked. “God, Mom. Can’t you put him in a cage?”
“He’s a good boy. Aren’t you, sweetie-Tweety? Come here, now.” She held out her finger, and the bird flew onto it. “Got a kiss for mama?”
“Mom, please. Avian flu. Histoplasmosis. Cryptococcosis.”
“What are you babbling about? He’s not sick. Are you, baby?” She kissed his beak. He squawked, then flew off her finger to parts unknown, probably to worship Satan.
I looked at Sullivan. “Sorry,” I mouthed.
“So you datin’ my daughter?” Mom asked.
“Not quite yet,” he said.
“And you’re deaf, is that right?”
“More or less.”
“You make a good living at the boatyard?”
“Ayuh,” Sully said. Mom may have met her match in the art of conversation.
“Mom, please,” I said. “Can we just eat ham?”
“Go check it,” she said. “I think it needs a few more minutes.”
“It comes cooked, you know. You just have to heat it up.”
“Just do what I say, Nora. I want a few minutes with Sullivan here.”
“This is fun, isn’t it?” I said, squeezing his arm. He smiled down at me, and I felt a surge of attraction.
Maybe we could salvage this night. I scratched a mosquito bite and did as I was told. Opened the oven door—the ham smelled good, all right, and Mom had put pineapple slices on it with maraschino cherries in the middle, making it look like the ham had strange nipples popping out over it. Baked potatoes sat, hardening on the lower shelf—Mom never wrapped them in foil or rubbed them with olive oil the way I did. There would be no butter, either.
Ah, well. I closed the oven door.
In her odd way, Mom was trying for something here. She usually only made ham on Christmas.
“I’m starving,” Poe said, coming into the kitchen, her blue hair wet.
“Hey, I wanted to tell you something, honey. I’m so glad you have a job at the boatyard. But Luke Fletcher...keep your distance, okay?”
“’Cause he’s a druggie and might corrupt my pure soul?”
“Exactly. He also might be a dirty old man.”
“Gross.”
“Yep.”
“I’ll just knee him in the nuts if I have to.” She demonstrated the move. “Take that, motherfucker!”