The Watery Part of the World - Michael Parker [60]
Whaley went back to his plate. She saw no use arguing with a hungry man. She tried to remember the last time she and Whaley had quarreled. Some years ago, when he’d asked her to spend more time at home, confessed he needed her, though he could not say what he needed her for. She’d acquiesced then, but she would not do so now. She poured another mug of water and took it out to Hezekiah, who was waiting in the sun where she’d left him. She handed him the water and told him she’d bring him something to eat, and for the rest of the day she ignored her husband, who worked with Hezekiah on fixing up the shed.
That night she sat up for hours in the parlor, thinking of things to say to Whaley, shaping her argument against his owning another person. Chief among her reasons was one so obvious, so irrefutable she felt silly saying it: after all they’d been through, all they’d sacrificed in their lifetimes, the things that had been wrenched from them—home, family, children, whole lives—how could he possibly put someone else through the slightest anguish, and for profit?
Worry addled her wounds. She felt the scars across her body, remembering the day and a half she lay bleeding in the bottom of the stolen boat, or what Whaley’d told her about it: her blood mixing with the wash in the bottom, Whaley afraid to bail the blood out for fear of drawing sharks, his attempts to hug the shore should the boat start taking on water, his fear that Daniels had alerted his charges up and down the banks to be on the lookout for them, that land was no less safe than sea.
Whaley woke her. He was stoking the fire. Pink light winging in off the ocean. She roused herself from her thin sleep, in the rocking chair, her muscles stiff and creaky from an awkward night’s slumber.
“I’ll make you some breakfast,” she said when he did not speak or look at her.
“I packed something already,” he said. “You get to bed.”
“Whaley,” she said to him when she saw he was moving toward the door, without a kiss or even a look her way.
He stopped. She hesitated, as if waiting for something other than herself to usher in the apology. But what had she to apologize for? He was the one who ought to know better than to try to pay money for human life.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You’re taking him with you?”
“No. He’ll be at work on his shed.”
“He’ll need breakfast then? I’ll see to it,” she said, glad to have something to say, something practical, a statement of fact. But when the door eased shut, her worry returned, and she tried to understand this paltry exchange of words as a start, if not exactly a triumph. She could talk sense into him. He’d listen to her, surely.
Meanwhile she went about fixing breakfast for Hezekiah. She found him sawing logs in the sideyard.
“I’ve got your breakfast ready.”
The blade eased to a stop in the log. He stood, holding it awkwardly, shielding the sun with his free hand so that he might look vaguely in her general direction.
“It’s on the table.”
“I’m obliged if you can bring me a bit of bread,” he said.
“Nonsense. There are cakes and some jam and eggs and side meat.”
“I won’t be needing all that.”
“Mr. Whaley told me before he left to come and get you when it’s ready.”
For the next ten minutes she uttered hundreds of words in negotiation to Hezekiah’s dozens. He did not want to accept her food. He’d just take a slice of bread, a little side meat, thank you. She wouldn’t hear of it. The food would go to waste, she said. She could feed it to her children, he said. They get plenty to eat, she said. He smiled over her shoulder and she turned to see the children watching their standoff from the back porch. She shooed them inside and followed them to the kitchen where she made up a plate and had Alex take it out to Hezekiah.
All day long she listened to his work—sawing, chopping, hammering—while