The Watery Part of the World - Michael Parker [9]
Woodrow left soon as the seas died down enough to where he could cross, throttled wide open over there, hull batted wave to wave. He lost: cooler full of fish, spare gas tank, a net, rod-and-reel, waders, all of it tossed overboard, a sacrifice, sea can have all that if she just lets me find my Sarah alive and well.
Someone was waiting for him down at the dock. Wouldn’t anyone meet him but his bride, and Woodrow at the sight of the figure on the dock cussed himself for tearing ass over across the inlet, sacrificing his worldly goods for nothing. Then he grew close enough to spot Maggie. He recognized her before he could make out the color of her skin; it was the way she stood, which he remembered from all the times he’d seen her standing similar, waiting on him to bring Boyd back from a day’s fishing. Arms crossed over her chest, holding her heart, protecting it. He thought at first, well, wind done knocked out the power and the light, mixed her up. She’d lost her place in time, come down to wait on Boyd, who at that point had been gone a good many years. Woodrow’d seen people take a little vacation from good God-given sense after a particularly big blow.
Then he got a little closer and saw the look on her face and he changed his mind. It’s Whaley, he thought. Most people would put their money on Maggie to be the first to go. She’d courted nearly everything you can court to shave some years off—she smoked roll-your-owns for years, drank whenever she could get her hands on some liquor, loved nothing more than lying out stitchless under the noontime sun. But Woodrow always thought it’d be Whaley because in the end, though she lived better, ate better, worked harder than her sister, she cut herself off from people, she didn’t know nothing about how to love, she couldn’t even listen. Death comes quicker to those who don’t know how to listen. He worried about Crawl. His own son didn’t know how to hear another man’s pain. Get too busy thinking about your own mess, that’ll kill you deader than hell. You got nobody to sustain you, you’re going to go quick, and it’s going to hurt too, knowing you left nobody in your wake. He thought about Whaley lying there on her deathbed knowing after she’s gone all that’s left is some same-old stories in a book about an island nobody cares to hear about.
Well, least she went easy, quick. Best she didn’t linger, because if she did, Woodrow’d have to sit with her, at least help take care of her, and he’d be telling some lies even bringing around food to sustain her one more hour, because he couldn’t out-and-out say he would miss her if she was gone. He could say the out-and-out opposite. Better he didn’t have to get himself mixed up in a big last lie.
When he cut the engine and nosed the skiff up alongside the dock and got close enough to toss Maggie the line, he saw the blood on her dress and noticed her shivering. Everything froze: line in his hands, coiled, ready to throw. Skiff took its own course, bow nosing around in a half circle. Maggie stared into the shallows but not like she’d lost something down there. She had a little bit of sleeve in her mouth. Her chin was quivering and she was chewing that little bit of sleeve. Woodrow knew then it wasn’t Whaley.
Then and there he saw what all had happened. Maggie, well—he could read her easy, just like Sarah could read him. Neither of them were ones could hide what they were feeling.
“Where’s she at?”
Maggie said, “In the church.” She reached her hand out for the line to tie the skiff to the dock but Woodrow didn’t want her help. What good was her help now or ever after if she could not help when he asked her to help?