Undertow (5 page)

A feeling of familiarity and warmth coursed through me as I stripped off my raingear below deck. I wanted to pretend that I didn't notice the feeling, but I couldn't. The reality that not everything about my life back in Dutch Harbor had been as terrible as I remembered it was seeping into my consciousness, tempting me to delve deeper into my memories. I physically shook off the idea, walking briskly toward the kitchen to rifle through the supplies and bang around in the cabinets. I felt conflicted. I hadn't intended to return and change how I felt about my home—my childhood. All I had wanted to do was attempt to repair things with my father. Remembering those happier memories threatened to complicate my original purpose for coming back, so I quickly immersed myself in another task, a distraction technique I had used since I was a child.

It worked as beautifully as it always had.

By the time I had everything perfectly organized and laid out in front of me on the tiny prep space, I heard someone approaching from behind. I turned to see Decker smiling at me from a respectful distance.

“That is the most well-laid-out meal preparation this boat has ever seen. I guarantee it,” he noted.

“I like to have things in order.”

“I can see that,” he replied. A slight upward turn of his lips at the corners of his mouth suggested his amusement with me. “What exactly do you have planned for us to make?”

“Well, Robbie said you guys wouldn't be done for a while, so I thought I would make two pans of lasagna and let them cook while I worked on the vegetables,” I told him, indicating the separate sets of ingredients methodically positioned on the counter based on order of cooking.

“I'm not sure you need me at all,” he observed, taking in my operating-room-like precision.

“It's up to you,” I said casually, assessing him as he had me earlier on the deck. There was such a cool confidence in his demeanor, as though nothing fazed him because his self-assuredness trumped all. It could have been mistaken for cockiness, but I knew far too many men with actually inflated egos to have made that error. Medical school was filled with arrogant and entitled jerks who came across nearly the same way as he did, but there was a disingenuous note to their behavior that Decker lacked entirely. He didn't seem to care what I thought of him; nothing he did was for show. That was the biggest difference of all.

“So,” he started, keeping his eyes fixed on the squash he had started dicing into tiny pieces. “I'm guessing you meant to get Robbie's panties in a twist with your little maneuver today.”

“Possibly.”

“That really is a dangerous place to be, Aesa, even when the waves are mild. Just keep that in mind if you're planning to pull any more stunts in an attempt to give him an aneurysm.”

“You can't actually give someone an aneurysm,” I replied, quickly launching into a medical explanation of the impossibility of such an endeavor. I realized by the end of it that he had dutifully listened to my anatomical lecture without complaint, looking up at me on occasion with the most serious of expressions, forced or otherwise.

“It's a saying,” he said softly, doing his best not to let on that he found me exceedingly entertaining for all the wrong reasons in that moment.

“I . . . I know that,” I quipped, trying to recover from my academic faux pas.

“But that was highly educational. Thanks for the free lesson.” With that, a slight chuckle escaped him and I couldn't help but rosy with embarrassment, even as I smiled. There was something disarming about him, even as he rhythmically chopped vegetables beside me, and I couldn't quite place what it was. He had a softness that was surprising to find in a crab fisherman; most quickly lost that trait after their first year, if they'd ever possessed it in the first place. But beyond that, there was a tranquility to him—a sense of ease—that consistently inspired this quality in myself. The sensation was foreign yet intriguing.

When I realized I was staring at him, I quickly turned my attention back to the pot of water boiling before me and threw in the noodles. There was an awkward silence between us for a moment or two before he finally broke it.

“You did well,” he said, putting the knife down to focus his attention on me. I forced my gaze to meet his warm brown eyes.

“Sorry?”

“Hanging the bait. In the pot. You did it really well. I was impressed.”

“Oh, well . . . I know a thing or two about crab fishing,” I fumbled, uncertain how to take his compliment. It was unexpected, to say the least.

“I'm sure you do.”

“The good and bad,” I mumbled to myself, my resentment of the profession slowly bleeding through.

“What was that?” he asked, looking at me quizzically.

“Nothing. Sorry. Could you pass me that spoon please?”

He smiled and did as I asked before returning to his chopping; never did he appear to question my obvious evasion about what I'd said. For me, it was a kneejerk reaction to resent my father's profession. The family legacy. I shook my head and chuckled inwardly, thinking that it was beyond ironic that I had decided to join my father on the very vessel that had caused me nothing but stress as a child.

“I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a private conversation that you're having with yourself,” he said casually, pointing out my somewhat bizarre behavior.

“Sorry,” I apologized again. “It's been a long day. I think my mood is tanking because of it.”

“You don't really want to be here, do you?” His question sounded rhetorical, more an observation than a true inquiry. When I didn't reply immediately, he put his knife down thoughtfully and turned his attention to me. “Robbie said you have a thing against the Bering Sea.”

“Robbie talks too much,” I replied a bit curtly, before softening my tone. “But he's right. There is no love lost between her and me.”

He assessed my words, his eyes traveling up and to the right for a moment before he spoke.

“It's good to face the things that make you uneasy.”

“I'm not uneasy,” I protested lightly.

“Well, you don't seem
at
ease, so I think, by definition, you are uneasy.”

I opened my mouth to argue until I realized that he was not only right about his argument, but also about the initial observation: I didn't really
want
to be there. I'd made the decision to go because of a sense of obligation and a touch of guilt. Apparently, being at sea was putting me a bit on edge, and I hadn't fully realized it until Decker pointed it out. I wasn't a fan of weakness in character, but the truth was that the Bering Sea exposed mine, and he saw that quite clearly. I was uneasy. To have denied that would have been futile and foolish, and would only have painted me as such to the strangely intuitive man that stood beside me. For whatever reason, I couldn't stand the thought of him thinking less of me for even trying to debate that fact.

“Maybe you're right,” I said quietly. “I didn't really notice until you mentioned it.”

“I don't know what issues you have with being at sea, or what drove you to come in the first place, and I don't need to. That's your business. I just know that the more you fight against circumstances you can't change, the more they fight back. That never ends well. It's usually best to coexist with those circumstances until they can be reconfigured.”

It was my turn to search his expression for deeper meaning, but he was a study in placidity, his warm expression giving nothing away beyond the wisdom of his words. He spoke from experience; that much I knew. However, that conclusion left me wondering not only about what he had faced to make him so wise at such a young age, but also who he was in general. I'd known many a deckhand in my lifetime, and they were a varied bunch indeed. Some were degenerates. Others were legacies. A few were those that weren't cut out for a corporate life, even though their intelligence and potential might have dictated that they go to college and educate themselves further to do just that. The rest tended to be a mixed bag of average Joes just trying to make a living.

Decker didn't seem to fit into any of those categories.

He was undoubtedly smart, that much was obvious, but he lacked that aloofness the anti-college crowd often had. He was sharp and fully engaged. After watching him for the day, I knew he never did anything halfway. It was all or nothing with him. So whatever had occurred in his past to trap him must have been a mighty force indeed. His level of strength and determination would not have been easy to cage.

“Something I said?” he asked, eyeing me as my mind snapped back from its travels, trying to diagnose his past.

“No—it's just that you're right. Again.” I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice when I responded. Before he could retort, the others barreled down the stairs, every bit the starving seamen they were, and joined us in the kitchen.

“Food ready yet?” Robbie asked, tucking himself in behind the table.

“No, not yet. You guys should go clean up a bit. It'll be ready in about forty-five minutes.”

“What have you two been doing this whole time?” Damon asked, his voice sending chills up my spine. Though he hadn't given me any direct cause to think poorly of him, I knew he was bad news. “Hmmm?”

“Dinner prep, Damon,” Decker replied coolly. “You're welcome to take over the operation, if you would prefer.”

“That depends.”

“On what?” Decker asked for clarification, shielding me slightly from Damon's view.

The silence hung oppressively for a moment until Robbie broke it.

“Damon, get your ass in the shower. You're stinking the whole place up. You take the longest anyway. Stop being such a grump.”

Without a word, Damon made his way down the hall to the bathroom and did as he was told. Decker never moved until he heard the door shut and lock. Once he did, he silently turned his attention back to dinner, not making any further comment about what had just transpired. Not wanting to make more of the situation than was necessary, I did the same.

* * *

After dinner was eaten and things were cleaned up, the boys were granted a few hours’ rest before gear hauling was to begin. The first string of pots was almost always a prospect string to see if the boat was on the crab or not. Whether or not my father's hunches were correct, it was going to be a long day of either sorting crab and setting back in the same spot or pulling fruitless gear off the sea floor and stacking the pots back on deck only to sail off in search of more successful grounds.

Instead of following their lead and heading to bed myself, I went up to check on my father, who I presumed was still sorting through his charts and spreadsheets, both paper and digital, trying to plan his next move in the event that the grounds he'd picked were not as filled with king crab as he would like. He had a quota and a delivery date to meet; his margin for error was narrow at best. By the looks of him when I entered the wheelhouse, neither of those two concerns had escaped his mind.

“What's the plan?” I asked casually, looking over his shoulder at the wealth of data he had spread out before him.

“The plan is to find the crab as quickly as possible. Same as always.”

His tone was firm and icy, practically repelling me from him.

“Okay, I'll go then,” I replied, turning to retreat down to my room. Perhaps my timing could have been a little better.

“Aesa,” he called after me. “Don't go. Please. I'm just tired, and the weather reports coming in are highly unfavorable. I don't want to worry you with the details, but we could be in for a bad one. I need some coffee and food. It might make sorting all of this out a little easier. Would you watch the boat while I go get some? The short walk would do me some good.”

“Um . . . sure.” My voice relayed every ounce of hesitation I felt. I had never sailed a ship before, let alone a massive crab boat. The seas were calm and the skies clear, but everything about taking the helm gave me pause. Knowing that weather ominous enough to rattle my father was headed our way only deterred me further.

“Sit down,” he said more gently that time. “I'll show you the basics. I should have done this years ago.”

With a deep breath, I did as he bade me, taking the captain's seat while he pointed out all the different controls, screens, and pertinent equipment. It was really quite fascinating. I listened intently, not wanting to miss even the minutest detail.

“I think that's all you need to know for now. If you panic, just shout for me. I'll come right back.”

I'll come right back . . .

My hardened walls started to re-erect themselves at his words as I remembered he had never followed through on them before. Not even when I'd cried for him on the docks as a child, begging him not to go. He’d always told me he'd come right back, but he lied.

“Aesa,” he started, seeing something in my reaction to his words. “I promise. If you need anything, I'll be here.” His gaze held a sadness that said more than his words ever could. In an effort to rise against the bitterness inside me, I tried to smile in acknowledgment of the effort he'd just made.

“Go get your coffee. I'll be fine,” I ordered from my throne at the head of the ship. “Captain's orders.”

He limped his way down the stairs, disappearing into the kitchen while I stared off at the endless black ahead, wondering if I would ever be able to leave the past behind and forgive my father for all he had done to my mother and me. Since my return, there was a subtle urgency in him that I had not seen before, as though he really seemed to understand that this was his final chance to make things right. A final shot at redemption before I cut bait and ran. He was well aware that I could be far more difficult to contain than his beloved crab. If I left him again, it would be for good, and he inherently knew it. Headstrong and independent, I was far more my father's daughter than I ever cared to admit.