Morrow Point

The Sea Can Give and The Sea Can Take

Roxanne Skelly

The sea can give and the sea can take. Charlie Weber knew this deep in the marrow of his bones. As he walked up to Schumacher-Cordonnière Fishing Net Repair, freshly printed resume in hand, he hoped the ocean would give back some of what it had taken. It owed him. With the confidence of one who’d just crossed over into adulthood, he marched through the weathered door and peeled the help-wanted sign from below a hanging circled star in the window. The two desks in the dingy office were vacant, but he heard rustling through the open doorway in the back.

“Hello?” His youthful voice cracked. When nobody answered, he called out again, putting a touch more force behind his words.

“Be with you in a moment. Have a seat,” a woman replied, her voice uneven with exertion.

So he took off his Weber and Son Fisheries foul-weather jacket, smoothed down his scruffy, black hair, and sat in one of the uncomfortable folding metal chairs against the wall. His foot tapped in time with his racing heartbeat as he toyed with his smartphone. His father, clothed in his own foul-weather fishing gear, looked back at him from the lock screen. Charlie closed his eyes for a moment, remembering better times.

The wait wasn’t particularly long. Five or six minutes. And after, the woman emerged. She was pretty, in a willowy way. Maybe mid-thirties, with long brown hair and big eyes. Most striking, she was pregnant. Very pregnant. Her extended stomach looked strange on her lithe figure.

She wiped away the sheen of sweat on her brow and removed the leather gloves she wore. “So, what may I do for you?” She paused a moment as she studied him, then added, “Young man.”

He stood, then adjusted his worn peacoat. “Uh, hi ma’am. Charlie Weber. I’m here about the job?” He stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Charlie. You’re Bill’s boy, aren’t you. He was a good man.” By reflex, she shook it as she frowned. “Francine Cordonnière. Call me Francine.”

She directed him to another folding chair by a desk. It made a screeching noise as Charlie pulled it back, but Francine didn’t seem to notice. She lowered herself slowly, wincing, into an office chair. As she relaxed into it, she took a deep breath and blew it out like she was inflating a balloon.

“So, Charlie, tell me about yourself.” She leaned forward and took his offered resume, then placed it in an inbox on the corner of her desk, sight unseen.

“Well, uh, I guess I’m looking for my first real job. Just graduated from Aberdeen High. I worked with my father for a while, doing odds and ends around the boat, but, well, Mom said I needed to contribute more to the family if I wanted to stay at home. Things have been tight since…” Charlie still couldn’t say it. Even a year later. “I have a car and won’t have any trouble getting here. I’ve no problem working mornings or evenings, and I can come in on weekends. Whatever you need. I’m a hard worker, Mrs. Cordonnière, really. I could use this job.”

Francine narrowed her eyes and studied him. “Why would you want to work here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always liked the sea, and I wanted to work someplace where I could help the fishermen around here. None of them are taking on greenhorns right now. You know how it is.” Charlie grimaced.

Francine gave him a pained smile. “Not so many fish these days, with the climate and all. But there are enough boats, and they all have nets in need of repair. You’d help around the shop. Carry nets from the back, package them up, help customers load them, that type of thing. I can’t do it anymore.” She glanced down at her abdomen.

Charlie followed her gaze and nodded.

“Pay is one dollar over minimum. Be here at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. It’s hard work, but honest work.” She held out her hand.

Charlie lit up, a big smile crossing his face as he shook her hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Cordonnière. You won’t regret it. I mean it.”

As he walked to his old Toyota in the parking lot, he puffed out his chest. His first proper job, doing hard work. Honest work. He wouldn’t screw this up.

#

Charlie spent the next few weeks working mostly with Mrs. Cordonnière’s wife and business partner, Vivian Schumacher. Vivian was a large, muscular woman with striking red hair and a jovial smile. She had a penchant for wearing button-down, plaid, flannel shirts when she wasn’t bundled in a foul-weather jacket. Charlie thought she looked like a lumberjack, minus the beard, but he couldn’t help but like her. She reminded him of his mother.

There was always plenty of work to do. The fishermen from Aberdeen brought in their nets, which he lay neatly in piles in the steel building behind the office. Every afternoon, as instructed, he would place one over a fence-like rack out back of the building. Sometimes, he would pause after stringing up the net and stare out at Grays Harbor, fifty feet down at the bottom of the bluff. The water soothed him. The white-capped waves, the fishing boats coming and going, the dredge. So much activity in this little pocket of safety feeding into the Pacific.

One morning in late November, the boats cleared from the harbor. The whitecaps became more pronounced, and the sky grew dark. Clouds blew in from the ocean on a nor’wester, and the wind picked up, sending debris into the air.

Charlie peered out of the window in the rear of the building. “Mrs. Schumacher, should we really lay a net out today? The storm is looking worse.”

Vivian frowned. “We must. Every day. It’ll be fine.”

So Charlie hefted a gillnet into a cart and opened the large door. Wind scattered stray papers and threatened to overturn the cart, but he pushed it out anyway. He was a hard worker. An honest worker.

He took three times longer than usual to string up the net. He fastened it to the rack with twice as many ties. By the time he’d finished, the sky was dark, and rain stung his face. The large garage-style door groaned under the load as he watched it close, and after it was secured, he could still hear the maelstrom outside.

“Good kid.” Vivian slapped him on the shoulder when he entered the office. “Quite the blower we have out there.”

“You sure you’re going to be able to fix the gillnet tonight?” Charlie was skeptical, as was reasonable given the weather. But the nets were always fixed when he arrived the next morning, which had initially dumbfounded and amazed him. Now it was just part of his life.

“Don’t you worry about that. Be here in the morning. This should blow over quickly.” She pulled a cold can of beer from the fridge in the back of the room, popped the top, then took a sip.

Francine glanced up from her computer. “Might be a long night. Trees down across the one-oh-nine west of here.”

As she spoke, the lights flickered.

“Shit,” Charlie whispered under his breath, then said aloud, “How long until they clear them?”

She shrugged. “You should stay with us tonight. They’ll most likely have it cleared in the morning. We have a cot in the loft. I’ll get it ready for you.” She groaned as she pushed herself up from her chair.

“You’ll do no such thing, love.” Vivian placed her hand on Francine’s shoulder and guided her back into her seat. “I’ll take care of it.”

Francine lay her hand on her wife’s and smiled. “Okay, then I’ll microwave us some burritos. You two must be hungry. It’s been a long day.”

At that, Charlie’s stomach rumbled, and he nodded vigorously.

Ten minutes later, he was shoveling beef and beans into his mouth at Vivian’s desk. She put a beer next to his plate, then placed her finger to her lips. He raised his eyebrows, questioning, but opened it and took a sip, grimacing.

As they quietly finished their meal, the lights flickered and went out, leaving them alone in darkness with the storm screaming outside.

#

While the storm raged, they played poker and told ghost stories in the office under candlelight until exhaustion threatened. Vivian stood and held out her hand to Francine. “It’s time we got you to bed, my love.”

Charlie rose as well and offered his hand. Francine took both and hefted herself out of the chair. She gave Charlie a light hug. “You’ll be safe out here. Just do what you can to stay warm. There’re more blankets in the trunk next to the cot.”

With that, the two women wrapped themselves in rain gear and rushed through the tempest to their home, a cozy trailer beside the shop. Charlie, now alone with the heavy weather and his thoughts, climbed the steep stairs to the loft and lay back on the cot. But he couldn’t sleep. Not with the maelstrom outside, and the clammy air cutting into his bones. The two blankets he’d retrieved from the trunk did little to warm him against the chill.

At two in the morning, he decided to stretch his legs. He carefully descended the stairs, holding his phone aloft for light, and walked around the nets piled in the center of the steel building. Lightning flashed through the windows and a few seconds later, a rumble reverberated throughout the building.

He waited for the next flash, then counted aloud. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Miss…” A half mile. Close.

The sound of the rain against the metal roof turned hard and sharp. Hail. He grew concerned about the net out back. Surely the wind and the hail and the rain would be too much, despite the strong nylon.

He peered out the window and saw nothing in the darkness. Another flash, and he made out the rack with the net. Two figures, frozen in time by the lightning, huddled at the net.

Charlie’s heart raced. Francine and Vivian.

Without a second thought, he opened the door and rushed out. The hail stung, the cold cut through his sweatshirt in seconds, the wind whirled around him like a wild animal. He leapt down onto the gravel driveway, ignoring the pain he felt through his sock-covered feet.

With only the light from his phone to show his way, he raced to the grass, then froze.

Two men worked on the net. They were covered in foul-weather gear, complete with red sou’wester hats, waterproof pants, and rubber boots. Long streamers of kelp were draped over them, snapping back and forth in the heavy wind.

“Hey!” Charlie yelled and waved his phone. “Hey, what are you doing?”

They continued to work on the net, shuttles flying back and forth.

Charlie stepped closer and closer, then slipped on the slick grass and fell. He scrambled to his phone, a few feet away, and turned the light on them once more. One figure stood and twisted at the waist in a very unnatural manner. He glared at Charlie with empty sockets where his eyes would be.

Skull was visible through rips in the figure’s face. A small crab hung from a scraggly beard. The apparition’s ungloved hands were wrinkled and shedding skin to reveal bone.

The figure slowly turned back to the net, knelt, and continued weaving the shuttle back and forth through the crisscrossed lines.

Charlie watched, both scared and enraptured by the skill with which they did their work. Bit by bit, they replaced the torn lines. Knot by knot the net became anew, strong and ready to capture more of the sea’s harvest.

As the chill finally pushed past the adrenaline racing through his veins, he scrambled awkwardly up. He raised his hand to his mouth. “Thank you!” He could think of nothing else to say to these nighttime visitors who were keeping Vivian and Francine’s business afloat.

The two figures stood and turned toward him.

Recognition. The Weber and Son foul-weather jacket, the red sou’wester, the way the figure held himself. Charlie’s heart pounded.

“I miss you,” he whispered.

His father raised his hand in reply. Slowly, bits of his jacket, pants, and flesh melted away. Soon, all that remained was a hat and a pile of kelp.

Charlie stood, hands at his side, mouth agape, until he mustered the courage to retrieve the sou’wester. The cold drove him back into the building. He stripped off his wet clothing and laid it out to dry, then wrapped himself in the blankets and shivered through the night.

#

Morning broke with a beautiful blue sky. The storm had passed hours ago. Vivian and Francine arrived at the shop to find Charlie placing a net, repaired and folded, neatly next to the others from the previous nights.

“Been up long?” Francine called to Charlie, then yawned.

“Not long. Just finishing up last night’s work.” He brushed the dirt and seaweed from his hands and smiled at them. “Quite the storm.”

“Certainly was.” Vivian joined Charlie at the nets and pushed the one he’d dropped with her foot. Her brow wrinkled. “Hmm, work’s good, but something is off.”

She crouched down and rolled the lines between her fingers. She tested the strength of the knots. She unfolded the net slightly and pulled on the eyelets used for the floats and weights. All the while, she chewed her bottom lip, a nervous habit.

“Knots are left-handed. And the repair was done with…” She glanced up at the spools of nylon hanging in racks against the wall. One spool was missing.

“Looks fine to me, hon.” Francine placed her hand on her wife’s shoulder.

Vivian squinted at Charlie, who merely shrugged and held up his hand. “Leftie. Guilty.” Then he yawned. It had been an early morning, finishing the repairs left by those poor, tormented souls. He wasn’t as fast as them, but he had managed.

“But they should have…” Vivian sputtered.

“I thanked them for a job well done and they moved on to where they needed to be. Finished the work this morning, after the storm. I hope it’s okay.” He felt a little guilty, seeing the pained look on Vivian’s face.

She fell to her knees. “How could you? We’re ruined.” She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to stem tears of frustration. And a little fear.

“Viv, hon, we’ll be fine.” Francine soothed. “Charlie, where’d you learn to mend nets? This is good work.”

“My dad taught me before the sea took him,” he said in a monotone voice. He still hadn’t dealt with the loss. Last night had helped, though. Despite the storm, there had been peace. For his father and for him.

“I’m sorry.” Francine stood and did her best to stretch. “Viv, we may need to raise our rates. The young man needs a fair salary if he’s going to take on the net repairs. Will you, Charlie?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do a good job.” Charlie proudly puffed out his chest. “No thanks necessary.”