John Casey - Spartina

“Wrong.” He said it out loud. He put his hand on the door handle. Might as well blame his truck. What kind of a sorry son of a bitch was he? He had his boat. That’s what he’d wished for.

The weather was colder. The stars were steady, the moon clear.

And what had Elsie got? She’d got a wish too, more of a bend in her life than she’d thought of.

T he weather did clear. It was a little breezy, but Dick called up Tran and Tony.

They got Spartina out to the near edge of the banks, where they still had a few sets of pots. They’d moved most of the others in close enough to get out and back pretty quick, not as far out as this. When they were hauling one of the trawls, the line snapped. Dick heard the crack and the whistle. When he came out of the wheelhouse he saw the line had whipped forward over the wheelhouse and sheared off the VHF antenna and cracked the radar casing. Neither Tran nor Tony was hurt. They’d hit the deck when they’d heard the line hum just before it broke.

The damage was easy enough to fix, but he couldn’t tinker with anything delicate while Spartina was bouncing around in the chop. He took her into Woods Hole. As they came in at the end of the afternoon, he saw someone waving from the beach just north of the harbor mouth. The waving kept up. He put the glasses on it and saw the figure dragging a foot in the slope of hard sand. It made a big E.

After they docked, Dick let Tran and Tony go ashore for a meal. Elsie showed up, bundled up in foul-weather gear.

She’d come down from her mother’s to stay at a friend’s house … give her mother a break, they were getting along fine but … And she craved some sea air, so …

She was grinning down at him from the dockside while she said all this. He climbed up. Elsie held on to both his hands. She said, “I’m glad to see you! Come on, I’ll buy you a meal.”

Dick said sure, but he had to wait for either Tran or Tony to get back. He didn’t want some wharf rat pinching something off Spartina.

He helped Elsie down on deck, she weighed a ton. He took her to the wheelhouse, which was warm.

Elsie said, “Turn around a second.”

She shed her foul-weather gear. When he turned back to face her, she stood sideways, pulling her wool jumper tight to show off the jut of her basketball stomach.

Dick was taken aback. He hadn’t thought of getting to see this part.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Elsie said. “The only part I don’t like is that I can’t go out much in case I run into someone I know. Even people I don’t know but who know me — it turns out my mother’s house is right down the street from Phoebe Fitzgerald’s ex-husband. I sneak out at night in a big overcoat and go to the movies, but that’s it.” Elsie climbed back into her foul-weather gear. “Anyway, I recognized Spartina from the beach. You’re someone I can run into.… Look, let’s go eat. Leave a note for your crew. We can ask the harbormaster to keep an eye on Spartina till they get back.”

Dick didn’t like to ask favors, but he didn’t want to say no to Elsie. He felt a terrible weight suddenly, not of trouble or sorrow, but of Elsie’s good cheer.

At the restaurant he started to tell Elsie about telling May, but she cut him off. “Later,” she said. “Let’s just eat. This is my first social life since Thanksgiving.”

She drove him to the cottage where she was staying. It was dark. “It’s a friend’s summer house,” she said. “She’s in Boston.”

She asked him to start a fire in the fireplace while she made coffee. She brought a bottle of Irish whiskey out with the coffee. “I’m not drinking, but you go ahead.”

She was in a wonderful mood. She’d eaten a huge meal, right down to pie à la mode and a glass of milk. She talked about how cozy Woods Hole was in winter. “I like walking around the harbor at night; it’s like a little cup of tea with the mist coming up like steam. My sister’s coming up here tomorrow, just for the day.” She took his hand again. “And Mary Scanlon’s come to see me a couple of times. She’s going to come for the birth. In fact everybody’s going to be there then. My mother, my sister, and Mary.” Elsie laughed. “You want to come?”

Dick said, “Look. I got to say something. We haven’t really talked about this. I got to know about doctor’s bills and the like. I’d like to put some money aside for that. And for other things.”

“Dick, we did talk about that. I told you about that already. I’m doing fine. I mean, right this minute I’m getting paid a salary.”

Dick said, “I’ve got to do it. It’s not just because it’s May’s idea. I thought about it and she’s right. I see she’s right.”

“Ah.” Elsie folded her hands in her lap. After a minute she said, “Was it terrible telling her? Are things okay? That’s a dumb question. I guess I hope she blamed it on me. Did she? You know, call me a tramp and a slut? It’s funny, I’ve been feeling very close to her. I mean, this baby is related to her babies.”

“No,” Dick said. “She didn’t blame it all on you. She didn’t even get that mad. Not that way. It’s hard to explain. I’ve got to say I admire the way she feels about it — so far as I understand the way she feels.” Dick was suddenly glad to be seeing Elsie, to feel the relief of talking to someone who was in the same trouble.

“It’ll be a while before things settle down,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say things’ll be okay eventually. Not the same, but okay, if I make amends.”

“You buy her a dishwasher yet?”

Dick looked at Elsie.

“Oh, come on,” Elsie said. “No. I guess I shouldn’t tease you. I’m sorry, I can’t help it — part of this is funny. Me transporting myself across state lines. Elsie, the unindicted co-conspirator disguised in a man’s overcoat. I feel like an anarchist carrying a bomb.” She put her hands on her belly, said, “Boom!” and lifted her fingers.

“There is this side to it,” she said. “I’m not killing anybody with my crime. I mean, it’s not bad that way. I get to have my deep outlaw wish, and it’s a baby.”

Elsie sank down after that little spate of bright talk. She said, “So May didn’t blame me, she didn’t call me a cheap slut?”

“I said she didn’t blame it all on you. She might not even think you were bad to her personally. You just ignored her. If she was going to call you anything, I guess it’d be spoiled. But I’m not sure I get everything May’s thinking. I’ve never had to forgive anybody. At least not anybody in my family. For anything so definite …” Dick thought of how he finally forgave his father so many years after his father’s death. But it wasn’t for any one thing the old man had done. He shook his head and said, “I’m no one to go by about that.”

Elsie said, “Don’t go gloomy on me.” She started to get up, said, “Don’t just sit there, give me a hand.” He pulled her up. She shook the skirt of her jumper loose from where it clung to her tights. “I used to laugh at Sally when she was pregnant, struggling up out of chairs. Thank God, I won’t be pregnant in summer — I even feel too hot now.” She took her boots off by stepping on the heels. She held out a foot for him to pull her wool sock off, then the other foot. She went around to the back of the sofa and took her tights off, leaning on it with both hands as she trampled them off her ankles and feet.