It was mid-December in D.C. and Erin rode the escalator up to the snowy street. The comforting aroma of donuts greeted Metro riders. On one corner, a musician played his saxophone, his case open on the sidewalk to catch coins and dollars. On another corner, a tall man preached loudly, "Whose side are you on?" Handmade signs with black, blocky letters quoted scripture. Another man, this one selling flowers to couples, approached her. "A rose for the lady?" Erin gave him a withering glare, and his hand dropped.
At her apartment entrance, she unlocked her mailbox. Inside she found another letter from Aidan, credit card bills, a magazine and a thick, white envelope. She held it under her nose. Mmmm ... smells expensive, she thought. She slid her fingernail under the flap and tore it open. It was an invitation to a gallery opening in March from her publisher. Enclosed was a return envelope for her R.S.V.P.
For the past several months, at Patricia's insistence, she worked with the 86-year-old musician Alex Campbell and helped him turn in a tidy memoir by deadline. Of course, 86 didn't mean he was dead and often Erin found herself removing his hand from her bottom.
"Dr. Campbell!"
The old man would grimace at her, his best leer. Erin began carrying a ruler and whenever his hands strayed, she smacked them. The device was a familiar one to the old teacher, and he soon developed a fondness for the spunky young woman. He even dedicated his book to her.
"Erin: My glass shall not persuade me I am old, so long as youth and thou are of one date."
"What did you do to that old man?" Patricia asked after reading the inscription.
"I whacked him with a ruler," she replied.
"You should have used it earlier," Patricia said, a sarcastic commentary on Erin's strange affair with Stephen Spence. Erin winced at the cheap shot.
Patricia ignored her pain. "Did you receive our invitation? Did you note that it's formal?"
Erin nodded.
"And will you be attending?"
"Yes. I've already sent my R.S.V.P.," Erin said.
"I'm double checking. You realize it's a gallery opening?"
Erin waved dismissively. "Yes. I'll be there and I'll leave my sweatshirt at home. Do you have anything interesting in the basket? Now that my groping genius is finished, I'm on the market again."
Patricia gave her a large envelope. "Read these queries and let me know what you think. Maybe there is something we'd like to publish."
"Are you asking me to be an acquisitions editor?" Erin felt dazed. Here was a chance to choose her work, to help new writers. There could be an amazing book in this stack of letters.
Patricia smiled fondly. She did care for Erin, despite the Stephen Spence catastrophe.
* * *
"If you're not coming here, then you'll have to spend Christmas in Florida with Mom and Dad."
Erin sighed. "Forget it, Mariah. I'm going to spend a quiet holiday at home."
"Too late; I already called them and they're expecting you. They've even redecorated the spare room since Mom has kept it filled with fishing tackle and poles."
"You didn't!"
"That's right. They've even bought you a non-refundable plane ticket so you can't worm out. You're going to have to face them sooner or later. I've got to go now. Ben's at the door," Mariah said and hung up.
Enraged, Erin stared at her cell phone. She wanted to fling it against the wall, but she had already lost two phones that way in the past four months.
The small phone vibrated in her hand and she noted the readout: "Mom." She rolled her eyes and punched the green handset icon.
"Yes, Mom?"
* * *
On Christmas Eve, Erin peered out the plane window at the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Soon she recognized features and spotted glowing green retention ponds, then the moonscape of exhausted phosphate pits. She watched ant-sized cars crawl along I-275. As the plane circled to make its landing, she spotted the Howard Frankland Bridge and shuddered. She wasn't a fan of bridges or tunnels, or airplanes for that matter.
Although her parents lived in Bradenton, the closest large airport was Tampa International. They didn't mind the drive over the Sunshine Skyway but Erin did. She hated the thought of driving on the bridge with the world's longest cable-stayed main span. It frightened her to know that it had replaced an earlier bridge that had been destroyed when a tanker – the Summit Venture – collided with a pier during a storm. Much of that bridge collapsed into Tampa Bay taking automobiles and a bus. Thirty-five people died. Only one man survived the fall when his pickup truck landed on the deck of the Summit Venture.
It was a horror story that ran through her mind each time she visited. She couldn't hold her breath while crossing the long bridge; instead she panted and gritted her teeth.
"Relax, sweetie," her mom said, reaching into the back seat to pat Erin's arm. "We're almost there."
Erin closed her eyes. The trip to her parent's house was cramped and uncomfortable since her mother sold their car and purchased a pickup truck. "It's easier since my poles fit nicely in the back," she explained. Erin's father smiled. He had always tolerated his wife's life-long obsession with fishing and was compiling a cookbook based upon seafood recipes he created during their 42-year marriage. Without her contributions, he reasoned, the cookbook wouldn't exist.
Riding high in a truck cab meant Erin could see over the sides of the bridge, something she couldn't appreciate.
"Oh my, you should see this," her mother said as she looked through the window. "There are several large sharks following that barge. That reminds me, you should have seen the Mako shark we caught in May. We went out to the fishing grounds and set a few lines. When it hit, I thought it was an amberjack, it fought so hard. Your father had to help me with that one, didn't you Jake?"
He smiled at the memory of shark fin soup and Cajun shark steak.
Erin tried to get her mind off the idea of being on the bridge. "Well, have you two ever seen a manta ray up close? Well I ..." Erin's voice trailed off at the flood of memories.
"Never saw a manta, but I did hook a ..." her father was cut off mid-sentence with a hand from her mother on his thigh. They shared a glance that said, "Let it go," and rode in silence the rest of the way.
Finally, the truck rolled down the crushed shell driveway that ended at Jake and Beth Andersen's retirement home. The small stucco-covered concrete house had weathered thirty years of Gulf Coast hurricanes and while it wasn't the attractive condo on the golf course that Jake had envisioned, its location on the Intracoastal Waterway meant they could keep their Luhrs sportfishing boat ready at the dock. The thirty-eight foot vessel cost twice as much as the squat house, but the Andersens were happy. They spent most of their time on the boat, since living in Bradenton gave them easy access to the back bays and the open Gulf of Mexico.
A small dog zipped around the corner of the house and made a beeline for the truck. Yapping and standing on its hind legs, it greeted the Andersens. "Hello baby; come to daddy," Jake said, holding out his arms. The little dog leapt into his arms and licked his face. "That's my girl. Cookie loves her daddy."
Beth Andersen made a face. "Don't let that dog kiss you. I swear – you spoil her rotten."
Once inside, Erin opened the door to the spare bedroom and learned that Mariah had lied: no redecoration had occurred. Fishing poles of all sizes lined one wall and tackle boxes filled with lures and spoons and floats and fishing line crowded the top of the dresser. Old life preservers were piled in one corner while a bait box dominated the other. The room reeked of fish and salt and mildew.
"Gag, Mom! You expect me to sleep in here?"
Bewildered, her mother asked, "Why? What's wrong with it?" She glanced around and saw the bait box. "Oh, that. Don't worry about that. I'll have Jake move it outside."
Erin made her way to the sliding glass doors at the back of the room and slid them open. "Don't you ever lock the house?"
"What for? We're out here on the fringe. I worry more about the boat than the house,," her mother replied. "Jake! Come help me clear this room."
The three of them heaved and hauled until the most offensive smelling of the fishing gear was stored on the patio. Erin rummaged for air freshener in the hall closet, then saturated the room with the aroma of lilacs.
Her mother's nose crinkled as she returned with clean sheets. "Ew; what's that smell?"
"Not fish, thank god. Mom, how can you live like this?"
"What are you talking about? Jake and I have a perfectly fine home and a great boat. Now, don't get too comfortable. We have to leave here in twenty minutes to make the Christmas boat parade."
Erin enjoyed the parade more than she realized. Hundreds of small and large boats, power and sail, with twinkling lights and colorful Christmas decorations circled around the harbor.
Her father relaxed in the captain's chair, a cocktail in his hand and his little dog on his lap. "Pretty, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is pretty," she said. "I'm glad we came."
Her mother stepped out of the cabin. "Honey, where's that bottle of rum? Sorry, Erin, we're out of vodka."
"That's okay, Mom. I don't need anything."
"Well, how about a glass of wine? I've got some crackers and cheese spread, and there are some pretzels in the locker."
Erin smiled as her mother fished, unsuccessfully for once, for party food. Beth could bait a hook faster than she could spread Cheese Whiz on a cracker and filet a fish more easily than fry an egg. With a husband who fancied himself a chef, why should she care?
"Sure; a glass of wine would be fine."
A couple of hours later both Erin and her father were loopy and laughing. The timid Cookie made her way into Erin's lap and closed her eyes in content as Erin stroked the dog's ears.
Beth, back at her helm, started the massive diesel engine and turned the bow homeward. She smiled to herself, enjoying the alcohol-induced camaraderie between father and daughter. Jake always knew what to say to the girls, she thought. Her own careless fumbling frustrated her daughters as they moved through puberty and into their teens.
"Boys I understand," Beth thought. As the little sister of four older brothers she had learned to toughen up. Her tomboy ways had barely subsided when she met Jake Andersen in high school. She fell head-over-heels in love with the shy farm boy and after graduating from school, they married.
She knew her daughter needed to find her own way, however, that didn't mean a little fatherly advice couldn't help.
Jake waited until the giggling stopped.
"Remember when we were crossing the Skyway Bridge today?"
"My eyes were closed the whole time, but yes, I remember."
"Well, that's fine, because I was driving. Your mom is driving now, because I'm too impaired to helm the boat. We're a team that way."
"You're a great team." Erin wondered where this was going.
"Yes we are. But she's just as afraid of bridges as you."
"Really?" Erin never noticed.
Her father took another sip of beer.
"Over time, she grew to trust me to get her across. There are all kinds of dangers out there but if you have someone to help, you can learn to live with them. You become one person after a while."
Erin thought about Spence and how protected she felt with him, even sailing a thousand miles and back. But she would never have what her parents have. Spence was gone forever.
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