Page 81 of Summer People
She tips her head, assessing me. “Thenwhydo youdoit?”
“Obligation.” I shrug. “Hunter worked hard to get the lobster license and even harder to acquire all the traps. It seems like a waste of his memory if I don’t use it all.”
“Hmm.” She turns back to the boat, studying it for a minute.
It’s nothing special, just a standard white and black dual motor Eastern boat. But it looks huge like it is, towering on the stilts in the yard. Especially with the black wire traps piled next to it.
Damn thing is so much work.
“There are only, what? Twenty of the metal box things? And maybe twenty-five of those teal and white floating parts?”
She’s so very scientific in her description.
“Traps and buoys.”
“Right.” She nods. “Traps and buoys. Couldn’t someone else use them? Or at least take a few off your hands so you didn’t have to spend so much time doing it?”
Setting twenty traps really does take quite a bit of time. Hours, in fact. Asking anyone to take on the extra work doesn’t sit right with me. I open my mouth to tell her so, but the truth is, I could give them away. I just don’t. Besides… “What would I do all winter?”
She spins back to me. “Your computer stuff. What is it you say you do? Make people’s lives miserable by wrecking their day?”
Chuckling, I jump off the ladder. “Hack, baby. I hack through firewalls.”
“Yeah, of course.” She nods as if she gets it, but she’s far too nonchalant to really understand. Before I can explain it to her, she goes on. “Surely there’s someone on the island who’d be happy to throw those traps into the water and then pray they don’t lose a finger when they haul them up.”
“Wilder loves it.” Nothing makes that man happier than being out on the water. Being a fifth generation lobsterer, it’s in his blood.
“Oh.” Face lit up, she claps. “That’s the answer. Let him do that, and you do the other thing.”
She makes it sound so simple. Give the job to someone who loves it. Give up what I hate. And it should be simple. But here I am, three years after my brother died, still doing all his jobs.
“So can weun-winterize that thing?” She tips her chin at the boat.
“No.”
Her lips turn down.
“But,” I sigh, “I’ll borrow Cank’s boat and take you out to see the damn birds.”
“Yay! Oh.” She turns, only to spin back to face me. “While we’re at it, can we stop on the mainland and get a bra for Sutton?”
Her words are casual, thrown out there like nothing, but when they register, my body locks up tight. That word—bra—rings in my ears. I must have misheard her. A pit forms in my stomach. That word and Sutton do not belong together. “W-what?”
“Yeah, a few of the other girls have them, and she really wants one.”
I blink.Not yet.The words play on repeat in my head. I’m not ready for this girl stuff yet. “My daughter is not old enough for a bra,” I grit out before I can process the words.
Libby’s eyes widen and her body stiffens.
I replay the phrase in my mind and as soon as I hit the worddaughter,I flinch. I’ve never called Sutton my daughter. She isn’t my daughter. But at the same time, she is. Maybe it’s time to break into that box full of things and people that arejustHunter’s.
A sharp pain radiates through my chest and I slam my eyes shut. If I do that, it feels like a finality. Like acceptance that he’s really gone.
A warm palm rests on my arm. Comforting me. Reminding me that I’m not alone. Not anymore.
“It’s okay to call her that,” Libby whispers.
My heart fractures a little more. “She’s Hunter’s daughter.”
