Nervous Water Read Online Free PDF

took a sip from his beer can. “Then Lillian got the cancer. Spent the last two years of her life right in there”—he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the bedroom—“with the shades drawn, just watchin’ television all day and night. Every day, as soon as Cassie got home from school, she’d go stand in the doorway lookin’ in. She’d stand there for a half hour or more sometimes, just waiting, and Lillian would never even look at her.” He shrugged. “After a while, Lillian died. Cassie was nine that year.”
    â€œSo you raised her by yourself?”
    â€œFrom the time Lillian first got sick, really, it was just Cassie and me.” He smiled. “That little girl could row a dinghy, steer the boat, bait the pots, stick her hand in, grab a lobster, measure it, and toss it into the tub without lookin’. She was as good at lobsterin’ as me. Loved to go trolling for mackerel. Good at that, too. She had the feel for fish.” He shook his head. “She was a lot like you, sonnyboy. Good at things. Quiet, the way you were, but you knew there was always something goin’ on in her head. Smart as a whip, she was. Don’t know where she got that. Mary wasn’t much in the brains department, God knows, and fuckin’ Norman was dumber’n a pickled hake.” He jerked a Camel from the pack in his shirt pocket, tapped its end on the face of his wristwatch, lit it with a match, and squinted at me through the smoke.
    â€œUncle Moze,” I said, “when you called the other day I asked if everything was all right. You didn’t say it wasn’t, but you didn’t say it was, either, exactly. This is nice, what we did today, going out on the boat, getting reacquainted, and I hope it means we can do it some more. But something’s going on, isn’t it? Everything isn’t all right. So maybe there’s something I can do for you?” I made it a question.
    He shook his head. “After all these years, I can’t—”
    â€œIs it Cassie?”
    He peered at me for a minute, then nodded.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œI feel bad. This ain’t your concern, and it ain’t fair to dump it on you. I shouldn’t’ve called you. Regretted it soon as I done it.”
    â€œYou called me because you had a problem,” I said, “and I came up here because I figured you had a problem. If there’s anything I can do, I want to do it.”
    â€œWell, okay,” he said. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry to be so damn long-winded about it, but I don’t know any other way to explain it to you.” He took a quick drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out in a clamshell ashtray on the coffee table. “Cassie finished first in her class. Not that that’s much of an accomplishment for Moulton High School, you know, but it was enough to get her a nice scholarship to the university up to Orono. I missed her something terrible that first year, but she called me once a week, regular as the tides, every Sunday evening it was, told me about her classes and her new friends and how she was on the track team, all happy and enthusiastic, and when she come home that summer she was still the same old Cassie. As far as I could see, college didn’t change her at all except make her even smarter.”
    Moze paused, gazed out the window, took a sip of beer. “But then something did change, because halfway through her sophomore year she up and quit school. I didn’t even know she done it until she called me, said she was in San Francisco livin’ with some friends, had a job as a waitress, was thinking about going to school out there.” He stopped and looked at me. “Hell, you don’t want her damn life story, and this is sounding like poor old Moze, and that ain’t my intention.”
    â€œTake your time,” I said.
    He lit