Once Red and I were caught offshore during a storm. We’d sat fishing in the little skiff that our dad, Frank, had fixed for us the summer before, catching so many porgies that both our buckets were overflowing. I remember my feet hung over the side of the Daisy Moon while Red told stories of sea monsters and how the old mapmakers used to think any place not charted on maps had dragons.
Red knew all kinds of sea stories ‘cause he used to hang around Gloucester with Frank and his friends. Some, fishermen for a living, the others just living to fish. Frank would say that Red was learning the sea….
Anyway, the Daisy Moon was rocking gently under a Cape Cod blue sky one minute, and about to capsize under ugly, dark skies the next. The following twenty minutes were some of the scariest of my life. Waves crashed and almost swamped us. Red pulled me into the middle of the skiff, tightened my life vest, and told me stories of mile-long fish that laughed and played water polo.
I remember I held on to Red and buried my head in his chest, listening to his heartbeat. I remember the cold. I remember Reds calming voice.
A calming voice at ten years old.
Suddenly there was Frank in the motorboat towing us back to shore.
I couldn’t get warm for weeks. My mom kept blankets all over the house and filled me with hot cocoa. Red watched and told me stories about the hot desert and how they’d actually found fish bones where there wasn’t any water that anyone could see.
It took me a while, but I finally got warm.
Red went back out the next day.
I stood on our widow’s walk and watched as he pulled porgies out of the bay, waving to me. I worried that a storm would come up again, this time taking Red away forever and beyond.