Here he was, lying on his cot, his mind filled with the rosewater smell of Meredith’s perfume. He pictured her on her front lawn, spyglass aimed at him and Ezra as they rowed past the jetty. The way she’d pressed her hand to the girl’s forehead, her forthright manner with the maids—all of it reminded him of the woman he’d loved before his life became one long circle of memory, going over and over the accident as if he could make things come out right.
Wind rattled the window and shook the shack in its frame.
Rascal stood by the bed, alert, vigilant. Nathaniel didn’t know why the dog hadn’t taken off. It was strange, the way Rascal looked at him as if for some kind of reassurance. Maybe he was afraid of going hungry, or maybe something had happened to him.
“It’s only wind,” Nathaniel said. The dog followed him outside past the edge of the clearing where he pissed in the woods. The wind was strong from the southeast, sending his stream off to the left of where he aimed. Wind rushed through the trees—oak, cherry, birch, Nathaniel thought. The cattails bent over in wavering arcs, but the sky was clear, no sign of a storm. He didn’t have much that could be ruined by rain or wind or weather of any kind. He’d made sure of that when he started out. If he couldn’t afford to lose it, it wasn’t worth having. Still, he wandered around the clearing, looking for anything that should be brought inside.
While they ate, he gazed toward the bay and the distances beyond, where he could imagine himself as a speck that meant nothing. Nothingness eased him when he considered it—his pain a tiny dot in the world’s worry of feelings.
He finished breakfast and walked with the dog along the path through the marsh. The Butler house showed its roof over the low treetops bending in the wind. Meredith. Her name rung through him like a lofty chord. He thought of the man he could be if he came off the marsh, a man who worked with his father and purchased land and owned a house, a man who Meredith could live with.
When he reached the harbor, there was Theo atop his horse, talking down to one of his fishing captains. When he saw Nathaniel, he tapped the horse into motion.
“Nathaniel,” he said, coming alongside.
Nathaniel ignored him and kept walking. The dog’s ears went up, and he walked on the other side of Nathaniel now, following his quick stride toward the water.
“I know you were in my house. The whole town knows,” Theo said. “You go back there again, I’ll have to do something about it. I mean it. I won’t stand for it.”
He kicked his boots into the sides of his horse and trotted out the harbor road.
As he watched Theo ride away, Nathaniel made up his mind. He was going to win Meredith back. He’d talk to his father about managing the land. He’d get a start building the life he and Meredith had dreamed of—a piece of land, a house built with his own hands. He threw a stick for Rascal, and the dog leapt across the creek and splashed the surface. He came up with the stick in his mouth and ran back with his tail wagging, his snout tilted up to meet Nathaniel’s hand. Nathaniel wanted to know joy like the dog knew joy. He’d not thought such a thing in a long time. He threw the stick again and watched the dog. Over and again, he threw the stick until he made up his mind for sure. Now he knew what he had to do.
• • •
The smell of his father’s cigar reached him before he saw the man smoking near the back door, turning the cigar between his fingers and puffing into the air.
“Nathaniel,” Nathaniel Sr. said. He flicked ashes, then stubbed the cigar out on the bottom of his leather boot. “I wasn’t expecting to see you after our last conversation.”
Nathaniel followed his father into the study, the dog at his heels. He felt hemmed in by the shelves lined with leather-bound books his father hadn’t read and a brass telescope he didn’t use. When he was a boy, the room had been a simple one of whitewashed walls and portraits of his family, an old compass that the boys used when they went sailing, furniture their mother bought at auctions and refinished. Now the room reeked of formality; nothing of their simple early lives remained beyond the family portraits.
“Your dog is back,” his father said. “I like him.” He scratched Rascal under the chin, and the dog tilted his head high to receive Nathaniel Sr.’s hand.
Nathaniel lifted an antique theodolite from the desk and looked through the eyepiece to follow the edge of his father’s yard toward the Butler house. He could work with his father if it meant he could win Meredith back. He had to show her the kind of man he could be.
The theodolite was used for surveying land, and his father collected them. Out the south-facing window, fields rolled like waves toward the far fence, skirting the acres of yard around the house with growth and other men’s hard work, work that they paid his father for the privilege of doing. Farmers rented the land and provided a nice monthly income for his father, who sat back in his squeaking chair now to take in the length of his son standing before him in a faded-blue cotton shirt and worn leather boots.
“You’ve come to talk about working with me,” his father said.
“I don’t even know how to use one of these things,” Nathaniel said, waving the theodolite in one hand.
His father suddenly looked toward the doorway, where Finn stood neither in nor out of the room. “What are you doing?” Finn asked.
“Son, I’m glad you’ve come to visit.” Nathaniel Sr. smiled and gestured for Finn to come in, sit down. “Oh, you’ve come to discuss business. I can see it in your face,” their father said with some disappointment. “I thought you were here just to see your old man.”
Finn looked toward Nathaniel, who slid the theodolite back into place along the shelf. “I should go,” he said.
“No, I want you to stay,” their father said.
“I’d like to speak with you alone, Father.”
“Speak,” his father said.
Finn held onto his lapel, then eyed Nathaniel. “Does he really need to be here? Honestly, Father.”
“Proceed,” Nathaniel Sr. said.
Nathaniel heard the strain in his brother’s voice as he began his proposal.
“My shop is flourishing, and I’ve enough profit to make payments on a boat. I’ll bring in most of my own fish, and without having to pay for fish to sell, I can increase my profits. That’s how I’ll buy the second boat.”
“I’ve heard all this before. There’s nothing new here, Finn.”
“What’s new is that as an investor, you’ll profit from the proceeds of my business. I’m not asking you to give me the money but rather invest in my enterprise.”
As Nathaniel Sr. sat back in his chair to consider the proposal, Finn glanced over at Nathaniel, who looked away. Finn looked like a small boy standing before his father, asking for something he wanted, but this wasn’t a small want—not a fishing rod or a new pair of waders—this was a valuable business proposition that he was, in fact, offering his father. Nathaniel worried about Finn facing up to their father; he worried about him being disappointed. Then he reminded himself that Finn wasn’t a boy. He was a man with a man’s ideas, and he could handle whatever their father had to say.
“Do you have figures for me to look at?” his father asked.
Finn pulled the folded papers from his inside pocket and opened them onto his father’s desk.
His father put on his round spectacles and held each paper close to his face as he read through Finn’s calculations. “This is good,” he said.
Finn looked relieved, proud that his father liked his plan. “I’ve thought it through for some time,” Finn said.
“Yes, but what about here?” His father placed one of the pages onto his desk and pointed to a row of numbers. “Do you really think it will cost this much for the schooner?”
Nathaniel felt his father’s interest begin to turn, and he picked up the theodolite again and held it to his eye. He didn’t know how to work the instrument, but it began to interest him. When he thought about Meredith, he thought about the man he’d wanted to be all those years ago. Maybe he could be that man now. Maybe.
He heard Finn’s confident tone weakening.
“Yes, Father. I want to start with a good boat.”
“I think you can do better on the price, go up Cape if you have to or to Maine. Do what it takes, Son.”
“I talked to my friend Charles Daniels at a shipyard in Bath, Maine. These are the quotes he gave me. He’s a fair and honest man, Father.”
“Yes, I suppose he is.” His father tapped his pencil on the pile of papers and seemed to be considering the plan, and more than that, he seemed to be considering Finn.
Finn leaned over his father’s desk, his body vibrating with an anger he could barely control. He stood up, pulled the edges of his coat into place as if to steady himself. He looked toward Nathaniel, who held the theodolite at his side, then Finn shook his head as if to emphasize Nathaniel’s disgrace. “I’ve got ambition, Father. You know I have.”
“Yes, Son, I’m aware of your ambition. I just—”
“What?”
“You need to slow down. You’re still a young man. You’ve got time to grow before you get into a larger business. For now, I want you to focus on the fish shop.”
“I’ve taken the fish shop as far as it can go. What would you have me do?” There was that edge in his voice again. He turned from his father and focused on the rows of books along the bookshelf. “Nathaniel, say something.”
“I think you should give him a chance, Father. He’s been preparing for this since I can remember.”
“Yes, and my business plan is solid. You need to review it again.”
“Sit down.” Their father’s words to Finn were clipped and demanding.
“Tell me what you think of my plan.”
“The plan is solid, but I don’t think you’re ready,” Nathaniel Sr. said.
“You’ll never think I’m ready.” Finn’s voice was flat. He glared into his father’s eyes as if he could do the man harm, then he turned to leave. He knocked over the side table by his father’s favorite chair, sending the lamp and newspaper and small crystal ashtray flying on his way out of the room.
The dog stood up, alert, vigilant, and Nathaniel wanted to break the mood. He picked up the lamp and the crystal ashtray, righted the table and arranged things as they’d been while his father watched him absently.
“He’ll adjust himself,” Nathaniel Sr. said. “If he hadn’t delivered the schooner in a state of disrepair—”
“You need to give him a break about that,” Nathaniel said. He fiddled with the lamp, centering it on the table, before turning to his father. “I’ve been doing some thinking.” He sat across from Nathaniel Sr. in the chairs before the fire. His father still appeared agitated, but he brought his attention to Nathaniel.
“So you’ve been thinking,” Nathaniel Sr. said, a swath of brown hair across his forehead. Hands on his knees, he leaned forward.
“Yes, about our last conversation.”
His father waved his hands. “No, no, no. I’m sorry about that. I never meant to imply that I was ashamed of you. It’s just—”
Nathaniel stood before the fireplace, his hands on the mantel.
“I didn’t mean to insult you,” Nathaniel Sr. said. “And I don’t mean to insult your brother either.”
“But you do.”
They were both silent, looking away from each other now, at the air in the room, at the windows, at the sky. Nathaniel didn’t want to talk about Finn, so he brought up what he’d come to discuss. “What would I do if I worked in your business?”
His father looked perplexed. He pushed his spectacles up on his head. “I told you, Son.”
“Tell me again.”
“First, you’d learn the surveying, from Michaels or myself, then I’d teach you how to parcel the timber lots. But I’d also like you to work with the tenants. Help them with their farming so that they are more profitable. We earn a percentage of what they take in, and I’d like to improve that aspect of the business.”
“And you’ll pay me?”
“Of course. But more than that, you’ll be a part of my business.”
“What about Finn?”
“Finn has his own business to consider. He has work to do before he can afford a fishing boat.”
“I want you to help him start his fleet. He’s hardworking and focused, and he deserves your support.”
“I’ll support him when he shows me—”
“Father, stop. You can’t possibly believe that he won’t succeed. He’s been working on fishing boats since he was a kid, and he knows how to buy and sell fish. He’s a very capable man, as you yourself are. Can’t you see it hurts him, your lack of belief in him?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“But it is. If you want me to work with you, you need to help my brother, your son. It’s not too much to ask.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“No, you’ll do it, or I won’t work for you.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“It runs in the family. Didn’t you blackmail Finn to get me on that boat?”
“Fine,” his father said, waving his hand as if he could shoo the conversation away.
Nathaniel looked toward the surveyor’s tools on the shelf. He didn’t feel ready to give up his life on the marsh, but he wanted to become a man worthy of Meredith. He wanted her, and he would prove to her that he could do more than fish for his dinner.
He’d never taken an interest in the tools of his father’s work, but he picked up the theodolite and turned it in his hands again. His father told him to hold it up to his eyes. “You align the crosshairs on the main scope onto the point you want to measure. Then you record the horizontal and vertical angles and perform a few calculations to get the distances.”
His father stood beside him then and adjusted Nathaniel’s hands on the instrument. “Like this,” he said, and they looked at each other then, and an understanding passed between them. Nathaniel agreed to learn how to survey the land and work with the tenants.
“You’ll need training, Nathaniel, and proper clothing.”
“Yes, Father.”
“I’d like to train you myself, to get you started, then Michaels will take over. He’s a good man, solid, skilled. You’ll like him.”
“I’ll look upstairs for a suit. We can start soon.”
“We’ll start tomorrow.”