William stands by the kitchen sink, finishing his coffee, waiting for the children to get dressed. Rose is emptying the freezer to defrost it, piling the contents onto the counter, the ice melting and dripping onto the floor. He’s heading up to Gloucester with the children to get some lunch, to spend the day on the ocean. He leans forward to catch a glimpse of the sky, just visible over the neighbor’s house eight feet away. It looks to be a beautiful August day, the sky a brilliant blue.
Don’t let Kathleen eat any ice cream, Rose says, throwing a few half-eaten pints into the garbage. I swear she’s put on ten pounds this summer. William shrugs without turning around but doesn’t respond.
Kathleen comes running downstairs in her nightgown and wraps her arms around his stomach, and he turns to hug her. He’s hardly seen her this week. Her face is beautiful: a million freckles surrounding startlingly blue eyes, a generous mouth that signals her every mood. Are we still going to Gloucester, Daddy? she asks. He nods, feeling a tightness in his chest that she knows enough to ask, not to assume. He is the master of last-minute change. Jack hasn’t learned that yet but he will, soon. We are indeed, lovebug. Let’s get some breakfast, get dressed, and we’ll hit the road. Wear a long-sleeved shirt, Rose says, her head still in the freezer. I don’t want you getting burned. Are you coming with us, Mommy? Kathleen asks. Rose shakes her head. You know how I feel about lobster, she says. That horrid smell.
Kathleen grins. She dances around the kitchen table on her toes, her nightgown swirling around her ankles. “’Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare,” she says, reciting her favorite lines from Alice in Wonderland. William takes her hand and she twirls under his arm as he says, “You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.” Kathleen puts her heels together, her bare feet pointing outward, her eyes smiling. “As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose, trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.” William flutters his arms, speaking in a breathy voice. “When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, and will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark.” Kathleen crouches down and slowly comes to a stand, her voice getting softer as she speaks. “But, when the tide rises and Sharks are around, his voice has a timid and tremulous sound!”
She falls into him, and he hugs her. Rose is shaking her head. You two, she says. You ought to take your act onto the stage. I think you missed your calling, William. He knows she hates it when he fools around with the children. You get them all riled up, she always says. What’s wrong with that, he wants to say, but never does. It’s better than a father barricading himself in his study. Go, he says, softly slapping Kathleen on the bottom. Go get dressed.
Later, they visit the shops on Main Street and the harbor, paying a visit to the old fisherman cast out of bronze. I love this statue, Kathleen says. Whenever I think of a fisherman, this is what I think of. “They that go down to the sea in ships,” Jack reads off the plaque. It seems scary, Kathleen says, the way those words sound. It is, William says. It’s a dangerous job. Many men have lost their lives.
In the restaurant, Jack stands by the tank, his nose pressed against the glass, watching the lobsters move through the murky water. William wonders whether Jack understands that the lobsters are just one step away from death, detained in a holding cell before getting submerged in the boiling water. He lights a cigarette and blows the smoke out in soft gray rings, watching them dissipate as they climb. Daddy, Jack calls out. Look at this one! He’s missing a front claw! William nods from across the room where he and Kathleen are sitting in a dark wooden booth that looks out on the docks. The restaurant is empty, in that lazy stretch between lunch and dinner, all the windows open to let in the air.
Kathleen is busy building a house out of sugar packets. Her patience amazes him. The lightweight and fragile house has been knocked down, by her hand or a quick breeze off the water, over and over, and she gathers it all up and begins again. Tell me about the house in Maine, she says. How many bedrooms on the second floor? I want to build this to be like that. Twenty-five, he says, and she smiles, but she doesn’t look up from her work. Daddy, she says, come on. How many? Four, he says, four bedrooms upstairs.
Their food is delivered, and Jack comes running over. The three of them attach their white plastic bibs and bend over the lobsters, now a beautiful bright red. They set to work cracking the shells open with their silver utensils, William helping Jack and Kathleen shrieking with delight as lobster juice comes flying out and lands all over William’s face. Did you have lobsters in Maine, Daddy, Jack asks. Of course, William says. They’re even better there. Sometimes we’d buy them in town and then row back to the island.
One time, he goes on, one of them wasn’t fastened well enough, and it crawled out of the bag. Nana just about had a fit. Did somebody have to pick it up, Kathleen asks, her nose wrinkled. William nods. He can remember it as though it was yesterday: It was Bea who did it. She reached over, grabbed it by its middle, and held it in the air, the claws moving wildly. I feel for them, she said. They must sense how close they are to the water. They just want to be back in the sea. Probably it was you, Kathleen says. Uncle Gerald wouldn’t pick up a crawling lobster. It was me, William says. I held that lobster tight all the way back to the island. He wipes his face with his napkin, the smell of the lobster on his fingers, the image of Bea in the boat all that he can see.