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“See ya, boys,” I called over my shoulder, heading up the dock to my truck. I paid the deckhands handsomely to watch over my boat and fill her up with gas each day. They also filleted the fish I caught and sold it for some extra cash in their pockets. A bank account full of money hadn’t done much except garner me some extra conveniences here and there.
The local funeral home smelled like rose petals and tears, not my favorite combination. At least they were quick, having me sign a waiver and handing off Maeve’s ashes with zero ceremony. It was the urn that had me smiling in a place where smiles were rare.
“Let me guess. Maeve picked this out ahead of time?”
The man with the questionable pallor and midnight-black suit didn’t even crack a smile. “She made all her final arrangements last month, sir.”
I dipped my head in thanks and headed out, careful to keep the ceramic urn, shaped like a mermaid with double D’s and overfilled lips, upright. Maeve had been a slight woman, always lamenting her lack of curves. Never mind the over-the-top personality God had gifted her with to compensate. Guess she’d finally found her fake boobs.
Pulling into my driveway, I climbed out and stepped over the row of short hedges that separated our two properties. Maeve had repeatedly offered to tear them down to make a pathway after watching me traipse over them every day for a full decade. I’d declined every time, knowing how much she loved her plants. That’s how I knew how much I meant to her. She was willing to murder a living plant to give me a walkway to come see her.
My phone rang before I got to her front door. I stuffed the urn into the crook of my arm and fished the phone out of my back pocket.
“Hey, Pops. What’s up?”
I got the key in the lock and gave it a turn. Had to jam my shoulder against the door for it to pop open. The urn shifted and I nearly dropped the phone to get the urn back in control.
“You starting a garage band again, superstar?” Dad’s voice drifted from the phone smashed between my cheek and shoulder.
I put the urn down on the kitchen island and righted the phone. The brightly colored mermaid clashed with the avocado-green Formica countertops. “Nah. Just wrestling with Maeve’s door again.”
“Agh. That old broad should have fixed that years ago. I kept telling her and she kept telling me to worry about my peg leg.”
I chuckled. I could just hear her now, giving my father grief in that voice of hers. She could scare an apex predator away with the booming voice. No topic of conversation was too personal for Maeve. If she had something to say, she said it. Loudly.
“Well, you can harp on her all you want now. I’ve got her ashes here.” I picked up the urn again and put it in the middle of the mantel above the fireplace. The last few years of her life, she loved to sit in her chair at night and put one of those fake logs in the fireplace. Told her they put out toxic fumes, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She just wanted to stare at the flames without adding to the stifling Florida heat.
“I’m sorry, son. I know she meant a lot to you.”
I sat in the chair opposite of Maeve’s, the only two chairs in the whole house without a plant currently taking up the space. If there was a clear spot, Maeve found a way to fill it with a plant. Watering the last week had taken a solid hour every evening out of my schedule. Not that I had so much going on that I couldn’t stop by and keep Maeve’s precious plants going. Though I didn’t envy whomever had to eventually clear out this place.
“That was really nice, Pops, considering you two fought like cats and dogs.”
“Agh, that woman was the older sister I never had and never wanted. May she rest in peace.” He grumbled some more, but I couldn’t make it out.
“Did you call for a reason, Pops?” He normally called me a couple times a day, but never to just shoot the shit. He said he wasn’t checking up on me, but when a guy asks enough ridiculous questions that can be answered with a simple Google search, you have to start wondering if you’re being checked up on.
“Oh yes! I was thinking we should grab a late lunch and a beer. Hot one out there today.”
I stood back up and checked my watch. “Sorry. I’ve got that meeting with the lawyer this afternoon. Can we do lunch and beers tomorrow?”
“Oh…forgot about that. Sure, sure. Tomorrow’s good.”
I frowned. I’d literally told him this morning on his first call of the day that I had a meeting with Maeve’s lawyer for the reading of the will. Was he starting to have memory issues? I made a mental note to make him a doctor’s appointment that he’d grouse at me for.
We hung up and I wrestled with the door again to get it closed and locked. With the house secure and the key Maeve had given me years ago safe in my pocket, I headed back to town to the lawyer’s office. The sky turned dark and I looked up to see heavy rain clouds moving in with the afternoon wind that had picked up. If I timed it right, I could get to the lawyer’s office before the sky broke open.
The town flickered past, little houses tucked in between larger homes that had been rebuilt over the years. We hadn’t had a major hurricane in two decades, so the greenery had had a chance to grow wild and free. Glimmering blue ocean met my eyes on either side of the barrier island I called home. I hadn’t grown up here, but I’d been here long enough this place felt like home now.
A cluster of people were hovering in the parking lot of Hook It, the local fish house. I pulled in, wanting to know what had drawn their attention. I rolled the window down and my buddy, Ezra Peak, the owner of the local bar, filled me in. The huge man looked practically giddy.
“Jase got one of them wahoos.”
“Well, shit.” I climbed out of the truck. I had to see this thing with my own two eyes. Wahoos were hard to find this time of year and equally hard to catch since they could reach speeds of fifty miles an hour. If you blinked, they’d take your line clear across to Cuba.
“It’s an ugly son of a bitch.” Ezra stuck by my side as we pushed to the front of the crowd. He and I got along almost as well as I did with my best friend. Ezra owned the bar in town and had been the first person to pry my secret out of me when I moved here. He’d kept his mouth shut like he promised, which I appreciated more than he knew.
Jase saw me approach and pointed to his catch hanging from the hook on the wall of the fish house. “Whadya think, Dec?”
