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The way he said sometimes didn’t sound like he was shutting me out like the way he had earlier. So, I decided to ask more questions. “What did you have to do on a crab ship?”

“A crab ship?” He grinned. “You’re cute. It’s a crabber. We would bait two hundred crab pots and throw them over the side.”

“How would you keep track of so many?”

“We would attach a buoy to each one and drop it over the side. I was lucky. Sometimes I didn’t have to bait the traps and help throw them over the side. Instead, Ronald would have me record the location, depth, date, and time each pot was set.”

“Weren’t those heavy?”

“Not as heavy as the full pots.”

“How heavy were those?”

“Anywhere from five- to eight-hundred pounds.”

I’d been in the middle of pouring the spicy maple syrup onto my meal, and I dropped it. “You had to help pull those into the crabber? And you were ten? And some of them were eight-hundred pounds?”

He nodded.

“When you were ten?” I repeated, trying to wrap my head around it.

“Marlowe, it’s no big deal. What’s more, the crew decided I was more of a hindrance at ten, so they had me help sort out the small crabs and females that needed to be thrown back. When I was twelve, Ronald noticed this and raised holy hell, so I had to start pulling in the traps like the rest of the crew.”

“My God, Kai. Was there anything good after you had to start crabbing?”

He frowned. I could see him thinking, then he gave me a slow smile.

“I remember this one time, we were crabbing in Bristol Bay. We’d dumped off our catch at Dutch Harbor. I was fourteen. It was the biggest haul we’d ever made. Ronald went to King Salmon instead of Dillingham. I didn’t see Ronald for an entire week. The guys said there was some woman he went to see. I didn’t care, as long as I didn’t have to be with him.”

“He just left you alone?” My heart went out to the fourteen-year-old boy he’d been.

“Yep.” Kai grinned. “Like I said, this was a good time. I didn’t get paid. But I did have a place to sleep. Of course, it was in the shittiest motel that Ronald could find. It made the LeeHy motel look like the Waldorf. But Lucky, Barry, and Shil decided it would be a good time to show me more of Alaska. They used some of their money to fly us all to Sitka. Have you ever been to Alaska?” Kai asked me.

I shook my head.

“Have you seen pictures?”

“Sure.”

“They wanted to show me the fjords. This was about twenty years ago, before it started warming. They were mind blowing, Marlowe. Just stunning. You would see this white snow, covering crevices of neon blue. But it wasn’t just the visuals, you could taste them. The cold air was an icy blast that coated your lungs with a fresh taste that made you feel like you took in a breath of heaven.”

I stared at him. He was looking off in the distance. I’d wanted to kiss him before he’d said that, but now, I really wanted to kiss him. “That sounds beautiful. What else did you do?”

“Besides taking a boat ride to see the fjords, I fished.”

“Fished? Hadn’t you’d been on a boat long enough already?”

“No, we didn’t go on a boat, we stood out in the middle of a river. They got me a special rod and reel and tried to teach me fly fishing. It wasn’t until day three that I finally started getting the hang of it, but it was soothing to be out there with the guys, just standing out in the river with your wading boots on, feeling the river flow by and the rustle of the wind in the trees. It made you feel closer to nature. It was one of the best times of my life.”

I sighed. “Hearing that makes me feel better. I’m glad you had friends like that in your life. I’m sorry I got you off track. Let me tell you about Beau.”

Kai put his fork down, and I had his full attention.

“First, let me just tell you, I don’t have a lot to tell you. Yes, I had three conversations with him, but we talked in total for maybe a half hour.”

“Still, that’s a lot, considering the fact you were just talking about you renting his house.”

“He was curious as to why I was coming to Jasper Creek to teach, so I told him my little story, so that took a bit.”