Free Mudlark by Sheila Simonson Page B

the idea."
    I found my nut cracker and handed it to him. "It's a good thing they didn't toss you in the pokey.
Horrors, the veggies!" I had forgot to add vegetables to my creation. Without them, vegetable soup would have
seemed a little odd. I pulled the sacks from the refrigerator. Since I took only a handful of stuff from each of four
bags there were a lot of vegetables left. Tom told me to put them in the freezer.
    "But Ruth said that ruins the flavor."
    He cracked the last heavy claw of the sixth crab and set it on the platter with its fellows. "Ruth's a
purist. They'll taste okay in soup."
    I loaded Bonnie and Darla with plates, bowls, and silverware and sent them off to the dining room.
Then I told Tom about our food distribution system. He rummaged in the refrigerator for the ingredients of a dill
tartar sauce he said would go well with crab and listened without comment. I was still worried about the Johnson
woman.
    "She'll get by." He mixed mayonnaise and plain yogurt, and chopped up a dill pickle.
    "Ruth said that, but--"
    "You can't change the universe, Lark. Mel doesn't know you, and she'd probably resent what she'd think
was nosiness. I'll drive over tomorrow and see if she needs to go into town."
    "She said her mother was coming."
    "That's good."
    "How do you know all those people?"
    "I worked with Kevin Johnson off and on. Mostly I bump into people on the beach or in Shoalwater. It's
a small place, and I've been back five years now." He smiled. "And I'm related to half the old-timers on the
peninsula."
    I took out baguettes and butter. There was blackberry jam, too, so I spooned some of that into a bowl,
though jam was probably redundant. "That may be true, but only one of the people I talked to seemed to know
you're a published author."
    He shrugged. "They're not great readers, and my first book sank without a trace."
    "No, it didn't. I read it and so did Jay."
    He had picked up the platter of crabs. He stared at me over the cracked carcasses. " Starvation
Hill ?"
    "That's the one. It's a splendid novel."
    He flushed. "I spent a lot of time on the research."
    Jay stuck his head in. "Oh, good, you're almost ready. The table's set. I put your scrapers and chisels and
so on in the living room, Lark."
    "Shucks," I said crossly. "I was going to use them to make a centerpiece."
    The meal was a triumph, though I forgot the grated parmesan. Darla was kind to Freddy and was
clearly moved by his efforts to rescue Tom's computer. Jay ate two bowls of soup. So did Tom, while Darla
explained that she was a member of the Nekana tribal council and that her father, uncles, and two brothers were
fishermen.
    Bonnie listened respectfully and shelled her crab. Then she segued smoothly from a discussion of the
politics of salmon fishing to a comic account of her own family's preoccupation with fish. Before he retired to
Arizona, her father had been an avid deep-sea fisherman. Over her mother's protests, he had mounted a stuffed
tarpon on the living-room wall. "Not for nothing am I called Bonita," she concluded, straight-faced.
    When the laughter subsided, Tom asked whether she had a brother named Marlon. We might have
degenerated into real silliness had the telephone not rung. I answered it in the kitchen. It was Matt Cramer. He said
Lottie was in the hospital. The doctors thought she had suffered another stroke.
    I listened to Matt for quite a while. I think talking helped him. There was a possibility that Lottie would
have to go into a nursing home, and Matt was resisting the idea fiercely. He could take care of her, he said several
times. She would hate a nursing home. She wanted to sit in her own living room and watch the ocean. That was
true and so sad my eyes teared. I said something inadequate and reached for the Kleenex box.
    Jay came in with the crab platter as I was wiping my eyes. "What's the matter?"
    I covered the mouthpiece and explained.
    "That's bad news. Give him my sympathies." Jay shook his head. "What do you want