Free Of Sea and Cloud by Jon Keller Page A

own, William Graves.

The following morning and three miles to the southeast and just before dawn Osmond rowed his skiff with his three grandchildren in it through the ink-black water and rushing tide to his boat
Sanctity
. He lifted the twin girls one by one over the washrail. The boy Julius held the skiff as Osmond climbed aboard. Wind poured from the sky. The two little girls both wore hoods over their blond braids. They were half-asleep and he carried them below one at a time and put them in the small forward bunks.
    Do you want earplugs in, girls?
    I do.
    Does Rhonda?
    She never does. She doesn’t care, Grandfather.
    Osmond twisted a piece of paper towel and wetted it on his tongue and slid a wedge into each of Dolly’s ears. He went to Rhonda. She was asleep already and he kneeled next to her and his hair fell along the sides of his face. Rhonda’s chest rose and fell in quick breaths and a small gargling came from her throat. He stuffed the wetted paper into her ears and she stirred and wiped at his hands and at her ears but he waited with one hand pressed like a spade atop her chest and soon she slept. When he came up Julius was standing on the bow with the wind in his face. He wore orange oilgear. His hood was up. He was twenty years old and his skin was dark and smooth and an arrowhead patch of hair grew beneath his lips.
    Osmond fired the engine and let it idle as he wiped the inside of the Plexiglas windows down with paper towel. He tossed the towels overboard. He nodded and Julius bent and heaved on the bridle and worked it over the bit and out of the chocks and dropped it overboard then walked down the washrail. He gripped the steel davit and swung himself into the wheelhouse and landed with a thud.
    Soon you’ll have your own boat, Osmond said.
    Julius peered out over the running tide and chop. Yeah, and I’m gonna be the biggest sonofawhore lobsterman in all of America.
    Osmond turned the circular windshield wiper on then shut it off. Watch your language, Julius, he said and turned the boat and headed through the mouth of the reach.
    The islands were crow black in the morning. He cut inside a green Coast Guard buoy which flashed and groaned as they passed. The moon moved through the southern sky and somehow reminded him of Nicolas but then again everything now reminded him of Nicolas. In the distance he could see the lighthouse on Drown Boy Rock and beyond the lighthouse the last stars of Orion plunged into the sea just as Nicolas had plunged into the sea and Osmond reminded himself that one act was not separate from the other for both were acts of the heavens long since conceived.
    The biggest in all of the U-S-of-A, Julius said again.
    Listen, Julius. You are a strong young man now and you will have your own boat soon but you are still nothing on this earth. Look around you. Osmond spread his arms one to the sea and one to the stars. We are so small.
    Julius rubbed the arrowhead of hair and said, My sled ain’t small. Soon as she’s splashed I ain’t setting foot on this boat.
    That’s fine. Osmond worked the wheel with one hand as he stepped into his black oilskin barvel. But that won’t be for another few weeks and God rest Neveah Elaine’s soul I swore an oath to her.
    I guess I’m raised.
    You’ve done well, Osmond said. He veered east and ran along a line of spruce-covered islands rimmed with slabs of pink granite like foreheads. They passed Spencer Ledges and hit the open sea.
    Julius chewed on his bottom lip. I got them lazy bastards working nights on my sled. She’ll be done soon. Just buy them beer and they’ll work.
    Osmond glanced at the boy through the sides of his eyes and felt a rip of muscle drive up his sides and into his hands. He squeezed the boat wheel. Don’t rush a boat like that, Julius. You won’t get a chance for a new boat again soon.
    I aim to get me a new boat whenever I damned well please, Julius said as he opened