Free Salty Sky by Seth Coker Page A

prepared the board. He looked at the sunspots on the back of his big hands above his scarred knuckles. He thought of his wife. He forced himself to think of her as she lived. Wrestling with the kids. Her calves in front of the range, getting breakfast ready. Soaked and panting after a tumble. In an evening gown from a fundraiser two years ago, her cleavage nestling a crucifix. Was it only two years?
    He remembered a conversation about dying she’d had with the boys when they were young. Their eldest asked, “Mommy, if you die, what do you think will happen?”
    She answered, “After I die—and we all die—I am going to watch you and your brothers. Each morning just before you wake up, I’m going tokiss you so you will be forced to smile first thing every morning.” Her voice rose to make sure she had his attention. “This is important stuff. Remember, when I’m gone, you don’t have a choice but to smile first thing every morning when you wake up, because who couldn’t smile when they know they’ve just been kissed by an angel!”
    She went so quickly from striking beauty to bedridden ghost. He dreaded the tubes and beeping machines. Tough decisions—awful decisions. “No, son, we won’t fight it. She won’t fight it. Let’s celebrate the time we have left.” Then she’s at peace. There was more crying. The wake and the family, hugs and laughter. The service, the eulogy. The family’s stay through the weekend. Then the empty house.
    He visited the kids, even though they had just left. He took the grandkids to Disney World, on Disney Cruises, to Disney on Ice. He went to the office more, then spun off the business. He sold off his properties at the right time. That was luck. He set up new wills and trusts and living wills and revocable trusts and got the executors set. The financial planners ran with the cash and made more of it. The tax accountants made plans; he made gifts. In fourteen months, it was done. Then he could feel pain.
    He turned his right hand over and looked at the calluses. The heel of his hand was tanned where the hammer’s rod shifted back and forth. Carpentry was a different business now. Engineers drew plans showing exact details of wall cavities, materials, and placement. Mexican crews framed ten thousand square feet a day. Air guns hissed and popped. Stairs were assembled in factories and dropped on the job site. How many guys today could cut a stringer in the field? Trusses were made in factories too. Nothing required the same skill, so the price carpenters charge went down. The price of building went down. More buildings were built and built quicker. Was this a good thing? In the end, he used factories to make his stairs and trusses. He used crews with foremen with half the skill he had at nineteen. It seemed like a bad thing, but the buildings weren’t falling down.
    He looked at the sunspots on the back of his left hand and the calluses on the palm of his right hand together. These were gifts from a life lived in the sun with a hammer—weakness on the back and toughness on the front.
    “Well, luck be a lady tonight,” Tony laughed.
    Joe picked his head up as the nurses climbed the ladder.
    “Tony, why don’t we see sundresses like that in Brooklyn?”
    “Because they wear little black dresses in Brooklyn?”
    “Not when the sun’s out. How do you climb a ladder in those shoes?”
    “Joe, let the ladies keep their secrets. I just hope Gino isn’t catching a peek while they climb the stairs. A weak-minded man could be tempted.”
    “Girls, welcome to the flybridge. This is a men’s-only establishment as it relates to males, so you won’t see any boys with waxed armpits or pedicures. But as the eminences-in-residence, we do maintain carte blanche to invite ladies to join us.”
    “Joe, youse weren’t going to ask the ladies about their waxings, were you?”
    “Forgive Tony, he rarely talks to women he doesn’t have to tip.”
    Ashley and her friends carried drinks