Chapter 13 - LIZZIE


Liz Dow was barefoot out in their big garden, wearing cut-off jeans, a bright orange halter-top, and a big white hat, picking the first peas of the season, when Sumner wheeled into the dooryard in the flatbed and parked next to their faded green Valiant. She set the bowl of pods down between the rows, and came running, hat in hand, her long red hair trailing out behind.

"Oh, hurray!" she cried, throwing her arms around him. "I hadn't dared hope before tomorrow." She shouted over her shoulder, "Jesse! Papa's home."

"Mmm. Don't you feel good?" Sumner declared, squeezing Liz tighter, and giving her a long kiss. Their 4-year old son came running round the side of the house, and flung himself at his father, a golden lab puppy stumbling in his wake.

"Woah!" Sumner cried, scooping the boy up in both hands and tossing him skyward.
Jesse howled in delight.

"He's Tug," Jesse said firmly, when Sumner put him down. Sumner cocked an eyebrow questioningly.

"The puppy," Liz explained. Ever since they'd gotten the dog Jesse had been considering names, this being a matter of importance. While Sumner was offshore Jesse had decided.

"Well hello, Tug," Sumner said formally, shaking the pant leg the puppy had set his teeth into, and was, in fact, tugging. "Great name, Jess."

"You're fishy," Jesse announced, and both parents laughed.

"And scratcherly, too, " Liz quipped, using one of Jesse's words. She rubbed her cheek with the flat of her hand.

"Well, let me get this fish in the freezer, then I'll sweeten the spouse." Sumner answered, going round to the back of the truck.

"What's spouse," Jesse asked. Both adults looked at one another across the flatbed and smiled.

"I'm Papa's spouse, and he's mine," Liz explained.

"Like go togethers?" Jesse asked.

"Egg-zakly," Sumner laughed. "I peddled some shack along the road, but Wild Bill won't settle with Sonny until tomorrow, so I'm still short," he said to Liz.

"We're OK," she replied. "Tank's full in the Valiant. I sold some salad to the Murchisons, and a dozen eggs."

"Those Summer People?" Sumner asked. Liz nodded.

Sumner carried the tub of fillets around the building with the whole family parading behind him. Jesse had one end of a knotted rag, and Tug was worrying the other.

"What'll it be tonight? Flounder? Pollack?" Sumner asked.

"Ooo. Let's have flounder." Liz answered.

"Got a couple dabs filleted," Sumner reported. "And a cusk for chowder. The rest is mostly pollack for the freezer." He set the tub down alongside an enclosure built against the north wall of the house to contain the freezer. He lifted the lid, and propped it, then opened the top of the freezer inside. There was a box full of big freezer bags on the 2X4 framing inside the hutch, and Sumner began stuffing fillets into bags, squeezing the excess air out, zipping them closed, and placing them in the freezer. It was partially full already, mostly strawberries and fiddleheads and fish. Liz took the dabs and the cusk, and headed for the back door.

"I'll put on some tea. You eaten?" She asked.

"Not so's you'd notice." With his head inside the hutch, his voice came out muffled.

"God, I love this," Sumner thought. Even in the shade of the house the air was warm, and the westerly was shaking clothes on the line and shivering the spruce boughs on the trees out back. The smell of green grass, and balsam, and garden compost, and chicken manure, and fresh-cut firewood, almost overwhelmed him.

He set the last bag in the freezer. The tops thunked closed. Sumner took the tub over to the compost pile where the hose was coiled, sprayed it clean, dumping the residue into the pile, then he carried the tub to the truck, where he threw it upside down on the wooden bed. He reached into the cab, taking out his foul weather gear and his extra socks.

"Home and dry," Sumner said aloud. He went round the building and swung open the screen door. It snapped closed behind him. Inside the little house was full of light, and Liz was setting cups and napkins on the the polished pine table.

"Now or after you ablute?" She asked.

"After," he replied, "lemme get a layer off."

When Sumner came out of the bathroom, showered and shaved and dressed in clean clothes, Liz had put out a loaf of fresh bread, a fresh garden salad, and a bowl of hot chowder.

"Hope you can stand fish," she smiled.

"Guess we better," he observed. "Smells wonderful."

"Tuck in," Liz commanded. "JESS-E," she called out the door. Boy and dog appeared.

"You dogs hungry?" Liz asked.

"Nope," Jesse answered.

"OK," Liz said. "Don't bite that dog too hard." The pair disappeared from view.

Sumner was dunking a slice of bread in the chowder with one hand, and sipping at a cup of tea with the other. In the silence they could hear chickens clucking and, faintly, the buoy off Sawyer's Point tolling.

"What is it, Sum?" Liz asked quietly.

"Is it that obvious?" He replied.

"Only to me, love." Liz said gently.

"I think we're in a world of ..." He paused.

"Trouble?" She prompted him.

"For sure," Sumner said. "We ran onto some loose gear offshore. Well we thought it was. But when we hauled it up, it was a barrel full of drugs."

"And Sonny wouldn't turn it in?" Liz asked rhetorically.

"Hah," Sumner snuffed. "Not hardly. Everyone's gonna be in the gravy."

"So what'll they do?"

"I'm not sure how much you should know, Lizzie. Who can tell how this'll play out."

"But you're involved?" Liz asked.

"I'm on the crew. It's put up, play along, or get out."

"You could get out." She said flatly.

Sumner flushed, but took a breath and said calmly, "I'm not sure I can, Liz. Not and stay here. I'm supposed to stand up for the crew when it gets rough."

Now Liz was angry. "This isn't a storm, or someone in trouble offshore," she snapped.

"Did you agree to this?" Liz asked sharply. He reached over to touch her hand, but she snatched it away and folded her arms. "Did you?" she demanded.

"Not in so many words. But it doesn't matter. Sonny and them are going to try and sell this stuff, and all I can do is go along. If I don't, my name is shit, and that's what we'll be up to our necks in." Sumner paused. Liz was shaking with anger.

"Lizzie. I'm an outsider here. If I don't play by the rules I won't be able to work on the boats, or sell to the dealers, or set foot in town without a fight," Sumner argued.

"Outsider, Insider, Fromaway, Native, Summer People," Liz barked. "I'm so sick of it I could spit. So what'll they call you if you get caught? Jailbait?"

"No, that's for high school girls," he tried to joke.

"God damn it!" she shouted, jumping up, and knocking her chair over behind her. "You'd let them take you off to jail rather than break their precious code?!"

He was on his feet, stepping over to hold her.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped.

"Momma?" Jesse's face appeared at the screen door.

"It's OK, son," Sumner said. "Momma's just a little upset." And Liz burst into tears as he enfolded her in his arms.

"And I wanted you home so much.. and I was so worried.. and now THIS," Liz sobbed.

"We'll get through it, love." He reassured her, kissing her hair. "We always do."