Dead Low Tide by Bret Lott

shoulders, started up the stairs, the hollow slug of each step I made what seemed loud as a hammer in the quiet out here, and then I was on the porch and across it, my hand out for the bright brass door handle.
    But the door opened, all by itself.
    I looked up: Mom, her mouth and eyes open wide, and here were her arms up already for me, the trembling word “Huger!” out of herlike it was some tremendous gift she’d been given even to utter it, and I stepped in to her, closed my eyes and felt her arms around my shoulders and her crying now, and for a moment I knew that, yes, everything was going to be all right. That Unc’s words weren’t any sort of fake promise meant to placate either Mom or me. He’d given us the truth: We’ll all be all right.
    Mom moved her arms, eased off, and started to step back from me, and I opened my eyes.
    First, I saw her eyes and the wet of them, her quivering chin, and heard out of her the broken-up words “What took you so long? What took you so long?” and already I felt bad for whatever I’d caused her. That worry, that pain. She’d already known there was a body involved before I’d said a thing. I knew that, just from her chin and the way she let out these words to me.
    That was the first thing I saw.
    But then I looked up, past her shoulder, and saw next, there behind her and a few feet into the foyer, a man in a khaki uniform, smiling.
    I tensed quick at him, a shot of cold surprise through me, and held harder to Mom in just that moment, nearly clutched her in to me.
    “Huger,” the man said, and nodded, and now I saw the gold at his collar, the four narrow bands of bright colors above his left shirt pocket. I knew already who he was, even before Mom in that next second pulled away from me and linked her arm in my elbow, turned to him and, gathering together what she could of herself, said, “Huger, this is Commander Prendergast.” She took in a quick, broken breath. “He’s been here keeping me company until you and Leland got back.”
    I could hear on Mom’s voice a forced ease about this whole thing—a Navy officer in her house in the middle of the night—and I glanced down at her, saw her chin still trembling, saw her quick swipe at her eyes with the back of her free hand. But I saw too that she was smiling, giving this man her best shot at trying to get herself back together.
    “Good to finally meet you,” the man said, and took a step toward me, put out his hand to shake. “Though I think I’ve laid eyes on you a time or two out to Warchester’s place.”
    I said nothing, still too startled at who was standing here inside our house: Prendergast: the one who’d lost the goggles to Unc.
    “Poker night,” he said, and tried at a little bigger smile. “I see you now and again bringing Leland in.”
    His voice was higher than I’d thought it would be, and he stood a good six inches taller than me. He had dark hair in the standard officer cut: nearly shaved above the ears, thicker on up, parted on the side but the hair so short the part was more an idea than anything else. He was tan, and every crease in his shirt and pants could’ve cut stone.
    He smiled, nodded again, and now here was my hand out to him, slowly, and I could feel of a sudden the book bag on my shoulders, the weight of it.
    He squeezed hard my hand, shook it once, let go and stepped back, put his hands behind him like he was at parade rest. He looked down at Mom, nodded at her, looked at me again. “Surprised we haven’t met before,” he said. “Not just because of our shenanigans on poker night, but because—” And he stopped, tilted his head a little toward Mom and looked at her again, gave another quick smile.
    “Jamison and I go way back,” Mom said, and I looked at her, saw her smiling at him still. She seemed not to hold on to my arm so tightly, and now I saw that she was dressed, had on a white turtleneck shirt and a blue sweater, a pair of jeans, and not the robe and pajamas