yellow line.
As Wes works the blade along the spine of the blue to cut down the meat, Jake cups his hand underneath the minnow. He closes his fingers around it. He can feel its nose flutter in his hand, the working of the dorsal fin—a frantic, beating pressure—almost a heartbeat against his palm. He holds his fist over the side of the boat in the water until the motion settles and the small fish stills. Slowly, he cracks his fist and lets the fish drain through his fingers. He watches it, a limp silver that could almost be mistaken for a trick of light. It lies motionless, several inches below the surface, falling away from them on the current. Thenits tail flips and it rights itself. It wriggles off. Jake scoops the rest of the guts off the floor of the boat and dumps them over the side. The fish oil streaks like living threads off his hands.
Wes has stripped one side of the blue down to the ribs. The blood runs out and lodges in the planking cracks. He cuts the meat free from the bone and slaps the fillet on the thwart.
“Clean it,” he says and, turning the fish, he begins to work down the other side.
Jake holds the fillet in the water over the side of the boat to wash it down. The blood and oil pool around his hand. The sun fractures off the surface—a sudden white flash that seems to sear up from the depths as the boat pitches forward through the middle of the rip—and he is blinded for a moment, as if it is his life that has cracked open underneath him and he is falling toward it.
“What the hell—”
He can hear his brother’s voice behind him. It is there and not there. Close and not close. But Jake does not turn around. His mind is smashed with that sudden brilliant whiteness of the sun, and he is aware that his hand is empty, that he has let go. The flesh of the bluefish floats underneath them. It arches down through the shadow of the hull as if it is a new and separate thing, alive.
PART II
THE
SANDFLAT
CHAPTER 1
I n 1920, the year after the Eighteenth Amendment is passed, women win the right to vote and the Hotel Westport burns to the ground. The Acoaxet Club opens in the harbor, boasting two tennis courts, a banquet hall, and a nine-hole green. More often than not, Blackwood spends his nights at the store waiting for Maggie, and eventually he does not bother to go home to his wife at all. Jake and Wes sell their father’s half acre to Arthur Coles and the Westport Real Estate Trust that has begun to gather up tracts of land between the Methodist church and Salter’s Hill. Wes moves down to the wharf and rents a room above the workshop that belongs to Swampy Davoll. Jake moves into the boathouse at Skirdagh. He rebuilds the west-facing wall that has rotted from lack of use. He hacks long boards out of young pine still beaded with sap. He pries the drops of resin free and keeps them in a blue enamel cup. In the evenings, he will chew on them quietly as he reads.
In 1924, the stone causeway is built between the mainland and Gooseberry Neck, Mallory disappears on Everest, and R. A. Nicholson begins to publish the collected works of the thirteenth-century Sufi dervish Mevlana. Charles devours the volumes as they are released. He hauls crates of books down for the month he spends at Skirdagh in thesummer, and when he returns with his daughter to the city, he leaves them, their covers slightly beaten, on the shelves.
By the time Lindbergh takes his cross-Atlantic flight in 1927, the cottages on the west end of Horseneck Beach have spread through the dunes and the wetlands like a greenbrier. At East Beach, there are three new restaurants, a post office, a church, and a bowling lane. The fishermen’s shacks are torn down. Rake McIleer’s market falls under, beat out of business by the new A & P. The price for renting a bathhouse jumps from two cents to ten. Burt Allen’s boardinghouse for duck hunters is leveled and replaced by the Red Parrot Hotel.
Jake is hired to build the stone house
As Wes works the blade along the spine of the blue to cut down the meat, Jake cups his hand underneath the minnow. He closes his fingers around it. He can feel its nose flutter in his hand, the working of the dorsal fin—a frantic, beating pressure—almost a heartbeat against his palm. He holds his fist over the side of the boat in the water until the motion settles and the small fish stills. Slowly, he cracks his fist and lets the fish drain through his fingers. He watches it, a limp silver that could almost be mistaken for a trick of light. It lies motionless, several inches below the surface, falling away from them on the current. Thenits tail flips and it rights itself. It wriggles off. Jake scoops the rest of the guts off the floor of the boat and dumps them over the side. The fish oil streaks like living threads off his hands.
Wes has stripped one side of the blue down to the ribs. The blood runs out and lodges in the planking cracks. He cuts the meat free from the bone and slaps the fillet on the thwart.
“Clean it,” he says and, turning the fish, he begins to work down the other side.
Jake holds the fillet in the water over the side of the boat to wash it down. The blood and oil pool around his hand. The sun fractures off the surface—a sudden white flash that seems to sear up from the depths as the boat pitches forward through the middle of the rip—and he is blinded for a moment, as if it is his life that has cracked open underneath him and he is falling toward it.
“What the hell—”
He can hear his brother’s voice behind him. It is there and not there. Close and not close. But Jake does not turn around. His mind is smashed with that sudden brilliant whiteness of the sun, and he is aware that his hand is empty, that he has let go. The flesh of the bluefish floats underneath them. It arches down through the shadow of the hull as if it is a new and separate thing, alive.
PART II
THE
SANDFLAT
CHAPTER 1
I n 1920, the year after the Eighteenth Amendment is passed, women win the right to vote and the Hotel Westport burns to the ground. The Acoaxet Club opens in the harbor, boasting two tennis courts, a banquet hall, and a nine-hole green. More often than not, Blackwood spends his nights at the store waiting for Maggie, and eventually he does not bother to go home to his wife at all. Jake and Wes sell their father’s half acre to Arthur Coles and the Westport Real Estate Trust that has begun to gather up tracts of land between the Methodist church and Salter’s Hill. Wes moves down to the wharf and rents a room above the workshop that belongs to Swampy Davoll. Jake moves into the boathouse at Skirdagh. He rebuilds the west-facing wall that has rotted from lack of use. He hacks long boards out of young pine still beaded with sap. He pries the drops of resin free and keeps them in a blue enamel cup. In the evenings, he will chew on them quietly as he reads.
In 1924, the stone causeway is built between the mainland and Gooseberry Neck, Mallory disappears on Everest, and R. A. Nicholson begins to publish the collected works of the thirteenth-century Sufi dervish Mevlana. Charles devours the volumes as they are released. He hauls crates of books down for the month he spends at Skirdagh in thesummer, and when he returns with his daughter to the city, he leaves them, their covers slightly beaten, on the shelves.
By the time Lindbergh takes his cross-Atlantic flight in 1927, the cottages on the west end of Horseneck Beach have spread through the dunes and the wetlands like a greenbrier. At East Beach, there are three new restaurants, a post office, a church, and a bowling lane. The fishermen’s shacks are torn down. Rake McIleer’s market falls under, beat out of business by the new A & P. The price for renting a bathhouse jumps from two cents to ten. Burt Allen’s boardinghouse for duck hunters is leveled and replaced by the Red Parrot Hotel.
Jake is hired to build the stone house
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