The Gods of Second Chances by Dan Berne

Author:Dan Berne [Berne, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Forest Avenue Press
Published: 2014-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Sitka lowers her head deeper into her biology textbook. I can’t tell if she’s actually studying even though I’m sitting right next to her on the couch.

“What’s the matter with you, Miss Grumpy Face?”

She reaches down, lifts the leg of her pants, and scratches her ankle. She hasn’t said two words since getting home from school. I nudge my toes against her hips to encourage an answer. When she doesn’t say anything, I pick up the television remote and turn the volume down on the evening news.

“Something going on at school?” I point to the textbook. “You having trouble with biology?”

“Everything’s fine,” she says, as if the new definition of the word meant that you were tied up in a canvas bag and suspended over a snake pit.

I lift up my sweatshirt and rub my bare stomach. Jenny’s been cooking a lot lately and if I’m not careful, I’m going to get a paunch. “Some dinner, wasn’t it? Your mom makes a fine chicken pie. I can’t remember the last time I had a homemade pie crust.”

“She’s my mother. She’s supposed to feed me.” Sitka gets up and retreats to the tattered, over-stuffed chair on the opposite side of the room. On the way, she looks upstairs towards her mom’s closed bedroom door. Jenny’s out at her church for some type of evening Bible discussion. “She’s not so special, you know.”

“Sitka, enough. What’s eating you? Did you have a fight with one of your friends? Did that Connor boy you like say something to you or not say something to you?”

Her face reddens, but she doesn’t answer. She arches her back and neck, leaning into the back of the chair.

“This can’t be about me taking your mom out on the boat.”

Sitka rolls her eyes up to her bangs, grabs an entire handful of hair, and starts twirling. “I don’t care what you and her do together.”

I hoist myself off the sofa and go over and squat down to her level. “Yeah, I can see that.” What I also see are tears in Sitka’s eyes. “Honey, why is this upsetting you?”

“It’s not. I just don’t see why she gets to go.” She juts her hand under her chin and looks past me to Jenny’s rubber boots next to the door. “She’s not going to be any good out there. You think because she went out with you for a whole four hours today, that makes her Starbuck material.” Sitka’s Advanced English class is reading Moby Dick this year.

“I need the help,” I tell Sitka, “and it may as well be your mother. You’re still too young for crabbing, it’s too dangerous for you to go out with me this time of year, and besides, I don’t want you missing any school.”

This morning, Jenny and I made a small run up to the north end of Admiralty Island, just enough to see if she had sea legs. I showed her the basics of how we bait, how we hook up and drop the pots, and how we empty the pots into the holding tank.

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