The Whiskey Sea Read Free Page B

for so many years, in our family.”
    “I’m trying my best to make sure you’ll always be alright.”
    “But you know I can take care of myself.”
    Silver snorted, briefly seeming to be experiencing an ounce of regret. But his tone never wavered. “I made the decision, and now you just gotta take it like a grown-up.”
    Frieda knew exactly how the rest of this conversation would play out. She and Silver would argue back and forth, and the one who held the power would win. She’d held the power when it came to graduation. Silver held it with the boat.
    She stood in a state of exasperation, heat building inside her head. If she had to stay in his presence a moment longer, she’d explode.
    “You’ve taken everything—everything—from me!” She let out a grunt and kicked an empty bucket, which rattled across the porch, startling some nearby gulls feeding on fish guts by the water, then took heavy steps down the porch stairs and marched away. As she stormed off, she thought hard. She had to come up with a plan. The boat hadn’t changed hands yet. What could she bargain with?
    Both she and Bea had the last name of Hope, same as their mother’s. No one knew who their real fathers were. It didn’t matter, because they were Silver’s daughters. For him she had put up with the school filled with rich kids who’d sneered at her, as if she were little better than a cast-off rag doll. Not only was she poor, she was the dead whore’s daughter, and many mothers didn’t want their children to befriend her. Besides, the children were mean, often avoiding her, whispering behind her back, then bursting into sudden laughter over their private jokes. She couldn’t make friends with the clammers’ kids who had attended school either, for a different reason. Each and every one of them had something that made her think he or she could be related to her or Bea. Each could be a half sister or half brother. Every dark-haired boy or girl could be one of hers; every blond, one of Bea’s. She’d put up with it all for Silver, and now look what he’d done to her. Her escape had always been to the water, and he’d just taken that away from her.
    Silver had promised to sell the boat without telling her, and even worse, he was giving up the boat to a man he thought she’d marry just so she could hold some claim to it. Sam Hicks was about twenty-five, and after growing up here he’d served time in the Great War working on engines for the navy. His age meant that he was too young to be Bea’s or her father, and she’d known him to be a decent, hardworking sort who stuck mostly to himself. A few times they’d run into each other on the docks, and once he asked her to join him for a soda. She declined because Silver was waiting for her. Another time she caught him following her with his eyes as she helped Silver moor the boat. But she’d always kept her distance from boys, even those in her class. She had never been one to believe in happy endings; that was Bea’s territory.
    As if she’d conjured her sister’s presence by the ferocity of her thoughts, here Bea was, running up behind Frieda.
    “Slow down.” Bea, now fourteen years old, panted out the words. “Don’t go off mad. I can’t stand it when you and Silver fight.”
    Frieda’s feet kept hammering the ground, her sister on her heels, and she glanced back to see Bea’s face scrunched up in agony. “Then why were you eavesdropping?”
    “You were yelling!”
    Still storming off, Frieda said over her shoulder, “I can’t be around him right now. I swear, I want to shake him.”
    “It was my idea,” Bea blurted out.
    Frieda stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned around. Was this whole day going to be filled with startling and infuriating confessions? “What?”
    Bea leaned over her knees, catching her breath. Then she lifted her tormented face to Frieda’s glare. “It’s true. It makes sense—you and Hicks with the boat together. So don’t blame