Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

asking for money.” A hint of the South flavored Jericho’s voice like bourbon in branch water. She wondered again what demons drove him so far from home. “Just sometimes . . . I thought I could help out,” he repeated with quiet dignity.
     
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    Her head hurt. She didn’t know what to do. When Perfetto’s needed a dishwasher, Alain used to drive to the corner where the day laborers hung out and hire a guy right off the street. But then, Alain didn’t have a kid on the premises to worry about. Hadn’t wanted a kid to worry about.
    Rat bastard.
     
    But after all these years, the words no longer had the power to energize her. Thinking of Alain only made her tired.
     
    “I’ll let you know,” she said.
     
    “Yes, ma’am.” Jericho tugged on his cap, shading those clear, haunted eyes. “Appreciate it.”
    He turned to go, almost bumping into Margred as she rounded the corner. They circled without touching, like fighters looking for an opening. Finally, Jericho stepped back, and Margred entered the kitchen.
     
    She reached for her apron, her cheeks flushed. “What was he doing here?”
     
    Regina raised her brows, surprised by the faint hostility in her tone.
    “I’m thinking of hiring him.”
     
    “What for?”
     
    “Scrub floors, unload deliveries, stuff like that.”
     
    Antonia sniffed without turning around from the cook top. “We don’t need some man around to do our work for us.”
     
    They hadn’t needed a man eight years ago, when Regina showed up on Antonia’s doorstep with Nick in her arms. Whatever her faults, whatever her feelings about providing for her estranged daughter and a three-month-old grandson, Antonia had done everything that needed to be done. But her mother wasn’t getting any younger. Regina watched her mother’s hands on the spatula as she turned hash on the griddle— strong, veined hands, the knuckles growing knobby with age, the nails yellow with smoke— and felt a surge of love and panic tighten her throat.
    Antonia would never admit it, but she couldn’t do as much as she used to.
    Margred was great with customers, but she went home to her husband at night. And Regina . . .
     
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    “Things change,” Regina said shortly.
     
    “Sex changes things,” she’d said to Dylan.
     
    Oh, boy, did it ever.
     
    Her period was late. Only a day late. One day.
     
    Maybe she wasn’t knocked up. But she felt the weight of worry like a live thing pressing on her abdomen, burning beneath her breastbone.
     
    “It’s those damn catering jobs,” Antonia told Margred. “She took on another one, family reunion, week after Frank Ivey’s birthday party. Now she wants to hire help.”
     
    Regina grabbed a knife and started chopping scallions for the pasta salad, ignoring the ball in her stomach. “Six bucks an hour, a couple hours a day, a few days a week. Big deal.”
     
    “We can’t afford him. Not once the season’s over,” Antonia grumbled.
     
    Chop chop chop. “He won’t last that long. He won’t want to stay here in the winter.”
     
    “He could. He looks crazy enough.”
     
    Maybe he did at that. Her knife faltered.
     
    “I don’t like him,” Margred said.
     
    Regina glared at her, feeling betrayed. “You were okay with him before. He’s a vet. Like Caleb.”
     
    “He smells bad.”
     
    Regina remembered Jericho’s freshly scraped jaw, the line of dirt around his neck, and felt an uncomfortable prickle of guilt. “So would you if you didn’t have a place to take regular showers.”
     
    Margred shook her head. “Not that kind of bad. He smells . . .
    wrong.”
     
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    Antonia slapped a plate on the pass. “As long as he doesn’t touch the food or scare off the customers, I don’t care how he smells.”
     
    Regina gaped at this unexpected support from her mother.
     
    Antonia set her hands on her hips. “You going to stand there jawing?
    Or are you going to serve this hash before it gets cold?”
     
    The next few hours passed in a haze of work and steam. At eleven o’clock the menu changed from eggs, hash, and home fries to sandwiches, subs, and pizza. The tables filled with summer people who didn’t want to cook, campers in search of a hot meal, yachters ashore for shopping or some local color.
     
    No Dylan. Regina caught her gaze wandering to the pass, watching the door for his tall, lean figure, and pressed her lips together.
     
    “Shit, oh, shit.” She jerked her hand from the cutting board.
     
    Her mother