“How long will it be until dad gets home?” asked Sophie as she starred out the foggy window into the black stormy sea.
My father, sister and I lived in northern Maine on the coast. Our family was not very wealthy or glamorous as most American families are. Our house contained 3 rooms a kitchen, bedroom, and living room with a pullout couch. We also had a small rustic outhouse outside. It was a very old house, the floors squeaked, it was drafty, and the ceiling leaked……a lot. The only way we could get by was the hard earned money our father received from crab fishing out in the ocean.
“I don’t know Sophie, his boat was due back at port about 45 minutes.”
It was quiet in the house all we could here was the hissing of wood in the furnace and the pitter-patter of a light drizzle on the metal roof. It wouldn’t be long till the roof leaked so I got out the drip buckets and set them on the floor. I was getting very worried on the inside, but it didn’t show. When dad was gone I had to be the man in the house. I had to stay strong for Sophie. But, dad had never been this late and the weather was getting worse every minute.
“Corey, what do you think we should do?” Sophie asked, still looking out the window hoping to see Sweet Marry our father’s boat. It was named after our mom who died while giving birth to Sophie.
There was a long quiet pause again, as I searched my nervous brain for an idea.
“Corey,” she started to say but she started to cry and couldn’t finish her sentence. There was a great boom of thunder and a flash of lightning that light up our house.
“Come on,” she said as she grabbed her boots and coat.
This surprised me because Sophie had been terrified ever since she was a little girl because she had fallen out of our old boat and she almost drowned.
“All right,” I moaned.
I wasn’t very fond of the sea either. I grabbed my soon to be soaking wet raincoat, and we were out the door on our way to the dock.
Our dock was much like our house, it was small, rickety, slippery, and I wouldn’t want to stand on it for more then 5 minutes at a time.
We both hopped into our skiff and yanked on the cord that starts up the 15 horse power engine. All it did was moan and cough every time I gave it a yank. This was not a good start to our adventure. This was not a good omen. My arm felt like it had been put through a grinder but, I did get it started after almost 20 tries. We were both already shivering and now the rain was steadily picking up. We had to get into town to the port where the boats come in, it was normally only a 20 minute ride across the bay but today there were big swells and fog as thick as stew was everywhere.
I wondered to myself if we should go back, but I didn’t want to let down Sophie and I didn’t want to let down dad. My head was about to explode when a monster swell swallowed us whole and tossed us out of the boat into the frigid water.
“Sophie, where are you?” I tried to say as waves kept pushing me under water.
I swiveled my head around and saw our boat flipped over with Sophie clinging to the side of it.
“Sophie are you ok?”
No answer.
I swam to the boat and tapped her, that’s when I saw the blood flowing down the wood of the boat into the water.
She murmured something; I couldn’t tell what it was.
“Corey, tell dad it was my fault”
“What are you talking about?”
“I made you come out here,” she murmured then she lost her grip and feel into the water.
I hoisted her up back on the boat and I saw the wound where the blood was coming from.
“Oh my god,” I said under my breath.