Page 53 of Catch of a Lifetime
“I thought he wasn’t coming back.”
“Couldn’t pass up all of that now, could he?” Jerry waved a hand in my direction.
“Right,” I said. “Anyway, he did come back. And then he went. And he came back again. And again.”
Jerry nodded encouragingly, eyes wide, as if this was fascinating news and he was hearing it for the first time rather than having lived it with me.
“I’ve always been worried, Jerry. From the very start, I’ve always been aware that one day he might not…might not comeback.” I put my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands. “I thought I was getting good at living in the moment. All I got good at was repressing it. The thing is, now I know—I really, really know—that there’s a good chance that one autumn I’ll kiss him goodbye, and he might not come back. Because he nearly d-didn’t. You saw him.”
“I did, lad.”
I dashed a hand over my eyes and cleared my throat. “Now I’ve got evidence that tells me yes, I should have worried, and I should continue to do so, and in fact I could stand to step it up a gear. You saw the size of those sucker marks, didn’t you?”
Jerry sketched a circle in the air between us with his hands, nodding.
I continued, “I’m not going to say I don’t know if I can handle it because that’s irrelevant when I already know I can’t handle not being with Dave. It’s moot.” I shoved a hand through my hair and gripped it. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m with him, all the way. To the end. I suppose I’m just starting to face the fact that the end is going to look like me standing on a cliff like some gothic Victorian widow, looking out to sea and slowly crumbling to dust as I watch for the man who’s never coming back to me.”
Jerry nodded a few times. “Well,” he said thoughtfully. “All I can say is, Dave was clearly off his game last night if you’re moping about thinking bullshit like this.”
Expecting something at least a little sympathetic, it took a moment for his comment to sink in. “What?” I said indignantly.
“He normally bangs the fretting clean out of you. Have to say, mate, I’m unimpressed.”
“You’re—”
“You need to go and have a cuppa and a chat with Marcy. Reckon that might get your head on straight.”
“Jerry, I have the highest respect for Marcy, you know I do, but I’m not sure she can bring anything to the table when it comes to my gay relationship with my gay merman lover. No offence.”
“Offence,” he said mildly. “Lots of offence. What, you think you’re special?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. I’m in love with amerman.”
“Don’t care if you’re in love with a merman, an alien, or a regular man. You’re in love. That’s kind of a universal thing. As for Marcy, she’s been married to me for going on forty years. Which means she’s got a few decades on you of being with a man who regularly goes out to sea, and each and every time he does, she’s got to know there’s a non-zero chance he might not come back.”
I stared at him.
“Fishing’s one of the deadliest jobs in the world. You know that. Worse than mining or construction for fatalities, it is. I pay a fucking fortune in life insurance to make sure Marcy and the kids’ll be taken care of if it happens to me, because while I’m good at my job and I know these waters, sometimes a fella’s luck plain runs out.”
Now I really was indignant. “I’lltake care of Marcy and the kids if anything happens to you. Christ, Jerry. I’m loaded.” I’d never actually come out and said it to his face, what with not wanting to be an actual dick, but good lord. I eyed him. “In fact, if you want to retire?—”
“Joe, I won’t lie, I’m flattered, but we’ve been over this before and I am not going to be your kept boy?—”
“Ew.Ew, no. That’s?—”
“My point is, being in love with someone who goes off to sea doesn’t make you special. Being in love at all doesn’t. Makes you lucky, but not special. Sorry. You just got to learn how to handle it.”
“What if I can’t learn?”
Jerry blew a raspberry. “You’re a smart lad. You’ll learn. You haven’t got any options, anyway. Unless you’re going to break up with Dave? Tell him we had a good run but I’m a giant coward so ta-ta, I’ll be moving inland where you can never find me. You go ahead and waste away pining for me.”
“Okay,” I said hurriedly. I hated the idea of Dave returning to Lynwick to find me gone even more than I hated the idea of me waiting for a Dave who never returned. “I get it. I’ll learn.”
“Gotta learn how to relax. Live in the moment.”
“Is that all? No problem. I’m great at that.”
I was so bad at that I was in therapy for a decade.
