The Last Run by Todd Lewan Page A

pigtails had bounced in such a way that had almost caused Bob Doyle to weep.
    Brendan was a dynamo. He reminded Bob Doyle of an otter. At first, he was shy around Mark Morley and his fiancée, Tamara. Perhaps the shyness came from being around Tamara’s teenage daughter, Kyla. At one point Morley noticed the boy eyeing the steering wheel. He motioned to him.
    “Come on, Captain, get on over here and steer us.”
    Brendan jumped into Morley’s lap, gripped the wheel as though it was about to fly off.
    Morley chuckled.
    “Relax your grip. Easy now. Okay. That’s a little better.”
    They cut the motors and drifted in the bay. The breeze took away the smell of the whales and lifted the thinly latticed water. The water was dark blue and yet they could see every ridge and wrinkle and sometimes a white, crystalline plume. Brendan and Morley stayed up at the house and Bob Doyle sat on the bow with Tamara and Kyla, drinking coffee and eating tuna-and-onion sandwiches.
    They asked him the routine questions, about the Coast Guard, about his divorce. He answered them all as vaguely as possible without being impolite. To steer them off the topic of his marriage he asked Tamara how she had met Mark.
    The corners of her mouth went up.
    “At the P-Bar”—she laughed —“of all places.”
    When the clouds had gone a rusty color Mark Morley cranked the engine and headed them back slow across the sound. There was a light breeze and gulls followed them. The water stopped being blue and the mountains went dark except the caps and the town lights shown like a necklace along shore. Near the fuel pier he cut the motors and let her drift up to the break wall. Gig Mork was waiting.
    Bob Doyle tossed him the bowline. Mork made her fast to a ladder on the wall. Then he hopped aboard and fixed some buoy floats along her sides. Bob Doyle hugged Tamara and Kyla, and Brendan hugged Mark Morley close and hard, and then they each went up the ladder and stood on the platform.
    Brendan said, “Bye, Dad. Thanks for a really, really cool day. Can we do it again soon?”
    Bob Doyle hugged the boy and, looking up, saw a car with its lights off and a face through the pane of the car window. He walked with his hand on the boy’s shoulder until they reached the car. Then the passenger door opened.
    Without looking in, he said, “I’m going to show Katie the boat now, if that’s okay.”
    “Make it quick.”
    His daughter hopped into his arms, all warm and soapy smelling, and he held her tight and stroked her hair. Then he lifted her up, sat her on his shoulders, took her tiny hands in his and strode off down the slope toward the boat.
    He got Katie a soda from the galley refrigerator, put a sailor’s cap on her head and showed her around the boat. In the wheelhouse he let her play with the steering wheel. He told her about the boat’s engine and its cooling unit and fish holds, and then he put her back on his shoulders and carried her back up the pier to the car.
    As he was putting his daughter in the backseat, Morley and Mork walked up. The car door opened and a woman in a jeans jacket stepped out. She had her blond hair tied up in a ponytail and the skin around her eyes was a little swollen.
    “Laurie,” Bob Doyle said, sweeping a glance past his ex-wife and pointing to the men, “this here is Gig Mork. And this here is my skipper, Mark Morley.” She reached for Morley’s hand and shook it.
    “Nice to meet you,” Morley said.
    “Likewise.”
    “Your Katie here is just a darling.”
    Laurie nodded.
    “We have to go,” Laurie said. The way she said it made Bob Doyle’s throat tighten.
    “Something wrong?”
    “No.”
    “So,” Bob Doyle asked Laurie, “what do you think of her?”
    Morley and Mork looked at each other, then turned and headed back down to the boat.
    “You mean that rust bucket?”
    “Well,” Bob Doyle said, looking off at the harbor, “I suppose she looks worse than she is.”
    Laurie shook her head. “That thing