Drowndead
051. Water.
The wind is picking up again – he can hear it. It blows the ladies' aprons about; they look like white sails as they flap in the wind. He used to think that the wind, and the storms, were very thrilling and exciting, like in the stories of adventurers he had been told by the fire by his Pa and by Pa's brother, that good kind man with the white hair and beard who smelled of tar and fish. Ham don't think so, anymore. He tends to believe, that he never will again – but then it also feels as if he won't never be able to think, no more. Because really, he don't know what to think.
Pa was here, and then he weren't. There it is. There ain't no more to it. One day he slung a rope over his shoulder, and called good-bye as he did every day afore ("I – I didn't even look up from my game – " Ham thinks, numbly), and went out in the little boat with Uncle Dan and his fellow fishermen. And then that night there was a storm, and the women tried to keep him at the fire, but he wanted to rush to all the windows, cheering at the size of the waves and priding himself that he weren't afraid of the thunder, no sir, not him.
And then, very late, Uncle Dan and the others come back, looking tired and pale, and Pa weren't with them. Uncle Dan was real quiet, and held his hat in his hands, which Ham had never saw him do before, and which made the ladies cry. Then he got down on his one knee, and called Ham to him, and told him Pa had gone on, to fish with the one who had cast his net for men, in order to give them life; and Ham had begun to cry, and wondered why his uncle didn't.
He isn't crying now, as they all stand solemnly upon the beach. He's had enough of the water, and the waves, and the wind – though the waves crash, and the wind blows, whether he wants them to or doesn't – and he keeps very still as he hears the holy words spoken, which he don't quite understand, and which he's not sure he wants to understand.
The only thing he knows is that he feels his uncle's hand on his shoulder, and is glad it's there. If I can't trust the sea no more, he thinks, then at least I can trust him.