A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard Read Online Free Page B

shellfishing, and taking the occasional odd job. These incomes, combined with small disability pensions from the Feds and Boston (the first for shrapnel wounds contributed by a Vietnamese mortar, the second for a bullet, still nestled near my spine, the gift of a frightened thief trying to escape the scene of the crime), had allowed me to live as well as any bachelor needs to live. I ate a lot of fish and shellfish, grew a garden, which gave me fresh veggies all summer and canned and frozen ones all winter, got fed a lot of meals by women who thought it their duty to feed such as me, and thrived.
    But now I was a married man and a father to boot, and maybe it was time for me to change my ways.
    On the other hand, maybe not, because Zee now said, “But I want to shoot and I want to go back to work. I love my work. I’m not going to spend Joshua’s college fund just so I can stay home and cuddle him.”
    Joshua’s college fund?
    â€œHow about staying home and cuddling me, then?” I asked.
    â€œIf you go out and get a steady job, you won’t be home to cuddle either one of us,” said Zee. “It’s better the way you do things now. You can take Joshua with you when-ever I’m not here, and vice versa.”
    That was true. For centuries women have known how to handle work and babies at the same time, and I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t do it too, so I had made some preparations to help myself out.
    The baby pack I’d made, along with a knapsack full of baby stuff, allowed me to go anywhere I normally went on land and do all the things I normally do. If I had to temporarily put Joshua aside for any reason, I could put him in his snappy beach lounge chair. If I went shellfishing, I could put him in the mini-raft I’d rigged from inner tubes, and he could float beside me as I worked.
    â€œNo problem,” I said, meaning it. Unless Joshua cried for no reason, in which case I was in trouble.
    I knew most of the cries: the hungry cry, the load-in-the-diaper cry, the need-to-burp cry, the mad cry, the I- need-to-be-cuddled cry, and the I’m-frustrated-about-something-but-I-can’t-figure-out-what-it-is Cry; but the cry-for-no-reason was always a bummer and always scared me.
    Fortunately, Joshua rarely resorted to his no-reason howl, and usually quieted down anyway, after some snuggling, so I hadn’t yet been obliged to tear my hair out.
    â€œI’m glad you like being a dad,” Zee now said.
    â€œIt’s not bad,” I said. “How’s momming?”
    â€œIf you were named Molly, I’d burst out in a chorus of ’My Blue Heaven.’ ”
    We listened to the sounds of the evening as darkness came at us from the east. There were birds in the air, and the wind hushed through the woods on three sides of us. On the far side of Nantucket Sound the lights of Cape Cod began to flicker.
    We went down to eat. Grilled bluefish, fresh-made bread, a rice and bean salad, and the house sauvignon blanc. Delish. Such stuff does not go to waste in our house. We wolfed it down.
    Zee patted her lips with her napkin. “And what else did Manny have to say to you this afternoon, other thanwanting me to pick up my trusty shooting iron and head for the target range? What’s new in Edgartown?”
    Manny’s woodworking shop was on Fuller Street, and customers and friends were wandering in and out all day, so he was always more up on current downtown happenings than were we, who lived up in the woods and only went into the village when we had to.
    â€œWell, it seems Edgartown is going to have a visitor from America,” I said, forcing myself to speak in an even tone and avoid expletives. “Maybe you’ll want to go down and shake his hand.”
    â€œWho might it be? Anyone I know? I understand the president is vacationing out west this year, so it’s probably not him.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at me.