Out in the fog around the point, I heard the harbor patrol boat, and my father dropped his gaff, because the Maggie Jean is registered in my name, and someone had been taking her out past the line at night, and it was not me.
For years my father ran my grandfathers boat as if it were his and expected me to ship out on it instead of the Coast Guard. This time the truth came from the harbor master, because Mrs. Coffin pulled the GPS logs.
My grandfather registered the Maggie Jean in my name the year I was born, and my father had been running her on my registration ever since, but the boat had been going out past the line at night on runs I never made, which meant whatever was happening out there in the dark was happening on a boat legally mine, and I was the one who had to answer for it unless the truth came out.
The letter from the harbor master in my seabag laid it out. Mrs. Coffin, who has run that pier since 1990, saw the night runs on the GPS, knew I had never been aboard after dark, and sent the patrol.
My father tore up my Coast Guard orders and threw them in the harbor and told me the ocean was right here. He did not know a copy of orders is easy to replace and the patrol was already coming. He dropped his gaff when he heard the engine in the fog.
Connor stopped baiting traps and asked what was going on. Ask Dad where the Maggie Jean goes at night, I told him.
I did not stay. My orders were reissued that morning, and I flew to Cape May and started basic, because my father could tear paper but not the Coast Guards records.
I am in the Coast Guard now, which my grandfather, who loved the water honestly, would be proud of. Whatever my father was doing on my boat at night is between him and the patrol, and the registration is being corrected so my name is off anything I never did.
Youll be back by the tide, he yelled. I was not. And my father dropped his gaff before the patrol boat cleared the point, because the harbor master saw in the dark what he thought no one could.