Read Salty Sky for Free Online Page A

Thursday. Untold hours in the gym and water slowed the atrophy. Twenty straight years selecting hand-to-hand combat training for his continuing education had calibrated his rise, plateau, and slow decline. What a blessing Maggie had gotten pregnant before his junior season—not just because of the twins, but because it forced manhood on him when he wanted more years of boyhood.
    His Augusts had gone through several cycles since his playing days. There were the girls’ cheerleading camp years. Those were his favorite Augusts for some reason. There was the year of night flights in the mountains. A decade of back-to-school shopping. One August, he crossed a border sixty times in thirty days. The hardest August, was as a new widower with daughters in high school. There was fruit wine miraculously growing in the bushes. White-knuckled trips to the gynecologist. An empty nester at thirty-nine—that was the second-hardest August. He had back-to-back father-of-the-bride Augusts. His next cycle of life was as a grandpa. If his grandkids had kids at twenty, he’d be a great-grandpa before he could collect social security, assuming they were still paying out social security at that point.
    Cale grabbed the iPhone to see if his daughters had called. No. This was the part of life’s cycle where he loved them more than they loved him.
    Maggie
, Cale thought,
I could have used you sticking around. I know, I’ve mentioned this before. I know you’ve mentioned you wanted to. I did my best as a father. I forced their dates to introduce themselves, even in college. I checked for a smile, a firm shake, a direct look in the eyes. Weather permitting, we’d meet in the backyard, me with my shirt off. I’d show whatever project I was working on. Did my power tools and slobbering dog deter the young men’s loins? The girls’ social networking left breadcrumb trails. Well, they survived. C’est la vie. They’ve started families of their own now. Old Gramps can wait for his Christmas cards to arrive and will not complain about it. I know you agree, but sometimes I need reminding
.

6
    WHAT DID MARK Twain say about life on a boat being like jail with a chance of drowning? How would Twain feel if he paid as much for the privilege as Joe had? Slips, refueling, and provisioning were all expensive. When the captain moved the boat without him and sent him a single bill, it was at least one quick slash of the knife rather than death by a thousand pinpricks.
    The boat was really his wife’s. She had passed eighteen months ago, six months after the boat was ordered and two months before it was delivered. He had tried to sell it, but he couldn’t stomach losing a million dollars on something he’d never used. Now his stomach felt differently. Between the cost of owning and operating
Framed
and entertaining family guests, a million dollars sounded OK.
    Maria had said, “Joe Pascarella, this boat will make your sons and grandkids come visit us.” But in truth, his sons were busy. They had families and careers. They barely had time for Joe to visit them. He saw his daughters-in-law’s hair go gray worrying about their two-year-olds out at sea.
    No, he was trying to put himself in a bad mood. He liked the boat, and he could afford it.
    Joe’s friend Tony Moreno was onboard. As teenagers, they started together as apprentice carpenters. In their twenties, they becameforemen together. At forty-two, after twenty-five years, Joe retired from the union to be a developer. Tony’s crews worked his local projects. Retired after forty-seven years in the union, Tony was in good financial shape with a nice pension and benefits for life.
    On this trip, Joe’s nephew and two friends—all three professional fitness trainers—were along as a favor to his sister. He paid to have them flown from Islip to Miami. They were accompanying Tony, the captain, and Joe up the East Coast to Sag Harbor. For the first half of the trip, they hadn’t been much help. Then