The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,467

at home.

“What’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught?” she asks. “Be honest.”

“Twenty-five-pound catfish,” I say without pause. It’s nothing record-shattering, but it’s bigger than the average catfish.

“Nice,” she says.

The backyard slopes down as we get closer to the dock, and the grass turns to rock. Aidy’s in flip-flops and trying to balance the tackle box under one arm, so instinctively I reach for her hand. Her fingers thread through mine as we cross the ten-foot spread of rocky terrain. My heart beats hard for a fraction of a second, and when we finally reach the dock, she lets go.

Crossing each weathered plank, her sandals make sucking noises, and I hear a faint hum coming from her lips.

“Oh, look at that,” she says, pointing straight ahead. “A flock of sailboats.”

“A flock?” I laugh.

“I don’t know what else you’d call them. There are like eight, nine. Are they racing?”

“Probably.”

We reach the end and have a seat, Aidy removing her flip-flops and placing them aside. Her feet dangle, skimming the water beneath.

“Water’s surprisingly warm,” she says, reaching down and dipping her fingers in. “And clear.”

“There’s no run off into this lake,” I say, spotting a mosquito landing on her bare thigh. I reach across and swat it off. “It’s protected. One of the clearest in the state.”

“Thanks,” she says, rubbing her palm across her leg. She pulls her spray from her back pocket and reapplies, and I bite my tongue.

I bait the hooks and hand her a pole before casting off.

“You going to stand there the whole time or are you going to sit beside me?” she asks, glancing behind her before she casts. “It feels weird, you standing there. Makes me feel like a kid. Doesn’t help you’re so tall.”

Crouching down, I ask, “Is this better?”

Aidy bumps her shoulder into mine. “Yep.”

Her red and white bobber dips almost immediately.

“Think I got something,” she says, slowly reeling. “Oh, yeah.”

She reels faster, pulling and reeling and pulling and reeling, until a little Blue Gill rises from the water, attached to her hook. He flops around and she carefully reaches for him.

“Aw, he’s so tiny,” she says, gently pulling the hook from his mouth. Leaning down, she lets him go.

There’s a tug on the end of my line, and it feels sizable. I don’t waste any time reeling mine in and am silently pleased when I spot a good-sized crappie on the end. This’ll be good for frying. A couple more of these and we’ll have ourselves a nice dinner tonight.

I grab the stringer from the tackle box, and from the corner of my eye, I see Aidy baiting her hook. For a brief moment, I’m sucked into a distant memory. I took Kerenza here once, despite the fact that I knew damn well she wasn’t outdoorsy. She hated the fresh water. She hated the mosquitos and the pine-scented air. She hated the crickets and thought the quietude was borderline disturbing. Most of the time she’d hole up inside, sitting in front of a fan and flipping through the latest issue of Vogue and complaining about the lack of cell service every chance she got.

“So you’re the oldest of five boys?” Aidy asks out of nowhere.

“Right.”

“I can’t imagine having five sons. I’d probably go insane. My aunt had three boys. I used to babysit them and they were bouncing off the walls constantly. So crazy. I don’t know how your parents did it, but kudos to them.”

Smirking quietly, I nod. “Yeah. We were pretty crazy. Mom kept us in line though. Most of the time.”

“What about your dad?”

I pause, staring at a soft ripple of water ahead. “He wasn’t really around. And when he was, he was drunk.”

Aidy turns to me, her stare heavy. “I’m sorry.”

Shrugging, I brush it off. “It’s okay. He’s been gone a long time now. His liver quit on him by the time I hit junior high. Honestly don’t remember that much about him. Feels like forever ago.”

“I feel the same way about my dad sometimes,” I say. “But he’s alive and well. Living it up in Kansas City, Kansas with his new family.”

“New family?”

“Yeah. He didn’t waste any time replacing us after he left Mom,” she says. “Even produced a couple of new kids, both daughters, with his new wife. We get Christmas cards, and sometimes he’ll call when he remembers a birthday, but we’ve pretty much gone our separate ways.”

“That’s terrible. You’re his daughter.”

Aidy laughs. “Yeah. It is pretty terrible when I say it out loud. Jesus, he’s an