"I know."
"You should have told me."
"Yes."
"You should have told me a long time ago."
"Yes," his father said. "I should have. I'm sorry, Lucas. I'm sorrier for that than for almost anything."
The water slapped at the rocks.
"What did he say?" Lucas asked finally. "In the air pocket. Before the count. You said he said something about me."
His father was quiet for a moment.
"He said your mother knew about the insurance and the house. That was all handled. He wasn't worried about that." He swallowed. "He said his old man never taught him anything. And he said somebody had to teach you to fish. Somebody had to teach you how to do things." He looked out at the bay. "Those were the last orders I ever got. From a first class petty officer, which isn't how it's supposed to work."
Lucas sat very still.
He was thinking about the town dock, and a hand line, and a bucket of clam bellies that stank so bad he'd gagged. About mackerel in July. About the skiff on the ledges off Crotch Island and two months of cold Saturdays in the boatyard learning to scarf in planking so you couldn't see the joint. About a bowline one-handed, and a clove hitch in the dark, and the impeller on the outboard, and the fuel line on the diesel, and the sky over Isle au Haut. About his father, every time, every single time, making him do it again until he could do it without thinking. Like it mattered more than anything. Like somebody was keeping score.
"You did it," he said. "All of it. You did everything he said."