Chapter 1, It began as a normal day

Dear Readers, I am participating in the 2016 National Novel Writing Month scramble to get out a first draft of a novel in one month. I am sharing with you my daily progress, or lack thereof, and please feel free to comment. Your desire to know what happens next keeps my characters in motion. Thank you,  Irene Paine   irenepaine@gmail.com

Farewell,  Cape Cod

Irene Paine

The air is clear of smog. There are no cars, or motor vehicles of any kind, traveling the roads of Cape Cod. The sky is blue. Seals haul out on warm sandy beaches, unhindered by human company. Neighborhoods are overgrown with bitter sweet, trumpet vine, and poison ivy. Raccoons, coyotes, skunks, mice and rabbits have moved in to garages, attics and living rooms.

Abandoned vehicles, the youngest of them being the 2017 models with very low mileage on their odometers, are parked in driveways, along the curbs of empty streets, in parking lots. Wrecked boats litter the inner harbors, sunken or crushed against the beach from a recent nor’easter.

Cape Cod Bay is empty of fishing boats, ferries, and lobster pots. Nantucket Sound is jumping with dolphins, but no vessels are to be seen. The sun creates a thousand sparkling points of light as the waves shimmer through the July morning.

It is July 4, 2036, twenty years after the meltdown of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth. Jason Fox sits at the controls of the Boeing 797, making his federally mandated circumference around the Cape Cod and South Shore area as he descends on his approach to Logan. The flight from Miami has been smooth, but that doesn’t prevent the knot of anxiousness from lodging in his throat as he glances over his left shoulder at the long arm of Cape Cod.

He knows what is down there and what isn’t down there. The space between his cockpit and the little blue house where he grew up on Pleasant Street in Sandwich, right near the canal and town wharf, is deceiving. Blue sky, visibility couldn’t be better. Jason glances at the blinking radiation monitor on his light array. He has made his decision, now that he knows he has cancer. He is going back to have a look, and soon.  

Chapter One

October 15, 2016 

Charlotte Fox hated cooking dinner because she had to cook three dinners. John always wanted meat and potatoes; she couldn’t get him to consider fish. Being a fisherman, he’d had his fill. Every now and then, maybe broiled bay scallops, when he was bringing them in just dragged up and opened out on the boat, and fresh as fresh, but then only once a season. Sort of like owning an apple orchard, and unable to eat one more apple, replacing apple pie with pumpkin.

At twelve years old, Jason was still in the mac and cheese stage,  and every now and then, chicken tenders. No veggies. Charlotte relied on the green algae smoothie powder for that, blended into OJ and a banana and then poured into a used Slurpie cup with a cover and straw so Jason would not notice the bright green color so much.

Darlene, now that she was fourteen, had declared she would not eat anything with a face. This was because of Charlotte’s own lamb stew. Darlene had always enjoyed it along with her father, until the day she developed, what, a rivalry with her mother? She announced her enlightenment, and disdain for anyone who was not so inclined.

“Lamb stew,” Darlene had cried. “A little lamb? That’s like eating kitten stew, Mom! I am not eating anything with a face on it ever again.”

Of course, now the kid had the worst periods ever. Dr. Watson, who had been Darlene’s pediatrician and was still her favorite doctor, told her she needed to eat red meat, she had evolved for thousands of years eating red meat. Darlene ate more cheese and beans, declaring the combo had more protein than steak, according to her on-line research. Dr. Watson was out of date.

Three separate plates of food, and Charlotte had some of each, as she cooked it and as she sat with her family at dinner, which is why she’d gained twenty pounds in the last two years.

“I hate to be a wet blanket,” John said when she complained that her jeans were too tight, “But if you’d jog down to the marina to see me coming in on the boat like you used to, your butt would be more like buns of steel than buns of meal. You’re gonna burst those jeans at the seams!”

This is where Jason learned the ancient kitchen art of twirling a wet dish towel and snapping it like a whip at an offending rump. His mother demonstrated on his father and chased him out of the kitchen whenever the argument hit too close to home. But when Jason did it to his sister Darlene, he was grounded for an afternoon.

“No soccer for you tomorrow,” his mother said. “You have to learn, never hit a girl. You should know better. “

“You did it to Dad!”

“Dad’s not a girl.”

It made no sense to Jason. Mom could joke around, but when Jason tried it, he was grounded. Of course, Darlene made sure to shriek like a dying rabbit at the smallest chance, and but took pride in delivering smarting monkey bites with surgical precision on Jason’s ribs, with no consequences whatsoever. It just wasn’t fair.

The next day started out as usual. It was a chilly October morning, but there was promise from the Channel 5 weatherman that the sun would bring the temperatures up into the sixties by early afternoon. Frost warning for the night ahead, though.  Charlotte told John she’d spend the morning harvesting the last of her late tomatoes and squashes from her garden, and mulching the bases of her roses.

It had been the usual rush to get John off on the boat at 4:30 a.m. with his thermoses of coffee and hearty soup. He was taking the Mary Lynn all the way across the bay and over to Provincetown, rounding Race Point, and then heading out a few miles for cod fishing. It was now or never, he didn’t like fishing when he had to chop ice off the lines. John’s lifelong dream was to move to Florida and run a charter boat for the other Yankees who ended up down there, but now that the kids were firmly ensconced in their sports and school programs, that wasn’t going to happen until they graduated. Five more years until Jason was out the door, and on his way to college, God willing. Five more years of not much fish up here in Cape Cod bay, thanks to the damn seals that were everywhere now. Right up at the pier in Wellfleet Harbor yesterday, for God’s sakes. Who would have thought?  How many pounds of fish did a seal have to eat every day, and how many seals were there? Tens of thousands of seals out around Monomoy, John knew it, had seen it. Not a square inch of beach left as he cruised around Monomoy in August that day he went out through the canal into Nantucket Sound to see what might be caught out there. He might as well sell the damned boat. They had just taken a home equity loan out on the house, which he hated to do. Now if they ever got to move and sell the house, they wouldn’t have any chunk of change to buy down there with. If Charlotte hadn’t been so damned stubborn about staying here in her home town, they could have moved when the kids were younger, and they’d be having a hell of a time down there in Florida now, but no. She had wanted to stay close to her mother, who John did not get along with. He just wasn’t good enough for Charlotte in Mrs. Winslow’s eyes. She didn’t approve of his profession, she didn’t approve of the way he dressed, she didn’t approve of how he didn’t go to the barber every other week like the now sainted Mr. Winslow had, she thought John was unclean.  She didn’t say dirty, she said unclean.

To John, that was just a part of her affected snobbishness. She was not born a Winslow, she was born a Slocum, but once she rubbed elbows with that group of old prissies descended from the Mayflower bunch, she thought she was better than anyone out there, including John Fox.

The trip across the bay was peaceful. The wind was not creating too much chop, only 7 MPH, that was something to be thankful for. Mary Lynn’s wood planking was due for caulking and painting, she’d have to go up on the rails this winter for some serious work, and fingers crossed she’d make it until December without needing more than the continuous bilge pump running below deck. He pulled in to Provincetown to top off the fuel tanks, he wasn’t heading out into the Atlantic without being full up, you never knew what might happen out there, and he was doing what he shouldn’t be doing today- fishing alone. He hadn’t made enough lately and was too far behind in the bills to hire a deck hand. Although maybe he was being penny wise and pound foolish, it was the way it was.

After leaving the harbor, he passed by the light houses, first Long Point, then Wood End, then Race Point. The rip at Race Point was a bit choppy, which the humpback whales loved. They were there sucking up the krill, splashing and having a great old time. Oh, to be a whale. But even those old boys were having their troubles. He rounded the Province lands, and then headed southwest and rode the chop that was always out there on the Atlantic in October until he could just barely see land, and then he let his long baited lines down.  The big cod down there were soon biting, and he was busy for awhile, pulling them in, along with the occasional haddock. It wasn’t long before he’d reached the limit.  

At 2:30 PM, he decided he'd better head back, it would take a few hours, and the north wind was coming up. He’d be heading into it until he got up around Provincetown. He leaned over a bit too far pulling up his last line, and dropped his phone into the water out of his chest pocket. “Oh, Shit,” he said. He had been planning to call Charlotte on his way in, telling her how good the soup and coffee had been, and to put some food in the oven. It had been a good day, and he looked forward to offloading this catch before dark.  He plowed across the waves into the wind, and was relieved to round the Cape’s end and head south east over to the Cape Cod Canal in across the calmer bay. The wind had shifted and was coming from the north west now, but it wasn't too strong.  Sunset promised to be beautiful. He could see the smokestack of the NRG Canal Electric Plant in the distance, and headed right for it. 

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