“But we have to do something,” she said finally. “There’re just no good jobs anymore in this state. We can’t even move away. I’ve got the house, and Daddy.”

“I’d be just as unemployable somewhere else as here,” he said. “I don’t think many company docs would pass me yet.” He watched her blow her nose into the napkin and pick up her head.

“I want some money for Matthew, damn it. I brought in some for a while and I didn’t complain about what I had to do, but let me tell you, it’s hard work catfishing for a living.”

“You took your share of sun,” he said.

“I look so damn awful. Have you looked at me?”

He put a hand on her knee. “You still good-looking.”

“Still?” she almost shouted. “Did you hear what you said? You’re talking about me as though I’m a ten-year-old sedan that someone has kept waxed and ‘still’ looks nice.” She crossed her legs, calming herself. “My hair is all paint bristle. I have no nails, and I go around smelling like starch.”

“I could find a boat and take over your fishing.” He said this as he looked across the room toward an old whiskered man sitting alone at a table in the corner.

“Your heart wouldn’t be in that. You dream of working on machines, not skinning catfish. The shrimp boat is a machine.”

“How you know what I dream about?” He cocked his head and took a drink from a plastic cup of water.

“You used to talk in your sleep.”

“No.” He put the glass down.

“Yes.”

“You never told me that.”

She wiped her eyes and then her mouth, picked up her little purse, and put it on her lap. “That’s right.”

*   *   *

The next day they put their money together and bought the boat. As she signed the check, Colette’s face contorted as though she were in labor. Immediately, Paul went down to the water and began recharging the Saxon’s batteries, blowing out the fuel tanks and lines, freeing up the winches, cleaning every electrical connection of their green complexions. A patched trawl was in the hold and they bought new rope for it, then hired Etienne as wheelman and Nan’s husband, Raymond, as help. They fired off the old diesel engine and brought the boat at half speed up the river to the fuel dock and topped off the tanks. Paul noted that the engine ran evenly, but a worrying rope of blue smoke hung onto the exhaust stack.

Three days later, both families went to six o’clock Mass and prayed for shrimp. Barely an hour after dismissal, the Saxon floated under the discharge pipe at the ice plant and took on a half ton. When Colette paid the clerk in the ice-plant office, her eyes followed her money as it disappeared into the cash drawer.