He wouldn’t dare.

Kimberly did go off her birth control but she continued with the shots and the after-shift drinking.

“For God’s sake, Kimmy,” Huck finally said, “any baby we have will be born pickled.”

Kimberly didn’t like this one bit, though it did make her slow down a little—and sure enough, she got pregnant. Huck remembers the mixture of giddiness and terror at the news; it was as though someone had told him he could travel to the moon with the astronauts or star in a movie with Clint Eastwood. Did he want to? Hell yes! Did he really want to? He wasn’t sure. What did Huck know about having a child, about being a father? He was also afraid that Kimberly wouldn’t be able to stay on the wagon for nine full months—it seemed impossible—plus both of them smoked like fiends, and that would have to stop.

Kimberly bought prenatal vitamins and went to see an ob-gyn in Miami and she changed her post-shift drink to one white-wine spritzer. She cut down to four cigarettes a day—breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late at night—and Huck thought, Okay, maybe this will work. He couldn’t expect her to quit everything cold turkey; that was how people failed.

Then, late on the night of December 1, 1983—Huck still remembers the date and probably always will—Kimberly came home stinking drunk, waking Huck up when she slammed into their bungalow on Catherine Street singing “Piece of My Heart” at the top of her lungs and crying.

Huck jumped out of bed. He would never lay a hand on a woman but he wanted to throttle her. He took her gently by the shoulders, pulled her in close, and whispered, “It’s not just you anymore, Kimmy. You have to think about our baby.”

Kimberly said, “Baby’s gone, Sam. I started bleeding at work.”

Huck was crushed; Kimberly was worse than crushed. She was riding a pendulum of emotions. When she swung one way, she was fine—it happened to a lot of people; they could try again. When she swung the other way, she was a mess—it was her fault, she was damaged and broken and unfit to be a mother.

Kimberly went back on the pill.

Huck felt like he was on a bike without brakes careening down a mountainside. He was afraid to jump off even though he knew he would crash when he got to the bottom. What followed was three years of Huck fishing and Kimberly drinking, drinking, drinking. This ended only once a beefy, tattooed loudmouth on one of Huck’s charters bragged to his buddy that he’d gotten to third base with the bartender of Sloppy Joe’s the night before.

“Oh yeah?” Huck said, blood pulsing in his ears. “Blond gal?”

“Ass like a valentine,” the loudmouth said, and it took every ounce of Huck’s willpower not to stab the guy in the forehead with the gaff.