The Weight of Water

Three estranged brothers reunite at the family home after their father's funeral

Reed didn’t cry at the funeral, but he did look at his watch three times before they lowered the casket into the ground. His phone had been set to silent mode, and he didn’t feel the vibration in his pocket for any incoming calls or texts. That was fortunate. He already had to deal with disdainful looks from his brothers all morning. The mid-November morning was clearly as cold as the reception as he pulled into the Gardens of Faith Cemetery.

Ben had laughed at him, pointing to his flashy rental car. “I could see the red flying down Lillian Holt Drive and knew it had to be you.” Ben seemed to know everything, of course. He was the most educated out of the three, and the only one to go to college. Dad would boast about the Towson graduate who was a teacher in Philly.

Nate, on the other hand, had worked alongside Dad in Portside Mechanical and Mooring. As the oldest, he would run the family business. “What role are you going to play today?”

“I am a grieving son, just like the two of you. Don’t do this to me. Not today.” Reed had nothing else to say, and nothing else was said the rest of the funeral, except for the normal responses to sent condolences.

During the priest’s prayers, Reed checked out. He had given up on faith a long time ago. Being at the earlier mass was the first time he had been in church since their mother’s death over a decade ago. It was around that time that the business was starting to go under. Reed knew part of it was due to Dad’s shifting attention to Mom’s care, but at the same time, the fallout from the recession caused the yard to be unable to recover. The boats stayed in dry dock, and customers weren’t willing to spend the same on maintenance.

He remembered coming home and seeing the yard sitting quietly for weeks at a time. Dad kept saying that things would pick up, but they didn’t. He had the same optimism about the Orioles going to the World Series, and the brothers would tease him about it. Nate had started taking over some of the load, but he wasn’t as financially savvy as Reed was. He adjusted some of the numbers, brought a few clients—all with Dad’s approval—and things had started to turn around for the better.

Once the ceremony was over, a few of Dad’s friends who used to work at the drydocks before retirement approached Reed. “Hey there, Middle-Man, a bunch of us are going to Jimmy’s for a crabcake dinner. You know how much he loved it there.” That was true—Dad sure loved good Maryland crabcakes. He even joked about how if he was on death row, he’d ask for a crabcake for his last meal.

Reed hated that nickname. He never knew who had originally gave it to him, but not only was it a shot at him being the middle child, that he always “knew a guy” when things needed to get done, and there were times when he was the one to find the connections. “I’m going over to the house with Nate and Ben. Thanks anyway.” He also didn’t want to sit around with the old maritime vets, many of whom he barely knew, and listen to the same stories about the “good ol’ days” of the drydocks. That would have been Nate’s thing. He lived in Dundalk anyway, so he was closer than he or Ben.

And Reed also hated the taste and smell of Old Bay.

It was Ben’s idea to go through Dad’s things before getting the house ready to put on the market. While going back to the place where he grew up was less than pleasing to Reed, at the very least he could look for any possible evidence of his shady involvement in the family business. Dad did take a lot home with him. Maybe he could get to it before Nate did with his big nose.
He watched the diminishing fleet of parked cars. Ben’s Civic was still there, as a few of the cousins had stopped him to ask about his teaching job. Nate had already left. He always had to be the first.

* * *

The siding had peeled on the north side of the Curtis Bay house, flapping like a loose sail whenever the Inner Harbor wind kicked up. The front step, where Nate had skinned his legs when chasing his brothers, tilted slightly. Dad never got it fixed, saying that it gave the house some character. Even the screen door didn’t close all the way. It hadn’t in over a decade. But the home place itself still stood—like their father. Weathered and unbending, and too stubborn to collapse, it was Dad all over, up until the day of his heart attack.

As Nate entered the kitchen, he froze. He could still picture Dad’s body on the linoleum floor. He was found on that humid summer Sunday when they were supposed to go to the Orioles game. Nate had come to pick him up , but instead of being greeted on the screened-in porch, he came into the kitchen to find him collapsed near the breakfast table, in a pool of spilled coffee and fragments of a shattered mug. He was wearing a Boog Powell jersey, his favorite player.

The kitchen still contained all of Mom’s dishes and silverware, even though Dad rarely used much of it. In his later years, he ordered take-out more often than he made something for himself, and his arthritis made dishwashing more difficult for him.
Nate began boxing up the kitchenware to take to Goodwill. Even though there were still some memories attached, the kitchen was less personal now than the other rooms, and it was easier for him to sort through things without getting too emotional. He’d wait for Ben and Reed to arrive before going through the bedrooms upstairs and the dining room, which Dad had converted to an office since he always ate in the living room in front of the TV.

“Damn, it still reeks of Dad’s smokes in here!” Reed had arrived.

“I’ve gone nose blind to it after all these years. His swivel chair at the office at work will never get rid of that stink.”

They shared a laugh for the first time in who knew how long.

“Let’s get started in the dining…the office until Ben gets here. He never cared for the business stuff anyway.”

Reed nodded and headed toward a rolltop desk in the corner. An outdated desktop computer sat upon it, keeping the lid from closing. He started rustling through the drawers, which were filled with manila envelopes containing all sorts of documents. More than likely, he was looking for some financial records—altered invoices, tax statements—that he could make up a convoluted story about.

Nate knew his brother had some involvement with how the drydock business turned around, but he didn’t know exactly what was done. He was more about the manual labor, the brawny work that Dad had taught him, while Reed did his own damn thing. It wasn’t until Mom’s passing, and the company becoming harder to afford, that Reed came back into town and magically shifted the tide in the family’s favor.

Most of the documents packet away in file cabinets were of little importance now: old correspondence with past clients that have since moved or gone under, invoices for parts and supplies for maintenance, and even some photographs of before and after shots of various jobs. Nate put them into a crate that he marked “shred/repair.”

As he worked, he watched Reed, who seemed to be focused on various ledgers, flipping between sets of pages. “A lot of this is old, like before we lost Mom. I don’t think we need any of it.”

“Put them on the crate on the porch. I’ll take them to Charlie’s office.” Charlie was the company’s accountant, and a friend of Dad’s. There were a few times when Charlie would get upset about calculations not making sense, especially after Reed was around. Dad used to settle the dispute between them, somehow. But lately, he had only did the necessary work, leaving the rest up to them. He didn’t want to be held responsible, and Nate didn’t blame him.

Reed carried the pile of books out the front door onto the porch. “Ben’s here,” he called out.

Nate didn’t hear him—he wasn’t paying attention. A corner of a piece of paper peeking out from under the side of the cushion of Dad’s armchair pulled him over like one of Dad’s lures nabbing a fish. Dad loved to fish, and he taught all three of them how when they were kids.

The slip of paper was a corner of a yellow legal notepad, folded in quarters. He opened it up, eyes widening at the words scrawled upon it.

We know what you’re moving through the docks. One slip and it all goes under. Don’t test us.

When did Dad receive the note? How did he know? Nate had received a similar message that was left for him. He remembered being thankful that no one else, like one of the workers—or even Dad—had found it before he saw it under the office door, obviously slipped under by a passerby.

Your father built that place on sweat and steel. Don’t drown in dirty water.

Nate had burned that note a long time ago. He folded the new one back and shoved it in his back pocket, as he looked up to see his younger brothers standing in front of the doorway, staring at him.

“What was that?” Ben raised an eyebrow.

“Just a note from Dad to me. He never finished it, though.” A white lie, and it would be protecting his brothers, as he should be doing as the oldest.

Ben shrugged. “Dad really wasn’t the sentimental type, especially after Mom died. But I know you were always his favorite. Anyway, I’ll get started upstairs. I wonder what he kept in our old room.” Before Nate or Reed could respond, Ben was already halfway up the stairs, hand gliding along the railing where their stockings used to hang every Christmas.

They got back to work carrying items from the dining room to the porch, not looking at each other. Reed crossed Nate’s path, looking directly at him. “You and I both know that wasn’t a note from Dad.” He folded his arms across his chest and plopped into Dad’s chair, causing the legs to groan. Dad used to pretend that he passed gas when the chair made the sound, causing the sons to laugh and Mom to roll her eyes, shake her head and groan.

“For being a teacher, Ben can be so naïve. Let’s not bust that bubble for him.”

Reed looked nervous, like he also knew the content of the note. As usual, it was probably all his fault.

Nate fished it out and opened it up in front of his brother’s face. “What have we been moving through the dock?” The stress he inflected on the word “we” was deliberate.

“Look, we needed the cash to help pay the bills. You know 95 is a thoroughfare highway. I knew some guys who would stash some stuff on board while we had them on drydock. That money helped, didn’t it?”

Nate’s face reddened. “That’s dirty money, you little piece of shit!”

“Oh wow!” Ben’s voice trembled the thin walls of the house. Nate and Reed shut their mouths and looked up at the ceiling, hoping he wasn’t responding to their raised voices. “Dad’s coin collection!”

“It’s all yours, Ben,” Nate shouted back. He glared at Reed and lowered his voice to a murmur. “Dad knew what you had done.”

“I introduced him to the plan. Sure, he didn’t know what all it entailed, but he enjoyed the freedom of not having to worry about the bills.”

Reed was always the competitive one. He fought tooth and nail for their parents’ approval, no matter the cost. “And you replaced it with the burden of threats. Maybe the heart attack was brought on by the stress of the knowledge. Or even the threat.”

“Don’t pin this on me, Nate. Dad had his health issues already. I didn’t cause the death of our father.”

“I knew all about his health. I’ve been with him long after Ben got the job in Philly. But you go wherever the hell you want, and come into Dad’s life and back out like the tide. I’ve kept the business going with my hands, just like him. I might not be as educated as Ben, but I know how to do a hard day’s work!”

After saying the last words, Nate realized it was Dad speaking. It sounded like his voice too. He had been told on many occasions that he was a carbon copy of his old man. Most of the time he would dismiss it with a laugh, but there were a few times, like now, when he did realize how true those statements were.

He wondered whether or not that was actually a good thing.

* * *

One of the unfortunate things about a two-bedroom house is sharing the bedroom with two older brothers. Sometimes it was cool when they were all younger, when they enjoyed each other’s company, and played board games and Legos in the shared floor space.
But the teenage years were another story.

As an English teacher, Ben could imagine a Shakespearean drama about three sons desiring the praise of their father, almost like the daughters of King Lear. No, his story was more different. blue-collar family in Baltimore, with one son who had a keen intellect and valued higher education over street smarts.

That had come from Mom. She loved to read and write, and she passed that love of literature onto Ben. He pushed himself though school, earning scholarships to be able to get his English degree from Towson with a focus in education. He couldn’t wait to get away from the family disputes over the job at the drydock. He had more patience for students not doing their homework than he did for which of his older brothers helped Dad out the most.

He didn’t want to be Lear’s Cordelia.

The shared bedroom had been used as a guest bedroom after all the Daley boys had moved out. It also served as storage space. All of the family’s personal effects, from collections to keepsakes, were kept neatly in large, marked Rubbermaid crates.

He already knew there were no crates marked with his name. Everything of his went with him after graduating from college. Instead, he looked through a crate belonging to Dad. On the very top, he found a photo album that Mom had put together, of both of their families in simpler times. There were vacations to Ocean City or Wildwood, New Jersey. A few pictures looked to be of them seeing the sights downtown like the Bromo Seltzer Tower. Maybe it wasn’t simpler times for them, but the past always seemed simpler than the present. Nate would appreciate holding onto the family’s legacy, so Ben set it aside for him.

Nate and Reed argued downstairs, and the words “dirty money” rang out like an air horn. Like Sherlock Holmes in Doyle’s stories, Ben started to piece some bits of knowledge together in his mind.

Years ago, he had come across a black ledger, written by both Dad and Reed, most of the annotations of which were done by his brother. It contained notes about repair jobs that were faked or adjusted, as well as detailed “drops” that were made on those ships. Not wanting to rock the boat, as the coincidental idiom would say, he took it with him to Philadelphia when he moved, hoping that everything would blow over.

Apparently, something had come up, or even found in Dad’s office downstairs. He couldn’t let them know that he heard them. Quickly reaching into Dad’s crate again, he fished out an old Maxwell House can that made a metallic rattle as he picked it up. “Oh wow!” A brief pause. “Dad’s coin collection!”

Nate responded rather quickly, telling him it was all his. Ben didn’t really want it, but he was willing to take it to settle the tension of the moment. He would confront his brothers with the knowledge about the ledger later.

For now, he could look through Mom’s stuff. That would put him in a better mood. While it was never explicitly said, it was pretty well known in the Daley household that he was Mom’s favorite. No one really complained, except for maybe Reed. Nate was the reflection of Dad, after all, and while Mom lavished on all his spelling bee competitions and poetry readings and literary magazine publications, he could see why Reed would be jealous—and follow the hellish road paved with bricks of his good intent.

The crate stood just by the window that overlooked the front yard. Their three cars lined the sidewalk on this side of the street, but a black SUV with tinted windows and plates that were not from Maryland parked on the other side stood out. It was there when he first pulled up, but he didn’t pay it any mind at the time. Sherlock began putting more clues together—this was a connection to either Nate or Reed, and their shady connections, more than likely. It didn’t settle his nerves any.

“Who wants pizza? My treat.” Reed’s voice startled Ben as he turned around to see Reed standing at the bedroom door, a goofy grin on his face.

“Middle-Man is treating? I’ll have to oblige!”

“Very funny, Uncle Ben.” With a laugh, Reed danced out the door and down the stairs.

Ben closed Mom’s crate and followed shortly after, forgetting about the SUV.

* * *

The Daley sons sat together on the couch, stuffing their faces with pepperoni pizza in between conversation about pleasant memories of their father, an unspoken agreement between them. No one mentioned anything about the family business, nor did they bring up the past or present conflicts between them. Nate laughed, in his typical hyena-like way, at the memory of finding an egg in the grass in the backyard and carrying it around in the front pocket of his flannel shirt, only to have it break, and the smell of rotten bird’s egg—it was actually a duck—caused their father to sniff the air and shout, “what the hell is that?” They said the phrase in unison, mimicking every inflection in how his voice sounded, and then erupted into laughter.

Nate snatched the empty pizza box from the coffee table and headed to the front door. On the porch, he stopped and stared across the street like he had just seen a ghost.

“What’s going on?” Reed stood up and looked through the front window.

“A car just pulled away. A black SUV. It looked…weird.”

Reed and Ben flashed each other a curious glance before joining Nate on the porch. Through the side screened window, they saw the vehicle disappear down the end of the road as it turned off.

“I saw it parked across the street when I got here,” Ben said.

“Me too,” Reed added. “I assumed it belonged to a neighbor.”

Ben glared at him with a look of disbelief. “Do you really think any of the neighbors around here would be visited by a vehicle with tinted windows? I have to wonder if it has something to do with that dirty money I heard both of you yelling about.”

Silence from the brothers, as well as blank expressions.

“Yeah, I thought something might have been going on with the two of you. I just didn’t want to say anything and ruin this day, for Dad’s sake.”

“It all happened for Dad’s sake.” Nate jabbed his finger into Reed’s chest. “He knows something now. Go ahead and tell him.”

With a sigh, Reed explained how he used the drydock as a stash point, and he would use the extra money to pay off their father’s debts as well as keep Portside Mechanical and Mooring going. In his account, he fudged invoices and tax statements, outside of the accountant’s knowledge, to increase profits. Reed excused the behavior by saying that it was all for the family.

Ben only nodded. “That finally explains everything I found in the ledger.”

“Ledger?” The whites of Reed’s eyes grew larger. “How? Where?”

“I don’t even know how I came across it. When I left Towson, it was somehow among my things I brought from here. I found it in Philly and held onto it, not knowing what it was about…until now.”

“That’s just great. We get letters of warning, and the damn ledger is up in Philadelphia.”

Ben looked at Nate. “What letters?”

“Dad and I both received notes about how someone knows what has been going on. I burned the one I got, but Dad had one here too.” Nate took it out of his pocket and showed it to Ben.

“You didn’t think you should tell me about this? And now there’s a strange SUV that could have been watching our family for who knows how long?”

“Come on, Ben. We know you keep yourself apart from Portside stuff. We didn’t want to burden you.”

“Quit acting the hero, Reed. Business or not, family is still family. Blood is thicker than water, as they say.”

No response.

“What did you think I was going to do? Turn you all in?”

Nate sighed. “Would you? Your own brothers?”

“Don’t put that weight on me, Nate. I don’t know what I have the mind to do right now. Let’s just get this shit taken care of and cross that bridge when we come to it.” Ben waited until he received nods from both of his brothers and returned to the house to finish organizing the family’s things.

* * *

The work had taken the bulk of the weekend. Ben did only what he thought was necessary and left the rest of the mess for Nate and Reed to handle. Portside was their responsibility, and so was Dad’s stuff.

While he took only a few material things home with him, he felt more weighted down by the truth about the ledger and what his own family had done. He left early Sunday morning, without a word to his brothers. Even for an English major, he couldn’t find the words to express himself to them. The two-hour drive seemed to take forever, even without work traffic on the highways. It wasn’t until he passed Wilmington that he felt free of the Daley iron grip.

But now, he sat alone in his apartment, thumbing through the ledger’s pages of dirty secrets. Reed’s scrawly handwriting—dates, amounts, names of strangers—stared back at him as he listened to the drone of occasional cars humming by. Every now and then, a shout from a neighbor cheering on the Eagles would shake him from the monotony and his contemplation.

As he closed the book, he felt the weight of water upon him, like he was drowning in the responsibility of his morals. A thought came to his mind, of a character by Shakespeare in whom he could relate. He was Brutus, the reluctant witness. His brothers had made the choices, he just turned on the light.

Ben packed the ledger in a bubbled envelope, priority mail, and addressed it without a return address. He couldn’t burn it, as Reed had pleaded for him to do, to free them from any connection to the evidence. Nate wanted to keep it, holding onto the secret and burying it with Dad. Sending it off, as he was going to do, would end up ruining his brothers. It wasn’t because he loved his brothers less, but because he loved his conscience more.

His decision was not made out of hate, or even malice. Someone had to do the right thing. It didn’t feel like justice, though, and he’d still feel the blood on his hands.

He knew there’s a tide in the affairs of men…