Black Otter Bay by Vincent Wyckoff Read Free Book Online

ever hearing about the disciple Matthew, but then, he didn’t pay much attention in Sunday school, and he seldom read the Bible at all. It was too grown up and boring. So he couldn’t say if his mother’s story was a fairy tale she’d made up or not, but sitting in her lap, her soft voice next to his ear, he wished the story and the moment would last a while longer.
    She continued, “Jesus picked Matthew to be one of his disciples because he knew a tax collector had to be a smart man. And Matthew had integrity. Do you know what that is?”
    Again, Matt didn’t answer. He didn’t want to know about integrity or the disciples.
    â€œIt meant that Matthew was loyal. Jesus would eventually be mistreated and betrayed, but not by the tax collector. Jesus knew that through it all he could rely on Matthew, because he was loyal, honest, and sweet. Just like my little man here.” She kissed him on the forehead.
    That late-night talk in the little kitchen nook became a defining moment for Matt. So much of his life could be summed up in those few words from his mother. While Daniel spent his whole life escaping from the family and Black Otter Bay, Matt stuck around to help his mother maintain a semblance of order in the household. He wouldn’t have called it loyalty. After all, someone had to mow the lawn and shovel thesnow. And later, after the old man died suddenly of heart disease, he taught himself how to replace leaking pipes and to rewire broken fixtures. Matt didn’t see how loyalty had anything to do with it. His mother couldn’t fix the car, and Daniel had been long gone by the time their father died.
    Matt spent the summer of his tenth year scraping and repainting their small clapboard house. Daniel had proven himself useless for these kinds of jobs, preferring to chase around the countryside with his pals, and Matt’s father spent his time either driving Euclids down at the taconite plant or lugging an auxiliary oxygen tank for his emphysema around the house. One morning, the town woke up to some new artwork.
    Situated somewhat precariously on the face of the ridge behind town, a huge wooden water tower boldly proclaimed this to be the realm of B LACK O TTER B AY . In bright blue paint, someone had added the word S UCKS . From a distance, the blue paint blended in nicely with the black block letters on the tower, so it took a couple of days for someone to comment that the blue paint matched the new trim on the Simon house.
    When Marlon Fastwater, just a part-time cop in town at the time, stopped by to ask Matthew’s father about the artwork, even the old man knew his youngest son couldn’t be responsible. By the end of the summer, Daniel had enlisted in the U.S. Army, and he never looked back.
    After his discharge, he worked the fishing fleets in Alaska for a few years, about as far from Black Otter Bay as he could get. He still came through town every two or three years. Each visit would usually find him accompanied by a different woman. He’d stay just long enough for the walls of the small town to close in on him, long enough to attract the attention of Sheriff Fastwater again. Then, without a parting word to anyone, he’d be gone, just like the first time he’d left to join the army.
    But the comings and goings of his brother meant very little to Matthew. They’d never been close due to the eight-year gap in their ages, as well as the distinct differences in their personalities.In truth, he seldom considered his brother’s welfare at all. If he had been the type to contemplate such things, he may have wondered why he gave so little thought to his own brother, but cared so deeply for these two children in his life.
    Ben sat at Matthew’s left hand, poking a fork at the mountain of taco goulash piled on his plate. Matt had suspected that something was wrong ever since the kids came home from school, and his suspicions were confirmed when the