The Language of Sisters by Cathy Lamb Page A

on the dock when I first moved in.
    â€œHello,” I said, then froze. Nick was an intimidating giant. He has blond hair and light blue eyes, and those eyes stayed on me, full attention. The blonde and blue eyed part makes him sound pretty, but there wasn’t a pretty bone on him. His hair was down to his shoulders, and he had a mustache and a goatee.
    He was all man, rugged, tough, pretty serious. He had a faded scar on his left cheek and a faded scar on his right temple. He had nice teeth. I don’t know why I noticed his teeth.
    â€œI’m Nick Sanchez.”
    â€œToni Kozlovsky.” When he shook my hand, I felt that my hand was going to be permanently lost in the size of his.
    â€œMoving in?”
    â€œYes.” He had on a black T-shirt, jeans, and black boots. It appeared that he might have a criminal history of slamming heads together.
    â€œWelcome. I hope you like it here.”
    â€œI think I will.”
    â€œI live right there.” He nodded toward his houseboat.
    â€œI love your home.”
    â€œThank you. I love your tugboat. Creative way to live. If you have to, you can probably haul my home down the river.”
    â€œProbably. It’s a retired tugboat, though, so to speak. It’s tired. It doesn’t want to work anymore.”
    â€œI feel the same way sometimes.”
    I laughed. “Me too.”
    â€œI like the yellow paint and the red trim.”
    â€œThank you. It’s ... it’s been remodeled on the inside. I’m not living in a real tugboat. Well, it’s real. But not real in a ... tug-boatty type of way.”
    He smiled. I caught my breath. Wow . I remember thinking. Wow. Full lips. Not so scary when he smiled.
    â€œI bet it’s interesting to live in. A lot of river history there.”
    â€œYes, it is.” That would have been the moment to invite him in, but I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. What to say to a man like that? How could I invite another man into my home, anyhow? I couldn’t do that.
    â€œAre you from around here?” he asked.
    â€œYes. We live, well, I lived, I sold our house.” Simple question, complicated answer. “It’s about thirty minutes from here.”
    â€œAh.” Something flashed in his eyes, covered up quick. He caught my confusion. He wondered about the true answer behind it all.
    â€œYes. So now ... here I am at the tugboat. I’m here.” I decided to study the deck. I had lost confidence in the last long months. I had been humbled to the floor. I had been gutted. I was not myself. I didn’t think I’d be myself again.
    â€œI see you have a kayak. I love kayaking. There are a lot of animals and birds right here, but if you kayak that way”—he turned and pointed downriver—“it gets quieter near the curve and there are even more.”
    â€œI’ll go that way.” No, I wouldn’t. I would not get in my kayak and do that. I glanced down again as his eyes were seeing too much of me and I was not up to handling someone tall and studly like Nick. “Thank you.”
    â€œSure.” He held out his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Toni.”
    â€œYou too.” His hand was warm. My hand was cold.
    He walked off the dock as my parents headed down, holding boxes.
    I watched him go.
    I heard him say hello to my parents; they said hello back, smiled.
    My mother put a box down on the dock and hugged me. My father wrapped his arms around both of us. My mother lightly tapped both of my cheeks with both hands, put her widow’s peak to mine, and said, “Okay. Now we have things to do, things to get done. No?”
    I wiped away tears and kept unpacking, my sisters coming down the dock with boxes, too.
    That’s what Kozlovskys do. We brush away the tears, and we get on with life. We always have things to do.
    * * *
    â€œHow are you feeling about the wedding?” I asked Ellie.
    â€œI