I got a text from my friend Ed “I hauled up some crabs that were just too meaty to toss back - they’re yours if you want them.” And I do. I pull into his driveway and he’s sitting on the porch already picking some of the crabs for his own dinner, wearing an apron, gloves and a wide smile. His wife is out, so dinner is a mountain of crabmeat and pint glass of wine - a king alone in his castle. He brims with the same salty generosity as the first fisherman I met Downeast, George Sprague, who assured me I was lost even though I said I wasn’t when I pulled into the dockyard looking for lobster, and then loaded me up with crabs for free, and sent me off with “Don’t forget your butter and brandy.”.

I bring the crabs to my family’s cottage on the beach, where I cook them for my mom and her husband. We eat them loudly and messily at this table where every member of our huge family has eaten. This is our first meal here without my gram, my mothers mother, and that looms loud and messy too. I used to sit at this table with Gram when I was a kid, filling onion bags with hot dogs and rocks. She’d drive me down to the dock where I’d spend all day lobbing the bags out and inching them back, hopefully covered with crabs. One day my buckets were so full with big heavys that Gram drove me down to Billy’s chowder house and convinced me to knock on the kitchen door and see if they’d buy them. They said “No thanks." but boy do I love her for that. My mom and I look at the pile of shells and remember my uncle sitting at this table after every lobster boil, skipping the family banter on the beach in favor of sitting alone in the kitchen, picking the bodies clean for chowder - sucking every last leg with a chaser of beer. I go home and come back the next day to walk into a kitchen that smells just like when that cook opened the door at Billy’s. She spent all morning at the table picking the shells clean and she’s got it all in a pot now for bisque. “I got squeamish when I really thought about what I was doing.” She said.

“Wait till you try it with a mammal.” I tease. She shakes her head “no thanks” and boy do I love her for that.