Chapter 8
EIGHT
PAUL
My father has been humming for eleven minutes.
“You're in a mood,” I say.
“I'm in a great mood. I'm alive, the weather's beautiful, and I'm about to have the best coffee on the coast.”
“You're humming Elvis.”
“I'm happy. You should try it sometime. The happiness part. Or the humming. Either one.”
The morning is already warmer than it should be—that shift in the air that means summer is here and the marina is about to get busy. Tourist season. Charter bookings. The Levi Cole wedding that's already turning my quiet dock into a logistics operation I didn't sign up for.
Harold takes the turn onto Main Street and I watch Twin Waves scroll past through the passenger window.
The town looks good—I'll give it that, even if I won't say it out loud.
Fresh paint on the storefronts. Hanging baskets blooming outside the shops.
Amber and Brett put a new awning on The Salty Pearl.
Jessica's bookstore has a summer reading display in the window.
I don't come into town much. The marina is its own world—water and wood and diesel and the rhythm of boats settling in their slips.
Town is Harold's territory. Always has been.
He knows every business owner, every street corner, every place that's changed since he built the marina with what he calls “youthful stupidity and decent lumber.”
This coffee trip is his idea and has been since Holly died.
Every week or two, he shows up at the dock office, jingling his truck keys, and says “You look like a man who needs to remember civilization exists.” I go because arguing with him takes more energy than going, and because the one time I said no, he sat in my office for three hours telling me about the time he caught a bull shark off Bogue Inlet in 1987.
The story got longer every twenty minutes. I've never said no again.
“Emma's got a full schedule this week,” Harold says, casual as weather. “Family portraits, a maternity shoot, a gig for the tourism board.”
“Good for her.”
“She's building a real business, that one. Talent like hers, word gets around.”
“I said good for her.”
“You said it like you were reading a script. Try meaning it.”
“I mean it. She's good at what she does. Her clients are happy. It helps the marina.”
“Helps the marina.” Harold shakes his head. “My son, the romantic.”
I look out the window and say nothing.
Harold pulls into the angled parking in front of Twin Waves Brewing Co. and kills the engine. He sits there a second, adjusting his hat in the rearview mirror.
“You're checking your hair,” I say.
“I'm adjusting my hat.”
“You checked your hair first.”
“I'm seventy-two years old. I've earned the right to look presentable before entering a public establishment.” He opens his door. “Let's go.”
Whatever Michelle Lawson does with her espresso machine should probably be classified as a controlled substance. The whole place smells like roasted coffee and cinnamon, and the morning light is coming through the front windows in long warm panels that make everything look like a photograph.
It's busy. Fishermen finishing up, a few tourists already in beach gear even though it's barely nine, and at the big table by the window, what appears to be a small family reunion.
Grandma Hensley is holding court. Silver hair, sharp eyes, sitting in what I'm fairly sure is her permanent chair.
She's got a newspaper folded beside her cup, but she's not reading it.
She's talking. Beside her, Hazel Sanders is nursing a latte and nodding with the practiced patience of a granddaughter who has been listening to this woman's opinions for her entire life.
Mads is across from them—very pregnant. The last time I saw Hazel's daughter she was barely showing. Now she's got one hand on her belly and the other wrapped around a mug, glowing and exhausted and daring anyone to comment on either.
At the next table, Caroline—Jack Sanders's daughter—is set up with a laptop and what looks like her second cup already.
She's one of those people who's always in motion, always working on coastal sustainability or community development or whatever it is she does now that she's decided Twin Waves is her project.
Michelle looks up when the door chimes. “Harold. Paul. The usual?”
“The usual for me,” Harold says. “And a refill for Mrs. Hensley. I'm buying.”
He leans against the counter, chatting with a fisherman about tide charts while Michelle works the machine. Easy. Relaxed. Like this is just a regular morning.
But I notice he ordered Grandma Hensley's refill without asking her what she drinks. Which means he already knows. My father knows her coffee order.
I file that away.
“Black, two sugars,” I tell Michelle, because at least one person at this counter should be ordering normally.
“Paul Spencer.” Caroline has appeared at my elbow with the energy of a woman powered by espresso and enthusiasm. “I've been meaning to talk to you about the marina.”
“What about it?”
“I'm putting together a coastal resilience proposal for the county. Sustainable infrastructure for working waterfronts. Your marina is one of the best examples of a mixed-use facility on this stretch of coast, and the county has grant funding for waterfront preservation. I could put together a profile that might qualify you for infrastructure money. New posts, dock repairs, electrical upgrades.”
Electrical upgrades. My chest catches on those two words.
“I'll think about it,” I say.
“I'll email you. What's your address?”
“I don't check email.”
She stares at me. “How often do you check it?”
“When I remember it exists.”
She pulls out her phone. “I'll text you.”
I give her my number because she's not leaving until I do, and because the marina could use infrastructure money. The posts on C dock have been on my list for two years. The electrical system needs work I've been putting off because the budget doesn't reach.
“Paul, you should come to the next town council meeting,” Mads calls from the table. “They're discussing the waterfront preservation plan.”
“I don't go to town council meetings.”
“You should start. You'd be surprised how much gets decided about your dock when you're not in the room.”
She's got a point. I don't say so.
Hazel leans forward. “Paul, how's your father doing? He seems to be in good spirits.”
“He's always in good spirits. It's a character flaw.”
Hazel laughs. Grandma Hensley, who has been watching this entire exchange without saying a word—which is unusual enough to be alarming—finally speaks.
“Paul Spencer. Sit down.”
Not a question. Not a request. The woman has been directing traffic in this town longer than I've been alive. You don't argue with it. You sit.
I sit.
She studies me the way she studies everyone—like she's reading a book she's already figured out the ending to and is waiting for the characters to catch up.
“You look tired,” she says.
“I run a marina.”
“You look tired in a way that has nothing to do with work.”
I hold her gaze because looking away would be admitting too much. “I'm fine.”
“I didn't ask if you were fine. I said you look tired.” She sips her cup—almost empty, the one Harold is about to replace. “Your father tells me Emma's doing well. Building her business. The kids are settling in.”
“They are.”
“And you two are getting along?”
“We're neighbors. We get along fine.”
“Mmm.” The sound a woman makes when she doesn't believe you but has decided to let you hang yourself with your own rope. “Fine is a very beige word, Paul. People who are fine don't fix running lights in the dark when nobody's watching.”
My jaw tightens. I don't know how she knows about the running light. I don't want to know. Information travels through this town like current through water—invisible, inevitable, everywhere at once.
“It was a safety issue,” I say.
“Of course it was.” She pats my hand. Her fingers are thin and cool and surprisingly strong. “Safety. That's what we'll call it.”
Before I can respond—before I can find words that don't make me sound like either a liar or a fool—Harold arrives at the table.
He's carrying two cups. One for himself. One that he sets down in front of Grandma Hensley with the quiet precision of an offering.
“Good morning, Vivian.”
The coffee shop doesn't go silent. That's not how it works—people don't stop talking in real life the way they do in movies. But a shift happens. A pause. A breath. Hazel's hand freezes on her latte. Mads looks up from her phone. Caroline's typing stops. Michelle, behind the counter, goes still.
Vivian.
Nobody calls her that. I've lived in this town my whole life and I have never once heard another person use her first name.
She's Grandma Hensley. Mrs. Hensley. The institution.
Not Vivian. Not a woman with a name spoken the way my father just spoke it—low and warm and deliberate, like the word itself is worth holding.
Grandma Hensley looks at the cup. Then at Harold.
Her face changes. Not the matchmaker. Not the gossip queen. Not the woman who runs this town's romantic intelligence network. Just—a woman. A woman who hasn't heard her own name spoken like that in twenty years.
It lasts half a second. Then she's back.
“Harold Spencer.” Her voice is crisp. Controlled. “I have shoes older than you.”
“I know. You've told me. Beautiful shoes, I'm sure.” He sits down in the empty chair beside her—the one nobody offered him—and picks up his cup like he's been sitting at this table every morning for years. “Cream and one sugar, right? I told Michelle to add the good vanilla.”
“You ordered me a refill.”
“Your cup was almost empty.”
“You noticed.”
“I notice a lot of things.”
Hazel is looking back and forth between them. Mads has her hand over her mouth. Caroline has abandoned all pretense of working.
“Dad,” I say.
He doesn't look at me. “Paul.”
“What are you doing?”
“Having coffee with a beautiful woman. You should try it.”