Chapter 60
Sixty
TEN YEARS LATER
Angie
A telltale ding came through on Angie’s laptop, left open in front of her, jolting her awake from her short nap.
Fuzzy sunlight filtered through the small windows on her boat, and she opened her email.
Angie,
Wonderful job as usual on your last presentation!
We have more vendor contracts willing to carry our product, and now it will be in all seven seas.
Will you be available again in three months, around mid-October, to present to corporate?
It will be at our branch in Vancouver. We have an upgraded ocean cleanup machine that has been improved to only target inorganic material.
We’d love you to come two weeks early to trial it and let us know your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Bethany Jackson
C.E.O. of Bio-NautiKlean
With a grin, Angie replied and sent off the email.
She scrolled quickly through her older emails, mostly pictures and updates from Stefan and Ken, who had resumed their business eight years ago and expanded their network to other towns and cities in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon.
They now worked part-time while their daughter and son-in-law, Jasmine and Alden, and now-teenaged grandchildren helped with their main shop.
Other updates came from Reesa. As she expected, she hadn’t heard from Leo again, but Reesa told her Leo and Sandra were now parents of two. Their youngest was now a four-year-old boy named Lucas in honor of Leo’s late younger brother.
Reesa was still happily single and frequently sent photos of her travels to Angie. The two met up once a year for a girls’ weekend away. Last year, they spent time in Iceland, and next month, they planned to meet in Anchorage.
Dr. Williams was now tenured at PGU and a renowned researcher and activist, and had over twenty articles published to his name, and his name was well known among the marine biology community.
In the past decade, Angie had gotten her PhD and performed research on pollution and its effects on the sea’s flora and fauna. But today was a warm sunny Saturday in July, and she took her break on the weekends.
She rose from her rolling office chair, steadying herself on her three-room catamaran, The Studded Mer-Prince’s gentle rocking, seated on the North Pacific Ocean.
Named for Kaden, the crown jewel of her life.
His tail was darker yet still radiated like it was studded with deep red garnets.
When she first purchased the secondhand boat from one of her colleagues, she wanted to name it The Mer-Prince Stud, but fortunately, Mia talked her out of it.
It took years for the mer and humans to trust each other, but both sides held up their end of the truce. The two societies still stayed separated, but periodically, mer and human leaders met by a designated shore to discuss how they could keep land and sea safe for them both.
Most importantly, there hadn’t been another war. Hopefully it would stay that way.
Lulu was sleeping in her bed beside her desk, giving her a half-lidded, lethargic meow when Angie reached down to pet her, before laying her small head back down to rest. Her cat surprisingly had grown used to life at sea, spending her days napping, playing, and watching fish from her chosen spot near the boat’s bow.
She poured two cups of tiěguānyīn tea from her pot. The sun beat down on her head when she approached the deck and she stretched out, approaching Mia and Bàba at the bow and handing them their drinks.
“Hey, thanks for coming out this weekend,” she said.
“It’s no problem.” Bàba leaned against the railing and sipped from his teacup. “Still warm. Great.” He still moved with a noticeable limp but had stopped using the cane six years ago. “We love visiting you.”
“You kidding? We weren’t about to miss this. We told you we’d come out once a month. Since Halle started, I actually get more vacation time. She’s wonderful.” Mia’s smile reached her eyes. “And we went to your cottage before we left. Everything’s good.”
Angie beamed at her sister. Shortly after their last war, Mia had spent some time volunteering at a marine veterinary clinic and fell in love with the work.
She quit her job eight years ago, went back to school for her doctorate in veterinary medicine, and three years ago, took over the clinic she first volunteered at when the owner retired.
Now, she worked in a cozy clinic with a newly hired vet, Halle, and two vet techs.
With her kids growing up and spending more time with their friends and Bàba no longer needing as much help as he did when he was first injured, she told Angie she missed nurturing and caring for someone.
Taking care of marine animals, with her newfound respect for the mer, appeared to be the perfect career path for her.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. By the way, I love that I’m a marine biologist and you’re a marine vet now.
” The knowledge they looked after her little seaside cottage in Creston in the four months she was on the boat was a blanket of relief.
Eight months out of the year, she returned to Creston to work at the docks during the colder months.
“You two make me proud,” Bàba said. “Beibei, I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m impressed with your initiative with how you handled the situation with the mer, and that you were able to get an audience with your governor.” Bàba leaned against her, using his free hand to pat her forearm. “You will have control of the docks once I retire. When you feel ready, of course.”
She pressed her fingers to her smiling lips. “Thank you, Bàba, for believing in me. I want to explore my job options for a few years, but I’ll take care of your dock baby once you retire.”
“You will do a good job.” The skin around his eyes crinkled with a warm smile.
Angie gave his hand a squeeze. Still, the notion he may not have offered her the position if Nick was still alive plagued her.
Yes, Nick had been around even when Angie was gone for school and work.
But she also knew as much as Bàba loved and supported Māma, and her and Mia, he still held onto the old-school notion that the oldest son or son-in-law would inherit the business once he retired or passed.
Hence his confidence in Nick so many years ago.
A seed of doubt wedged its way into Angie’s mind, but she pressed her lips and vowed to let it go and carry on his legacy when he retired, while also making her own mark.
“How’s work for you, Doudou?” Bàba asked.
“We operated on a seal cub with a broken flipper last week. Now she’s off to rehab before she’s released to the wild. Reminds me why this was the right career move.” Mia’s smile warmed Angie’s heart. “And Jack and Rosie love it here.”
“Māma, Rosie’s my baby name!” Angie’s niece, now going by Rosa, called from her lounger outside her and twelve-year-old Jack’s living quarters. She turned to Angie, running her hands through her pin-straight hair. “I’ve told her like, a hundred times.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “I’m your mother. I don’t care that you’re seventeen now, you’re always my little girl.”
Jack called Angie. “Hey, we got any more of that dip or candy lying around?”
“Yeah,” Angie called over. “There are birch caramels in the jar up here. Pilot bread and Kenai dip, too.”
“Sweet.” Jack put his phone down. Blowing a raspberry, Rosa swung her legs over the lounger and bounded toward them.
Sunlight winked off the bracelet Angie had found for her when she was five.
It was stacked on a thicker bracelet made of solid gold and studded with pearls, with Rosalynn Song-Richelieu engraved on the inside.
Angie made Rosie a promise when she was a little girl at their family barbecue, what felt like so long ago now. That when she made enough money, she would buy her niece a bracelet like the one Kaden gifted her. And for her sixteenth birthday, Angie did.
Majestic fjords and glaciers surrounded them at all sides, a rogue ice sheet drifting by. Lulu emerged from Angie’s room and meandered to her side, staring down at glittering fish darting by.
Angie left her family to their own conversation, walking back to her underwater cameras, tablet, and collecting nets scattered about the boat and moving them into her storage room.
A familiar voice calling her name caught her attention when she returned to the deck, and Angie shielded her eyes from the sun, casting her gaze toward the horizon.
Kaden’s head and shoulders peeked over the water, and he blew a kiss at her, and waved. Angie tilted her head to one side, her lips drawing upward.
Cyrus stuck his head out of the water beside Kaden, with an adolescent Libbi and Hadrien following suit. The four of them dove beneath the waves, resurfacing beside the boat.
“You all want to come for a dive?” Kaden called out. “Mia, Zixin?”
“Ah, no. I’ll stay and man the boat,” Bàba replied.
Mia shook her head. “I’ll stay with you.”
“Hell yeah!” Jack’s heavy footsteps thudded across the vinyl flooring. “Let me go get my scuba suit!”
“Oh, me too, me too!” Rosa was on his heels.
“I put them in the closet in my room!” Angie cupped her hands around her mouth to be heard over the whistling gust of wind and piping calls of black oystercatchers flying overhead.
Rosa and Jack had gotten scuba certified with Ken and Stefan in the past few months, but had never come on a dive with the mer.
They came back dressed and ready, and Angie pulled off her shorts and top to reveal her swimsuit.
“Jump in.” Angie waved them past her, and they ran to the entryway.
She jumped first in a cannonball position, and Kaden’s arms wrapped around her while they surfaced.
Rosa had shoved Jack in, his voice breaking as he threw his head back and screamed before landing a few feet in front of Angie.
Rosa jumped in after him, pinching her nose and eyes shut.