Five
The front door squeaked open, no knock. Harper stepped in with a thermos in one hand and a bright orange moisture meter in the other, her boots damp and dusted with snow.
Morning light filtered through the sidelights and left little square halos on plywood floors.
She paused just inside the entry, eyes moving across the sitting room. Taking it in. Reacquainting herself.
“Morning,” Harper said. “I figured you’d need this.”
The thermos was bright blue and had a rainbow sticker slapped haphazardly across it. Harper loved stickers. She put them everywhere. Even places London had asked her not to—like on the side of the fridge in the inn. “Thanks. I—”
“Just take the coffee.” Harper forced the thermos into London’s chest.
London looked down at her dad's oversized rubber boots beside Harper's steel-toed work boots.
“Subfloor’s gonna need fans, and we’ve got to dry out the studs. Probably should get some dehumidifiers, too.” Harper kept moving, talking into the walls, running the moisture meter over studs and across the drywall that remained. Click, wait. Click, wait. She read the measurements to herself.
London leaned against an open wall and watched.
Her friends had done an excellent job clearing the place out.
They did what had to be done, without a complaint.
Walls were open, the floor was bare. It looked more like a new construction site than a warm and cozy inn.
The chill in the air made little rings out of their breath.
She may have been fifty, but inside, she was a ten-year-old, trying to be helpful while her dad was doing a project. Frederick was always kind to her when she tried to help.
Say something.
“I called the city and they don’t know when power will be back. Crews are still pulling trees off power lines and the grid is maxed,” she said, confident that was a valid input into this game of what not to say to Harper.
“Well, we can’t do anything until it dries.” Harper ran the moisture meter over a section of floor. “Fifty-two percent. Needs to be under 30.”
“Let’s walk through and I’ll show you the damage,” London said.
Helpful.
Harper stepped past her into the sitting room.
Wintergreen flooded London’s senses. The air shifted, too.
The floors flexed where her left foot landed, softness apparent with each step.
She ran a hand over the mantle, a solid piece of timber she’d reclaimed from an old barn.
“God, this was a bitch to mount,” Harper said, running a hand along the edge. "I’m glad it survived.”
“You swore you’d never work with reclaimed wood again.”
“Yeah, that was a lie.” Harper let out that small satisfied chuckle London knew all too well. The one that said she knew she was funny, but wasn’t trying to be funny.
“So, the girls ripped everything out, as you can see. I’m thinking wainscoting, again, but more modern. Maybe white painted?” Helpful, again. They didn’t need to have the oak argument again. Plus, Harper had been right.
“Okay,” Harper said without missing a beat. “Anything else? What about the floor?”
“What do you think? Fast and low maintenance. But it needs to look good enough—” London stopped herself before she finished that sentence, which in her head went, to sell.
“Something engineered. We can go see what they have at Home Depot. You should do the whole main level with the same floor.”
Harper’s olive branch? We can go to Home Depot? London did everything she could to avoid going to that place—Harper’s toy store. Her encounter at the hardware store days before was proof why that was a good idea.
“And then, in the kitchen, we took out all the lower cabinets and counters,” London said. “Do you think you can build new cabinets in time?”
“Did you save the doors?”
London shook her head.
“Then, no. Boxes, yeah, probably. With doors—no. That takes time, Lon.”
Put one check in the not helpful column. She didn’t understand the time carpentry required. Bookkeeping, vendors, reservations—yes. Cabinet doors—apparently not.
Harper wiped frost from the inside of a window facing the backyard. “You can’t rush this.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You need a week to dry things out once power’s back. And then—this is a month’s worth of work, easy.”
“Can it be done before Christmas?” London’s voice was soft. Low. Her inner ten-year-old knew tentative was best when asking for a miracle.
“Maybe.” Harper stared into the backyard. Her hands were in the back pockets of her work pants, which London noticed were splattered with bleach spots. “How long will it take to get the insurance money?”
Silence, save for the chainsaws, still working outside.
London shifted her stance. Took a sip of the coffee—excellent, of course. Harper and her pour overs. “I don’t have flood insurance.”
In entirety of their life together, London had only seen the look on Harper’s face twice. Once, when she backed her truck into a pole in the Safeway parking lot. And—now.
“Dad always said it was impossible to get in Leavenworth, so I never tried. I took his word for it.”
“So—?”
“So, the repairs are out of pocket.”
“Shit.” Harper softened. Tucked her hair behind her ears. It was so short, it barely stayed. “You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Jesus, Lon. How are you gonna pay for this?”
“There’s inheritance. It was supposed to be freedom money, but now it’s flood money. Happy birthday to me.”
Harper took a step forward, and for a moment London thought she was going to hug her.
Instead, she rolled up the sleeves of her waffle-textured shirt and kept moving.
“Well, that’s something. I have a generator in the truck—let’s get some heat in here.
Can you go clear a flat spot next to a window? ”
Five minutes later, Harper was tugging on the pull cord to start the generator. Once wasn’t enough. Twice, either. On the third pull, it sputtered to life and belched a puff of black smoke into the air around them, which was now reminiscent of the shed. Gas and oil.
“You don’t have to stay for this part,” Harper said, wiping her hands on her thighs. “It’s just waiting now.”
“No, you go. I’ll stay.”
# # #
Harper left without ceremony. London stood in the empty room for a moment, then tucked her hands into the pockets of her puffy jacket and headed toward the river.
She needed gloves. And a hat. And more clothes.
She’d packed for a weekend, but this would take longer.
As her big rubber boots crunched over pine needles and snow, she realized she needed proper winter shoes, too.
The thought of driving back to Seattle for a few days crossed her mind, but how could she, after telling Harper she'd stay?
She made a note to go shopping in Wenatchee that evening, after a walk. After some calls.
The river trail—ordinarily wide and inviting—was lined with tree rounds, chunky sawdust in piles every so often.
The river raged below her, fuller than she’d ever seen it.
Barn Beach—a favorite summer spot—was indistinguishable.
It was simply another piece of the river.
Leavenworth in winter was supposed to feel storybook.
Like a scene from The Sound of Music. Like you were immersed in the Austrian Alps.
This day, it felt like a place holding its breath, hoping to rise above the water line before it choked.
She pressed on, following the path she’d walked so many times. Letting thoughts come and go, noticing what had changed overnight. The River Institute’s barn was destroyed. Across the river, a crane was at work lifting a tree off a waterfront home. And below her feet, twigs everywhere.
A week ago, a month ago, hell, a year ago, she could never have predicted this. When Harper left, she thought it was temporary. When the divorce papers arrived, she played a game of chicken. And now, here she was, facing all of it.
As London reached the bridge to Blackbird Island, she called her boss and hoped for voicemail.
Success. A short message explained why she’d be working from Leavenworth for a few weeks.
A month, tops. She hated that job anyway, one she’d picked up to fill the void of not being onsite at the inn.
It was a throwback to her L.A. days—personal assistant work, where the mundane ruled.
The edge of town appeared, with its Bavarian facades and peaked rooflines rising into the still-grey sky.
London stepped off the trail onto the sidewalk and turned to face Front Street.
Timber-framed buildings with carved trim and scalloped brackets stood shoulder to shoulder.
Murals on end buildings depicted alpine hunters and milkmaids, and snow-capped chalets that bore little resemblance to anything naturally found in Washington.
In summer, window boxes overflowed with a rainbow of petunias and geraniums. Now, they held only frozen soil.
She crossed the street slowly, noticing her favorite coffee shack was closed. Red’s had dog biscuits for the visiting pups and a witty, often borderline vulgar, saying on their A-frame chalkboard. This message was on brand, and the irony wasn’t lost on her.
Back when there’s power. Bitches need coffee.
The Nutcracker Museum’s soldiers stood in a dark window, absurd and stoic.
She wondered what the woman who ran the museum was doing.
Nutcrackers were her life. She was over 100 years old—hopefully safe.
A biergarten sign flapped in the wind. Laminated restaurant menus offered schnitzel and glühwein, as always.
But the holiday lines were absent. Without crowds, downtown could’ve been one of the movie sets she’d worked on in her late twenties. Cold. Echo-y. Detached from reality.
And then. A flicker. One strand of lights that hung from an eave came to life. Then another. Then the trees in the park. Precious power. Downtown was alive. German music blared through the speakers in the rotunda—picking up right where it left off with its jovial tune. Lights in shops popped on.