Chapter 6 Willa
six
Willa
I turn down the Calgary offer.
I call Ian at nine and tell him I've thought carefully and I'm declining. He asks if anything could change my mind — location, scope, title. I tell him the location is the primary factor.
I sit with the phone for a minute after.
Then I open my laptop and file the incorporation documents for Frost Independent Adjusting, Silver Ridge, British Columbia.
The rural claims market in interior BC is underserved in ways that kept me awake at the Calgary firm for two years before I left.
I have more than enough work. I have the right work.
I call Atlas.
"I didn't take the Calgary job," I say.
"Okay," he says, unreadable.
"I thought you'd want to know."
"I wanted to know," he says. "Can you be at the McDougall property at three?"
I blink. "The McDougall property?”
"Last job from the storm cleanup. I'm putting the ridge cap on today. I want you there."
Three weeks of Atlas McKay have taught me that when he says I want you there without explanation, something is happening that he's decided to show rather than tell. "I'll be there at three," I say.
The McDougall bungalow is small and tidy, the garden beds covered in burlap, the damaged porch overhang still doing its job of holding up a set of wind chimes. The breeze moves them when I pull up — faint and bright. George can hear them from his chair.
Atlas is on the roof.
He waves me up. I look at the ladder. Look at the roof. The pitch is lower here than Danny's craftsman. Four metres off grade, dry weather, no wind. I know the routine now: weight downslope, feet on the batten lines. I've done this.
I go up.
The top of the McDougall house in the afternoon light stops me for a moment.
The whole town below, the valley, the mountains with their October snow, the river catching the light somewhere in the trees.
I can see the memorial garden on the hillside — the path, the central stone, the plantings going into their first winter.
Atlas is sitting on the ridge beam, hands loose between his knees, in no apparent hurry.
"The cap?" I say.
"In a minute." He moves over. "Sit down."
I sit on the ridge beam beside him. It's narrow. I'm not going to fall. I know this because I know where my weight is and because Atlas has never let anything fall that he was responsible for holding.
"I built my house to last a hundred years," he says. "Metal roof, double-glazed, storm straps on every truss. Built it after the Chilcotin fire because I wanted to live somewhere hard to damage."
The scar on his forearm catches the afternoon light.
"I've done things partway," he says. "In my life. Not in the work. Never in the work." He looks out at the valley. "I don't want to do this partway. I want you to stay and build your firm here and live in Silver Ridge, and I want to stop driving home alone. Those are the specific things I want."
"Those are very specific things."
"I'm a specific person." He turns and looks at me. "I'd never let you fall."
Something opens in my chest. Quietly, the way a window opens and the air changes.
"I know," I say.
He kisses me on top of a house in the afternoon light, and I don't let go.