5. Etta
ETTA
The airfield was twenty minutes north of the waterfront. I knew the way.
I'd driven it before, years ago, when Sven used to fly to Raleigh for meetings and I'd meet him there in the mornings with coffee and a sandwich wrapped in paper.
He'd kiss me in the parking lot and I'd watch him walk across the tarmac with his bag over his shoulder, and I'd wait until the plane was in the air before I drove home.
That was a long time ago.
But this morning felt different. This morning felt like something I could fix.
The cooler sat on the passenger seat next to me, packed full of everything I'd made for the day we were supposed to have together. The sandwiches with the good bread from the bakery in town. The smoked oysters he liked. The thermos of coffee I'd brewed before dawn.
I'd done this before. Years ago, I used to bring him lunch on the dock unannounced, back when he was still working the boats himself.
He'd look up and see me coming and his whole face would change.
He'd drop whatever he was doing and we'd sit together on a crate and eat, and he'd tell me about his day, and I'd tell him about mine.
It had worked then.
It could work now.
The sun was climbing over the marsh and the light was gold on the water. The causeway stretched out ahead of me, empty and clean. I had the window down and the air smelled like salt and warm asphalt.
I felt hopeful.
I felt like I had a plan, and the plan was good.
All I had to do was put this cooler in his hands and remind him that I was here. That I'd been here all along. That I'd gotten up before dawn and made him a whole day with my own hands because I wanted to spend it with him.
He'd see that.
He had to see that.
I pulled into the lot and parked near the hangar. There were three other trucks there, all bigger than mine, and a black sedan I didn't recognize. The private terminal was small, just one building with a control tower and two runways stretching out behind it.
I got out and lifted the cooler from the passenger seat. It was heavy. I'd packed it full.
The main building was low and white with a glass door that faced the runway. Through the glass I could see a woman at the front desk, her head bent over a computer.
I went in.
She looked up and smiled. She was older, maybe sixty, with short gray hair and reading glasses on a chain around her neck.
"Morning," she said.
"Morning. I'm looking for Sven Magnussen."
"Oh, he's upstairs in his office." She glanced at the cooler in my hands. "You must be his wife. He talks about you."
Something warm moved in my chest.
"Does he?"
"All the time," she said. "He's very proud of you. That oyster operation of yours is something special."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"Thank you," I managed.
"Been running it long?"
"Since my mother died. Nine years now."
"That's something," she said. "Keeping a family business going like that. Not many people do it anymore."
"No," I said. "Not many."
"Your grandfather started it, didn't he? Boone and Daughter?"
"In sixty-one," I said. "Named it for my mother."
"I remember when it opened," she said. "I was just a girl then, but I remember. Everybody said he was crazy, trying to compete with Insley."
"He made it work."
"He sure did. And now you're doing the same thing. That's real perseverance."
I shifted the cooler to my other hand. It was getting heavy.
"I try," I said.
"How many people you got working for you now?"
"Eleven shuckers. Most of them have been there longer than I have."
"That's good. Loyal people."
"They are."
"And Sven's been helping you expand, hasn't he? That's what he said last time he was here. Said you were putting in new beds."
"We're trying to. The permits take forever."
"Don't they always," she said. "But you'll get there. Between the two of you, you'll build something real special."
I looked down at the cooler.
"I hope so," I said.
She smiled again. "You want me to call up and let him know you're here?"
"No, that's all right. I'll just surprise him."
"He'll like that," she said. "Man works too hard, if you ask me. Probably hasn't eaten a proper meal in days."
I looked down at the cooler in my hands.
"Probably not," I said.
"I try to get him to take a break, but he's always got one more call to make, one more contract to review. You know how he is."
"I do," I said.
"But he talks about you every time he's here. Always has his phone out, showing me pictures of your operation. Those oyster beds. The new sorting equipment you got last year."
"He does that?"
"Oh yes. Very proud. You can tell a lot about a man by how he talks about his wife when she's not around."
Something warm moved in my chest again, but it felt different this time. Heavier.
"That's good to know," I said.
"Second door on the left at the top of the stairs. Can I help you with that cooler?"
"I've got it. Thank you."
"You're welcome, honey. He's a lucky man."
"Thank you," I said.
"You two have any plans for the rest of the summer? Besides today's boat trip, I mean."
"Not really," I said. "We've both been pretty busy."
"Well, you should make some. Life's too short to spend it all working."
"You're right," I said.
"Take it from someone who knows. My husband and I, we worked ourselves to the bone for thirty years. And then one day he was gone, and I wished we'd taken more Sundays off."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Don't be sorry, honey. Just don't make the same mistake."
"I won't," I said.
She nodded and I started toward the stairs.
My heart was beating fast. I told myself it was just from carrying the cooler. I told myself it was fine. I told myself she was right, that he'd be glad to see me, that this was a good thing I was doing.
I told myself a lot of things on those stairs.
At the top of the stairs I stopped to shift the cooler to my other hand. My palms were damp.
The hallway was quiet. Carpeted. There were three doors, all of them closed.
Second door on the left.
I could hear voices through it. Sven's, and a woman's.
Then I heard him laugh.
It was soft. Easy. At something she'd said.
I knew the sound of that laugh. I knew it the way you know the sound of wind in the eaves or water against a hull. I knew the exact shape of it, the way it started low and broke upward at the end.
It used to be aimed at me.
I stood there in the hallway with the cooler in my hand and listened to my husband laugh with somebody else, and I felt something go still inside me.
Not angry.
Bereaved.
That was him being happy. That was the sound of him enjoying himself, being easy and relaxed and present with another person. And I was standing in a corridor holding his lunch like some kind of delivery service.
I should have turned around right then. I should have walked back down those stairs and driven home and let the whole thing go.
But I didn't.
I shifted the cooler to my hip and opened the door.
Sven was standing by the window with his back to me. The light was behind him and I could see the shape of his shoulders, the line of his spine. Simone was next to him, close enough that her shoulder was almost touching his.
Her hand was inside his collar.
Straightening it.
I stopped in the doorway.
She saw me first. Her hand went still for just a second, then she stepped back smoothly and let it drop to her side.
Sven turned.
"Etta," he said.
His voice was surprised. Not guilty. Not embarrassed. Just surprised, the way you'd be surprised to find anyone standing in a doorway when you thought you were alone.
I looked past them.
His desk was wide and mahogany, the kind that takes up half a room. On the near corner sat two plates, two coffee cups. The remains of breakfast.
Eggs. Toast. A carafe of coffee that was still steaming.
They'd already eaten.
They'd sat down together in this room with the morning light coming through the window and they'd had breakfast. An easy, unhurried breakfast. The kind where you pour each other coffee and pass the cream and talk about nothing in particular while the day starts around you.
I'd been asking him for that for eight years.
"I brought you lunch," I said.
My voice sounded normal. I was proud of that.
"For the plane," I added.
Sven glanced at the cooler, then back at my face.
"You didn't have to do that," he said.
"I know. But I wanted to."
He looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't read his expression.
"We have the flight catered," he said. "But I appreciate it."
"Okay," I said.
"I should have told you earlier. About the trip."
"You sent a message."
"I know. I should have called."
"It's fine," I said.
"I tried to move the meeting," he said. "But Kari and Leena fly back to Helsinki tomorrow. It was today or we'd lose another six months."
"I understand."
"When I get back, we can take the boat out. This weekend, maybe."
"Maybe," I said.
"I mean it, Etta. We'll make time."
"You said that last month," I said quietly.
He went still. "I know. But this deal?—"
"I know about the deal, Sven. Simone just told me. Six months in the making. Kari and Leena. Helsinki. Winter delivery."
"Then you understand."
"I do understand," I said. "I've understood for a while now."
He looked at me. Really looked at me. "Etta?—"
"It's fine," I said. "Really. Go close your deal."
"We'll talk when I get back."
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"I know you do," I said.
He looked at me like he was waiting for something more. Some reassurance. Some sign that I believed him.
I didn't have anything to give him.
Simone was standing very still by the window. She was wearing a gray suit, perfectly tailored, and her dark hair was pulled back in the same tight way she always wore it. She looked polished. Professional.
She looked like she belonged here.
"That's very thoughtful," she said.
Her voice was warm. Friendly.
I looked at her.
She smiled at me.
"Sven tells me you've been provisioning a boat," she said. "For a day out on the water."
"I was," I said.