8. Etta
ETTA
I saw him from the shucking house window.
Still dark, just the first gray coming up over the water. I'd been awake since four, couldn't sleep on the cot with the window closed, so I'd come down early to start sorting gear for the morning crew.
He was standing at the end of the dock. Just standing there, hands in his pockets, looking out at the water.
I stopped where I was.
My first thought was that I should call for Ray. He'd been the one turning Sven away all week. But Ray's truck wasn't in the lot yet. Nobody's was. It was too early even for the shuckers who came in before dawn.
Sven had known that. Had timed it that way.
He'd been turning up for days now. I knew that much. Yolanda hadn't told me directly, but I'd heard Ray mention it to one of the other shuckers. Magnussen's been around again. They'd been sending him away every time.
But this was different. This was first light on the dock itself, and there wasn't anybody here yet to tell him no.
I could've stayed inside. Could've waited until he gave up and left, or until Ray showed up and sent him on his way.
But I didn't.
I watched him for a minute.
He looked terrible.
His jacket was the one he wore to the office, navy wool, but it was wrinkled like he'd slept in it.
His hair was a mess. No product, uncombed, falling across his forehead the way it used to when he was younger.
He was just standing there, not moving, and even from this distance I could see he hadn't slept.
I'd never seen him look like that. Not in eight years. Not even after all-night calls with Tokyo or the week the hurricane hit the Gulf fleet.
He looked lost.
I should've gone back upstairs. Should've left him standing there and waited for Ray to handle it like he'd been handling it all week.
Instead I put down the sorting tray and walked out onto the dock.
The boards creaked under my boots. The sound carried in the still morning air.
He turned when he heard my footsteps.
"Etta."
His voice was rough. Like he'd been awake as long as I had.
I stopped about ten feet away. Kept my hands in my pockets.
"You shouldn't be here," I said.
"I know. I'm sorry. I just—I needed to see you."
"Sven—"
"Please. Just let me talk to you for a minute."
We stood there.
The water was flat calm, the sky going pale pink at the edges. Gulls starting to call from the pilings.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I didn't say anything.
"I know I hurt you. I know I wasn't there when you needed me. I know I—" He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. "I should've been paying attention. I should've seen it. I'm sorry, Etta. I'm so sorry."
I nodded.
"I've been trying to reach you," he said. "I've been coming here every day. They keep sending me away."
"I know."
"You knew?"
"I heard."
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to say something else.
I didn't.
"I talked to the certifier," he said. "About the early harvest issue. The Finnish deal's already closed at ninety-two percent, but they need documentation on the growth rings to hold that rate. I need to know how early you think they were pulled. Was it ten days? Two weeks?"
I stared at him.
He'd done it again. Forty seconds into apologizing and he was asking me about work.
Not asking how I was. Not asking if I was okay. Not asking if we could talk.
Asking me for the harvest data he needed to hold his rate.
"Are you serious right now?" I asked.
He blinked. Like he genuinely didn't understand.
"I just—I thought you'd want to know we can salvage the deal. And you're the only one who can tell me how early?—"
"Sven."
He stopped.
I looked at him. At this man I'd loved for eight years, standing on my dock at six in the morning asking me about harvest schedules like we were in a quarterly review.
Like he thought he was honoring me by finally asking my opinion.
Like he'd learned something.
"Two weeks," I said quietly. "Give or take a few days."
"Two weeks. Okay." He nodded. Pulled out his phone and typed something into it. His thumbs moving fast across the screen. "That lines up with what the lab said. If we can get the documentation to them by Monday, they'll sign off on holding the rate."
I watched him do it.
Watched him take what I'd given him and feed it straight into whatever email he was drafting to the certifier.
Then he put it away and looked at me again.
"Thank you," he said. "Really. This helps. I couldn't hold the rate without knowing."
I didn't answer.
Because he'd meant it. The thank you. The question. All of it.
He'd come here thinking that was what I wanted. To be consulted. To be brought into the work.
And he was wrong.
"I want to do better," he said. "I know I should've brought you into that deal from the start. You were right about that. So next time there's something that big, I'll include you. We can go over the numbers together, talk through the strategy. I should've been doing that all along."
"Next time."
"Yes. From now on. I mean it, Etta. Things are going to be different."
I felt something crack a little further inside my chest.
Next time. From now on. Things are going to be different.
I'd heard all of it before.
"And I know I've been busy," he went on. "I know I haven't made enough time for us. So I thought we could schedule something. A weekend, maybe. A few months out, once the Scandinavia contracts are finalized and things calm down a bit. We could go somewhere. Just the two of us."
"A few months out."
"Or sooner. Whenever you want. You pick the date and I'll make it work."
I looked at him.
He meant that too. He'd put it on his calendar. Block out the weekend. Tell Deshawn to clear his schedule.
I looked down at the dock boards. The grain worn smooth by sixty years of boots and salt water. My grandfather's boots. My mother's. Mine.
Sven had never walked this dock more than a handful of times in eight years.
"I found somebody," he said.
I looked up.
"A manager," he said. "For the house. She's got twenty years of experience with estates that size.
She's worked for families in Charleston, up in Newport.
She knows how to run a place like ours. She can handle the scheduling, the maintenance, the staff coordination.
All of it. You won't have to think about any of it anymore. "
"The house doesn't need staff coordination."
"Not yet. But if you wanted to bring people in. A cook, maybe. Someone to help with the gardens. She could handle that. Whatever you need."
"I don't need staff, Sven. I never needed staff."
"I know. But you could have them. You could have help. You wouldn't have to do everything yourself anymore."
He said it like he was offering me freedom.
Like it was a burden he was lifting off me instead of a place I'd loved because it was supposed to be ours.
"And the cruise," he said. "Did you get the ticket? It's already paid for. Departure's the twenty-seventh, back on the seventh. Balcony cabin on Deck Seven. But if you want to upgrade anything, the spa package or the shore excursions, just let me know. Whatever you want."
Whatever I want.
I almost laughed. It came out as something else, something that hurt my throat.
He'd remembered the deck number. The departure date. Probably the cabin number too, if I asked.
But he didn't know where it was going.
"Where is it going?" I asked.
He looked at me.
"The cruise," I said. "Where is it going?"
He hesitated.
Just for a second. But I saw it.
"I don't—" He stopped. "I'd have to check the itinerary. I know it's a good route. One of their premium packages. The reviews were all five stars."
"But you don't know where it goes."
"I can find out right now." He reached for his phone again. "I can pull it up. I've got the confirmation email?—"
"Don't."
He stopped. His hand still in his pocket.
I nodded slowly.
He didn't know.
He'd spent fifteen thousand dollars on a cruise and he didn't know where it was going.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small navy blue box.
"I got you something," he said.
He held it out.
I didn't take it.
He stood there with his arm extended. The box in his palm. Waiting for me to reach for it.
I kept my hands in my pockets.
"Etta, please. Just—" He opened the box himself.
A necklace. Thin gold chain, compass rose pendant with a little diamond at the north point.
It was pretty. Of course it was pretty.
Delicate. Expensive. The kind of thing you'd see in a jewelry store window and think looked nice.
The kind of thing a stranger would choose if you told them you needed a gift for someone who worked on the water.
"I thought you could wear it," he said. "When you're out on the water. So you'd have something to—" He stopped. "The compass. I thought it made sense. For you."
"Because I work on the water."
"Because you always know where you're going. You always have." He looked at me. "I just wanted you to have it."
I looked at the necklace. Then at him.
At his face, hopeful and tired and desperate for me to take it.
"Did you pick it out yourself, or did you have somebody do that too?" I asked.
Something changed in his face.
The hope died out of it.
"I went into Garrison's," he said. "Ten minutes. Told them what I needed and let them choose. Someone recommended the place. Told me they had good pieces."
Someone.
Not Simone. He didn't say her name.
But I knew.
I knew the way you know things when you've loved someone for eight years. When you can hear the careful absence in their voice. The thing they're not saying.
I looked at him standing there with his arms full of things he'd brought me. The inclusion in the next deal. The scheduled weekend. The manager. The cruise he couldn't find on a map. The necklace someone else had picked out.
Every single one of them wrong.
And the worst part was, I could see he meant them. He'd been up all night thinking about how to fix this, and this was what he'd come up with. This was the best he had.
He'd come to this dock before sunrise with everything he thought I wanted.
And he'd gotten all of it wrong.
"You don't understand," I said.
He waited.