Epilogue
COLE
Six months later
Seafarer Therapy is on the thirty-first floor of a drab concrete high-rise that has the curb appeal of seasonal affective disorder. If Morgan hadn’t dropped me off the first time, I probably would have turned around and gone home.
I’m glad I didn’t. This place saved me.
I hide a mason jar filled with a bouquet of marigolds and eucalyptus behind my back, and press the button below the doorbell camera outside the suite.
“Good morning, Cole,” Sadie chirps through the speaker.
“Morning, Sadie.”
The automatic lock clicks, and I walk into the empty waiting room decorated in soothing seafoam with pops of tangerine.
The non-profit clinic specializing in maritime therapy has a separate exit and staggers appointment times so I never have to worry about bumping into another patient.
All the staff at Seafarers have personal experience with the commercial fishing industry, and understand the stigma of mental health care for fishermen.
I reveal the mason jar from behind my back.
“Flowers again? Mr. Morrissey, you shouldn’t have.”
“They reminded me of the waiting room.” I smirk playfully, and pretend to tuck my inch-long hair behind my ear.
“How romantic.” She rolls her eyes.
Sadie’s husband died at twenty-three while salmon fishing, leaving her to care for their four-year-old son alone.
She shared her story with me after I burst into an embarrassing bout of tears in the waiting room, and I made it my mission to treat her and Liam like family. Fishermen take care of their own.
I lower the bouquet to the counter, and place Liam’s gift—a small monster truck Finn picked out—beside it.
“Liam is going to love that. Tell Finn thank you.” She fluffs the flowers gently and inhales. “Thank you for the pretty flowers too.”
“You’re welcome.” I smile.
Smiling doesn’t hurt anymore. Before Seb died, I smiled automatically, loved heartily, and laughed easily.
There’s a reason Morgan nicknamed me Sunshine, after all.
But I’m not that Cole anymore. The last year changed me, and that’s okay.
I still have bad days, but as winter drifted into summer, and the sun emerged from behind a veil of gray, I began to heal.
Now I find my sunshine in Finn’s excitement, in the second wedding band tattoo on my ring finger, in the one on Morgan’s too.
I find it in the vintage 42-foot seiner boat Morgan and I are restoring while Finn is at school.
I find it in the weekly ferry rides we take as a family, keeping an eye out for Springer, though we haven’t found her yet.
Mack’s heavy footsteps rumble down the hall. He’s about as big and tall as Wes and has a thick gray mustache that reminds me of a walrus.
“You two aren’t flirting again, are you?” Mack asks.
I scoff. “I’m a married man.”
It’s a little shtick we have.
Dr. Evans recommended Mack because he fished the Bering Sea when he was younger.
Luckily, Mack could see me before Morgan left to captain the Briar for opilios.
Even with his and Shay’s support, I was such a mess, haunted by the memory of Morgan nearly wrenched overboard, haunted by losing Seb, and all the other deaths and injuries I witnessed.
He shakes my hand with rugged strength and familiar callouses. “Welcome back, Cole. You ready?”
I nod. “See you later, Sadie.”
Mack’s office has a view of Elliott Bay.
I only learned when we had our first clear day.
I flex my abs as I ease down into the oversized chair facing the window.
I’m not one hundred percent pain-free. I might never be.
But thanks to physical therapy, and a new chronic pain specialist, my days are mostly painless.
Well, aside from occasional aches and flare-ups I bring upon myself by overdoing it.
The first few flare-ups were disappointing, but I’ve grown to accept my chronic pain, and learned to live in spite of it.
Mack steeples his fingers. “How are things?”
I sigh. “Mostly good.”
“Mostly?”
“Finn’s birthday is next week.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. I know I should be happy to celebrate with him. I am excited to redeem myself this year, but…”
“You don’t have to be happy. You don’t have to feel anything except what you feel.”
“Right. Sorry.”
We’re still unpacking my issues from childhood.
It’s been painful to accept that Dad wasn’t just neglectful, but abusive.
I mean, I knew some of the more obvious things were abuse, like threatening to hurt me when he was drunk.
But I didn’t see the subtle signs, the lack of love, the cruel comparisons, the neglect.
Mack says the child inside me built a softer narrative to protect me from the full reality of the way my dad treated me. That’s why I tend to brush off his abuse as not that bad when Mack points it out to me, just like I fail to see the neglect in the funny childhood stories I tell.
What hurts the most is knowing that I almost lost Morgan and abandoned Finn because I internalized my dad’s opinion of me.
I blamed myself for Seb’s death because my dad would have, and the reason I wished I had died instead, is because that’s what my dad would have said, just like he wished I had died instead of my mother.
That’s why it was so hard for me to forgive myself, and why I hurt the people I love. It almost ruined my life. But I refuse to lose another year of my life to Dad. I refuse to hate myself.
“What are you really feeling?” Mack asks.
My vision blurs on a green and white ferry crossing the bay. “Sick to my stomach with grief.”
“Birthdays and holidays often dredge up old feelings.”
I nod. “When Seb died, my life split into before and after. It’s not just Finn’s birthday, it’s the second birthday after Seb died. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a birthday or a holiday or a haircut. I miss him in every after.”
A tear slides down my cheek. I roll my lips inward and blink. “I was afraid of getting my hair cut when I was younger. It was one of those irrational fears you have as a kid, like getting sucked down the bathtub drain. Stupid, but it was real to me.
“Dad didn’t understand that though. He dragged me out of the car, and carted me into the barber shop under his arm like a barrel, then dropped me onto the chair.” I laugh dryly. “Which only made it worse.”
“Naturally,” Mack agrees.
“Seb always got his hair cut first to show me how safe it was, and he held my hand when it was my turn. But I was still too scared, even with him there.” I clear my throat and wipe my tears on the sleeve of my sweater.
“I miss Seb every time I sit in that chair. I miss him so viscerally that it takes everything in me to sit still and not run out of the barber shop. Not because I’m scared, but because I need my brother, and because haircuts aren’t just haircuts anymore. They’re haircuts after he died.”
Silence swells. It’s one of Mack’s therapy techniques, giving me time to process.
“Is Finn scared of getting his hair cut?”
I snort. “Nope. He hops right into the chair and sits like he’s a little adult.”
“Like his father?”
“Sort of. He inherited Seb’s calm confidence, but Seb had adult problems on his mind. Finn gets to be a kid.”
“As he should,” Mack says. “It’s normal to miss your brother, Cole, and I can see why you’d compare before and after, but it sounds like it stops you from enjoying the present.”
“You’re not wrong.”
He chuckles. “I rarely am.”
I laugh.
“Next time you get a haircut, I want you to tell Finn that story about Seb helping you when you were scared. Try to make it a ritual where you tell him a new story each time. Maybe it’ll help you connect before and after.
Maybe you’ll miss him a little less. Or not.
But painting a clearer picture of Seb will be good for Finn. ”
“Finn’s grief counselor suggested something similar.”
At first, I was afraid talking about Seb would upset Finn, but feelings are meant to be felt. Hiding from my grief didn’t help me, and Finn grieves differently.
“How does Finn take to it?”
“He lights up when we talk about Seb, hungry for any information we can give him. I was like that when I was little too. It’s a little different; I never knew my mother, but I knew something was missing. The stories Seb told me about her were like fairytales.”
“Did you ever envy Seb for having that time with your mother?”
“What? No.” I shake my head. “I felt…” I bite my lip, torn between a fake smile or an honest grimace. “I guess, I felt guilty.”
Mack’s brows lift. “Guilty?”
“Yeah. A little ashamed too, maybe?” I sniff. “My fairytales were Seb’s memories. That was his life, but when I was born, I took her from him.”
He holds the tissue box out to me.
“Thanks.” I take a few tissues, and park the box beside me on the chair for safekeeping.
“Do you feel that way about Seb’s death?”
“Not anymore, thanks to you.”
Mack scoffs. “You did the work. That was all you.” He claps his hands together. “So, what are you going to do for Finn’s birthday?”
“We’re taking him up to Anacortes for this two-day junior marine biology camp. They can’t guarantee we’ll see orcas, but we’ll learn all about them, and take a boat ride to see some puffins that never leave their rock.”
“You’re smiling.”
I nod. “I love that kid.”
“You love your son,” he amends.
“My son, yeah. My bad.”
Finn asked if he could call Morgan and me daddy a few months ago.
His grief counselor was supportive and encouraged us to call him son—after asking Finn, of course.
Morgan accepted the title easily, but he spent more time in a parental role, and it’s more complicated for me.
Battling survivor’s guilt took time, and like grief, it still flares up.
But I’ve finally accepted what Morgan and Mack have been telling me all along.
Becoming Finn’s dad doesn’t mean I replaced Seb.
I didn’t steal his life. I’m filling the space he left when he saved me.
“I want you to start a new tradition for Finn’s birthday, one that honors Seb’s memory without comparing before and after,” Mack says.
“Watch some videos from past birthdays with Finn, then help him choose which memories he’d like to recreate in the memories you build together.
We can’t go back to before, but Finn deserves a happily ever after, and so do you. ”