Chapter 33
Some Assembly Required
Gavin won’t be back until tomorrow night, his assistant, Yumi, tells me when I call his local Venture Haus office. He’s in NYC for meetings. PR triage. Probably doing that thing where he pretends he’s fine when he’s falling apart inside.
That gives me thirty-six hours.
Just enough time to give him something he’d never ask for—but Patricia and I agree he clearly needs.
The recording studio sits at the far edge of Gavin’s property, wrapped in warm cedar, softened by ferns and moss, and perched above a bluff where madrona trees twist out of rock in a constant reach for the sun. Through the tall windows, you can see all the way to a scattered chain of uninhabited islands, like a trail of secrets leading toward the horizon.
I walk the path past the olive grove and the half-split woodpile. I carefully slide open the studio’s door. It smells like sawdust and plastic. Like something unfinished.
Because it is.
The inside is frozen in time. Not abandoned. Not even neglected. Just paused.
A Steinway grand sits under a tarp in the corner. When I lift the cover, a soft plume of dust rises. The instrument is timeless and elegant, its keys a little cold, but when I press one, it sings. Just one clear note, resonating against bare plywood walls.
The mixing board inside the sound booth is still in its box. Cables and converters lie in a pile like a puzzle he never gave himself time to solve. No drywall, no lights. Only a single suspended mic, swinging a little in the breeze.
Gavin never finished the space. Of course, he didn’t.
He was too busy helping everyone else.
I call Duke first, because Sara says Duke can fix literally anything and owns enough tools to justify their own storage shed, which Sara calls “The Museum of Questionable Purchases.” Also, he works fast, especially when bribed with homemade ramen.
I text Duke’s friends, Jake and Kevin, local sound-engineering legends. There are whispered stories on the island about how they once rewired a haunted theater in Prague and engineered an album in a cave.
They reply immediately: “For Gavin? We’re in.”
Within hours, we have an army. Islanders show up without being asked. A baby-faced electrician named Colton arrives barefoot, carrying a coiled snake of wires and a thermos of coffee the size of a keg.
A woman named Libi, who once got a loan from Gavin to save her shop in town, sets up a table of pears and Lum Farm cheese like she’s catering a farm wedding. Theresa, a memoir writer from Doe Bay who is allegedly on deadline, ends up alphabetizing Gavin’s vinyl collection with the manic energy of someone avoiding their manuscript at all costs.
Micah from next door spends the afternoon chasing off the angora goats before they can headbutt the Steinway or harass the crew. He takes the job very seriously. The goats do not.
A famous music composer named Jim Bredouw volunteers to tune the piano because this island, apparently, does nothing of consequence casually.
We sweep. We sand. Jake runs cables. Duke installs light fixtures. Someone finds a salvaged rug and unfurls it. It smells faintly of cedar and lemon oil.
I ferry espresso, figs, brownies, and gratitude. I don’t know if I’ve ever been part of a community like this. Not one that shows up simply because someone good needs something.
By nightfall, the space is transformed.
The walls are up. The floor gleams. The mixing board is installed and live, glowing as if it’s waking from a dream. The sound booth is finished. The overhead mic hovers above a newly placed stool. I hang soft Edison bulbs in a line, casting a warm glow over the piano.
I run back to the main house and find his guitar, the one with the tiny chip on the neck. He once told me he got it in Galveston, Texas, on a road trip before everything got serious in his life. He didn’t say so, but now I know it was before he gave up his dream to help his family through Patricia’s illness. I wipe it down and place it beside the stool. The final touch.
I pause, look around.
This isn’t just a studio anymore.
It’s a space that says: Your dreams matter, too.