Chapter 45
Quiet Commitments
The woodpecker has returned. He lands with authority on the north side of the roof and hammers out his morning rhythm like he’s auditioning for a woodland percussion band. I don’t groan anymore. He’s become my unofficial alarm clock, and honestly, he saves me a fortune in batteries. It’s July, after all. The island is drenched in bloom, and I have things to do.
Outside the window, Eastsound’s Fishing Bay is smooth as glass except for the V-shaped ripples behind a family of otters making their morning commute. A great blue heron stands on the shore like a sentinel. The same bird, I think, that keeps showing up every Friday when I have my coffee on the porch. My spiritual wingman, just vibing in the shallows while I reset.
The pigeons of New York City are a distant memory. Here, I get Bald Eagles, Cormorants, and the occasional Barn Owl overhead.
This is my life now: winged creatures, meals built from whatever the garden throws at me, and fresh butter I churn myself. Sunday night suppers with friends. Two book clubs—one serious, one scandalous. I garden once a week with the girls, all of whom have strong opinions about soil acidity and the sourdough pastries at Seabird Bakeshop.
Hungry Love is booked solid. We serve three days a week, have a waitlist a mile long, and we could open seven days, but why? We like the space between the days. The breathing room. The way the island insists we slow down.
When I first arrived, the plan was to stay for the summer. Now I can’t imagine leaving at all. This place has rewired my nervous system. New York felt like a test I was always failing or a rash I couldn’t get rid of. Orcas Island is a salve. A daily reminder that life can be beautiful, simpler, even if it’s inconvenient as hell.
Patricia and Liam moved to the island full-time this month, and there is a steadiness in having them nearby. I didn’t realize how much I needed parents within shouting distance until they were here: Patricia in the garden tending to peonies and dahlias, Liam quietly fixing whatever leans too far or squeaks too loudly.
The only thing we don’t talk about is Gavin.
They understood right away that I couldn’t handle it, so we leave that space alone.
Planning a wedding menu on a remote island? Wildly challenging. But I’m loving it.
Jared and John are getting married next month. They want a menu that feels like the island, untamed but elegant. I’m thinking Dungeness crab bisque with charred garlic scapes, followed by cedar-planked salmon with blackberry miso glaze and a wild greens salad scattered with edible flowers. Dessert will be shell-shaped Earl Grey madeleines with dark-chocolate pots de crème, served in mismatched teacups we found at the Orcas Senior Center’s “Granny’s Attic” annual rummage sale.
Patricia hired her favorite local couture florist, Ms. Morgan, to build the altar from driftwood, fir boughs, and wildflowers. The Olga Symphony will greet guests. The Crow Valley String Band will bring their fiddles and harmonies to the dance floor. Later, Bad Dads will play a punk set on the old boat dock. It will feel like a life you chose on purpose.
I finish my tea and throw on a jacket and a hat for ROAM, the town’s annual art walk.
Summer is glorious here. After a winter that sharpened every edge and an April that stayed stubbornly brisk, the island has exploded. Fruit trees flaunt their tiny promises. Salal is already swelling in the understory, and huckleberries are beginning their slow work, turning sunlight into something you can eat. It’s the kind of natural abundance that doesn’t ask you to pay for it.
Half the island is out, sauntering between art pop-ups with cups of coffee. I wave to Tom, the ex-lawyer turned beekeeper, and pause at a booth where Susan Singleton’s botanicals bloom across sheets of antique paper. One of the quiet miracles of island life is realizing the people you volunteer beside at beach cleanups or school fundraisers are also making museum-worthy work in their spare time.
Then I see them.
Samuel is standing beside a woman with wavy blonde hair and a stunning smile. She’s pretty in a natural, indie way. They’re marveling at a charcoal, mixed-media piece called Shroud. It’s my favorite piece on the island by my friend Kate Geddes, who, at 83, is still making her fiercest, most fearless work.
Kate created the life-size charcoal figure after she came home from the hospital after an illness—still fragile—wrapping herself protectively, turning survival into shape. The gold rice paper enveloping the figure isn’t decoration; it’s the shroud, the self-made shelter. I used to think shelter meant walls. Turns out it can be paper-thin and still save you.
Samuel gestures to the painting, and his date leans into his shoulder. She doesn’t just look. She tracks the edges of the rice paper with her eyes like she’s reading braille. “It’s not hiding,” I hear her say quietly. “It’s holding.”
Samuel glances at her—quick, bright—like he’s been waiting for someone to say the right thing. And when she does, something in him eases.
And the thing is, I’m happy for him, happier than I expected to be.
If I had truly been in love with Samuel, this moment would sting, but it doesn’t. It settles over me softly, affirming what I already knew: I could never give Samuel my full heart because it still belonged to someone else.
He sees me before I can slip away. “Ava!”
I cross the street, smile already forming. “Hey, stranger.”
“This is Kara,” he says. “She teaches ceramics and jewelry-making in Olga.”
Kara holds out a hand, dried clay on her wrists. “I’ve heard all about you. Samuel says you’re the kind of person who saves people and then disappears before they can say thank you.”
I laugh, a little startled. “That sounds dramatic.”
Samuel shrugs. “You saved me from myself. And from putting crab on pizza.”
We talk for a while about art and the best places to pick berries in town, Kara insisting the sweetest blackberries are always the ones you have to bleed for.
I find myself laughing, which surprises me.
When I excuse myself to head to Ray’s General Store, Kara hugs me. Not a quick, polite one. A real one, like we’ve known each other longer than five minutes.
Seeing them makes me wonder if Gavin is happy. And if I’ll ever be happy with anyone but him.
Later, I sit on the deck with a bowl of Tatsuta age and sunomono, watching the heron stalk the shallows. The sky is painted in layers of apricot and lavender, and the water catches it all like a mirror. I don’t know what’s next. But for now, it’s enough.
Inside, Kiki is sketching out a chalkboard menu for the wedding. I poke my head in. “I was thinking we could offer Gavin a monthly rental for the apartment and garden. It doesn’t feel right to just live here indefinitely without paying. And I’m not leaving the island.”
Kiki looks up, one brow raised. “Oh, you’re really staying staying?”
“Yeah.” I smile. “There’s no way I’m giving up our garden. Even if that woodpecker thinks he owns the place.”
“Thank God,” she says. “The deer aren’t going to slow-drive past themselves.”
She sets down her chalk. “You know, we have a waitlist for a year, Ava. We’re not just surviving; we’ve really built something.”
For a second, she contemplates the words like she can’t believe she gets to say them out loud.
“So, we’re really doing this,” she says.
“We already are.”
We sit on the deck, watching the day end. The summer light lingers as the island unspools into quiet.
I think of the people I left behind. My parents, first. Because they’re the original ache, the absence that taught me I could keep going. Then the living: Jared, who never let distance turn into disappearance, still sending me songs at odd hours like he’s apprenticing me in other words for love.
And then I think of him. The one I might still run into.
Even if I see him again. Even if it hurts.
I’m not going anywhere.