Epilogue
Piper
Several months after our daughter was born, the bait shack had become the center of our family life in ways I never could have imagined.
The aerators rattled beneath the counter while I came down the narrow stairs from the apartment, one hand gathering my hair off my neck.
A stack of invoices waited beside the register.
Two tackle bins sat open near the prep table.
Nolan stood between them with our daughter strapped to his chest, sorting packages of hooks into plastic compartments while she slept against him.
Outboard oil streaked the front of his T-shirt. Sweat had dried along the collar, and the carrier covered most of whatever clean fabric remained underneath. Our daughter had one cheek pressed against his chest, her mouth slack with sleep.
The shirt probably smelled like milk, motor grease, and Nolan.
Somehow, that had become my life.
“You put the circle hooks in the wrong bin,” I said.
Nolan glanced down at the compartments. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“Skipper told me those were for the offshore charters.”
“He changed the system yesterday.”
His mouth pulled to one side. “Of course he did.”
I reached over and moved one packet into the neighboring bin. “Blue tabs are offshore. Red tabs stay here for the reef boats.”
“That is the opposite of what he told me Monday.”
“Welcome to marina management.”
Our daughter stirred against him. Nolan stopped moving until she settled again, then lowered his voice.
“You’ve been upstairs for twenty minutes. Did you actually sit down?”
“I folded laundry.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It was sitting-adjacent.”
“You are terrible at resting.”
I looked at the grease on his shirt, then at the tackle spread around him. “You rebuilt an outboard before breakfast while wearing an infant.”
“The outboard wasn’t going to rebuild itself.”
“And apparently neither are these tackle bins.”
His grin came easy now.
That still got me sometimes.
There had been years when every smile had seemed borrowed from somewhere else—a camera, a sponsor, a press conference, another demand placed on him by people who always wanted more.
Now I got these instead. Crooked smiles over bait coolers.
Sleepy ones at three in the morning when the baby refused to settle.
The ridiculously proud one he wore whenever he managed to change a diaper without getting peed on.
We had become good at this.
Too good, maybe.
Most days passed in pieces measured by feedings, naps, inventory sheets, oil changes, charter departures, and whichever one of us had enough energy left to make dinner.
Nolan reached for me all the time now, but usually just to take a bottle, or to hand off the baby so he could wash grease from his arms.
Watching him stand there holding her, I forgot what I had been about to do with the invoices.
Nolan caught me staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You were looking at me.”
“I live here. Sometimes you’re going to end up in my line of sight.”
“That wasn’t your invoice face.”
I picked up the top sheet and pretended to study it. “I have an invoice face?”
“You have at least six work faces.”
“Name them.”
“Absolutely not. I enjoy sleeping indoors.”
The back door opened before I could answer.
Skipper came in carrying a coil of rope over one shoulder. He stopped near the doorway and looked from me to Nolan, then to the sleeping baby.
“You two look awful.”
Nolan frowned. “Good afternoon to you too.”
“I mean it. When did either of you last leave this property for something that wasn’t groceries or a doctor’s appointment?”
I set the invoice down. “I went to the post office Tuesday.”
Skipper stared at me.
“That counts as leaving.”
“It counts as mailing something.”
Nolan returned a packet of hooks to the bin. “We’re fine.”
“That’s what people say right before they start arguing over who forgot to buy coffee filters.”
“We have coffee filters,” Nolan said.
“Missing the point, quarterback.”
Skipper dropped the rope beside the workbench and walked toward him. Nolan shifted one hand under the carrier before Skipper reached for the first buckle.
“Careful. She just went down.”
“I have managed to hold a baby before.”
“Not my baby.”
Skipper gave him a flat look. “I’ve got the little captain until dinner, Nolan. Take your wife somewhere that doesn’t smell like dead fish, and don’t come back until the sun goes down.”
Nolan dropped the packet into the bin. “Skipper—”
“Don’t.”
“Her extra bottle is upstairs.”
“I know.”
“The diapers—”
“I know where the diapers are.”
“And if she wakes up upset—”
“Piper, make your husband stop explaining babies to me.”
I bit back a smile. “Nolan, stop explaining babies to Skipper.”
His expression suggested betrayal.
Skipper unfastened the carrier while Nolan kept one hand beneath our daughter. Between them, they eased her out without waking her. She settled against Skipper’s chest, one tiny hand curling into his fishing shirt.
Nolan stared at her as though Skipper were preparing to cross an ocean.
“The west fuel line is losing pressure again, Skipper, and somebody still needs to check the afternoon tackle delivery. I can disappear tomorrow.”
“The fuel line can survive.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“And today I’m saying it again.”
I folded my arms. “The marina survived just fine before you appointed yourself head of every mechanical emergency. I think it can handle six hours without you hovering over the pumps.”
Nolan looked at me.
That was the problem.
I wanted him to keep looking.
Skipper adjusted the baby against his chest. “Lawson can check the line. I can sign for the delivery. Neither task requires a retired MVP with separation anxiety.”
“I do not have separation anxiety.”
“You followed me three steps when I took your daughter.”
“Because you were taking my daughter.”
“Our daughter,” I said. “And she’s staying about fifty yards away.”
Nolan gave me a wounded look that would have worked better without the grease smeared near his jaw.
Skipper pointed toward the door.
“Good, because I wasn’t asking for permission from either of you. Get in the skiff and get out.”
The tackle could wait. So could the invoices, the fuel line, the delivery, and every other excuse we had gotten too good at using.
For once, I had no interest in helping Nolan argue his way back to work.
Skipper had barely cleared the door with our daughter before Nolan reached for the cooler.
“I can carry that.”
“I know.” I tucked the blanket beneath my arm. “But if you find one more repair on the way to the dock, Skipper may throw you into the water.”
“The repairs find me.”
“That is exactly what a workaholic says.”
Nolan gave me a look but followed me outside.
We packed sandwiches and drinks into the cooler, carried everything down to one of the little skiffs, and shoved off before either of us could invent another reason to stay. Nolan stowed it beneath the bench, started the outboard, and guided us away from the marina.
The familiar noise faded behind us. No aerators. No tools striking metal. No baby fussing from the apartment upstairs. Water slapped against the hull while the docks gave way to mangroves on either side.
“This is strange,” I said.
Nolan glanced over. “What is?”
“Sitting beside you without holding a bottle, a diaper, or an invoice.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“How long before you ask whether Skipper remembered her afternoon bottle?”
“Already wondering.”
I laughed. “You’re worse than I am.”
“Impossible.”
The channels narrowed until Nolan eased off the throttle. Sunlight broke across the shallow water, revealing the bottom beneath us. Ahead, a strip of white sand curved between the mangroves with nobody else in sight.
Nolan brought the skiff into the shallows, killed the motor, and set the anchor before stepping over the side. I followed him into water that barely reached my calves.
The soft sand gave beneath my feet as we carried the cooler and blanket ashore.
For several minutes, I talked about nothing important. A charter booking. Lawson’s argument with Skipper over an outboard prop. Whether our daughter had inherited Nolan’s stubbornness or mine.
Nolan answered, but his attention kept drifting back to me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“That’s my line.”
He gave a slow, crooked smile.
We left the cooler near the blanket and wandered toward the water again. Nolan’s hand settled at the small of my back. There was no baby between us, no box to lift, no reason for him to guide me anywhere.
I stayed where I was.
He wrapped his arm around my waist, drawing me against his side. I leaned into him, and his mouth brushed the skin beneath my ear.
That was all it took.
I turned in his arms and slid my hands into his hair.
“Skipper thinks we’ve forgotten how to be married,” Nolan said. “I think we’ve just forgotten what being alone actually feels like.”
“We’re alone now, and you’re still talking about Skipper. You’re wasting a rare opportunity, Nolan.”
“I’m trying to behave because you finally look rested for the first time in months. But seeing you in this sunlight is making that plan harder.”
“Then stop behaving for a while. I didn’t bring you this far into the mangroves to discuss fuel pressure.”
I curled my fingers into his hair and pulled him back to me.
His mouth met mine before I finished drawing him down.
The kiss changed at once. The teasing disappeared, replaced by months of interrupted moments, midnight feedings, unfinished touches, and mornings when one of us had fallen asleep before we could remember we were husband and wife. Nolan cupped my face, then drew back enough to search my expression.
“Are you sure?”
I caught the front of his shirt. “If you ask me that every thirty seconds, I’m going to reconsider.”
His smile brushed my mouth. “Noted.”
Nolan grabbed the blanket and spread it across the sand. One corner folded under itself, and I laughed when he tried to straighten it with his foot.
“Very romantic.”
“I’m trying to keep sand out of places that would ruin the afternoon.”
“That’s the smoothest thing you’ve said to me in months.”