Chapter 23
The decision comes more quickly than Ruth anticipates. By the first week of September, she’s more fatigued and not leaving
the cabin.
“I’m fine.” She waves it off.
“You are not fine,” Annie says firmly. “None of this is.”
It takes her nearly two hours to walk to town. Walker carries Ruth’s faded canvas backpack over his shoulders. Annie hooks
her arm into Ruth’s, who’s panting with the slightest movement. But she keeps walking.
The sun has a lilting quality. The autumn pulls them into a sweeping downslope. Eventually, the log booms come into view,
cabled to the tug, bobbing quietly in the tide.
Evan waits for them on the shore. He’s not in his work coveralls; instead, he’s wearing a red flannel jacket and jeans, his
ball cap, curly hair sticking out. He looks the way he did years ago, before all of this.
Annie blinks and the years dissolve. She’s seven years old and following him up the mountain trail, over dark soil; his bare
feet and fast footsteps. Then she’s eighteen: his lips on hers in the water, the earthy smell of his sweat.
But then she blinks again and she’s back on the debris-covered sand.
“I’ll be back in a week.” Ruth cups Annie’s face and kisses her delicately on the cheek. Her milky blue eyes are sunken and tired. “Just sit tight.”
“Weather will hold,” Walker says, handing the backpack to Evan. “The sea’s calm.”
“Flat as a pancake,” Evan says.
“But watch the water so you can tell if it’s changing,” Annie says.
Evan turns to Walker. His voice is sharp: “Please make sure she’s fine while I’m gone.”
“Annie’s more than fine on her own,” Ruth says, looking directly at Walker. “She can take care of herself.”
“I’m standing right here,” Annie says.
“Let’s load up, Ruth,” Henry calls from the tug deck, having refused to let Evan skipper this one alone with Ruth aboard.
Evan hugs Annie, whispering in her ear: “Don’t do anything crazy while I’m away. Alright?”
The word crazy bothers her. It reminds her of her mom. And what could she possibly do? Sail away for the rest of eternity, maybe? Melt into
Walker’s sound-spell.
“Time to move, Evan,” Isaac says, before she can respond. He comes too close, leaving a cloud of cigarette smoke in his wake.
“Two minutes isn’t going to kill anyone,” Ruth mutters.
“It’s not a cruise liner,” Isaac says.
Evan grips Annie’s hand. She untangles her feet from a corkscrew of seaweed, then lets him pull her a few feet away. She’s
on an invisible tightrope—-Walker at one end, Evan at the other. She can’t walk it without losing balance.
“Listen,” Evan says to her softly.
“I am listening.”
“No, you’re not, actually.” His eyes narrow in concern. “I need to tell you something, again. I—-”
“Evan.” She stops him with a hand on his chest. “Let’s talk about this when you’re back.”
He puts his hand over hers. “I love you.”
A chill rolls up her body as he lets go of her hand and turns. But she’s tired of watching him turn. She doesn’t want to see the back of him again, but he’s already across the gangplank.
“Be good!” Ruth calls, as Henry bends down, scooping seawater into his hand to taste it. Then he bundles her across the gangplank.
“There’s a list of chores on the counter,” she yells over her shoulder.
“Okay.” Annie’s voice goes nowhere.
Walker’s hum rises up and around in a warm haze. “Has Evan always been this way?” he asks.
“What way?”
“Ignoring who he is. This doesn’t feel like the real him.”
Annie thinks about when they were seven years old, and Evan pressed his face into the bark of the grandmother arbutus tree.
“No,” she says, keeping her eyes on the boat. “He hasn’t always been this way.”
Evan pulls up the anchor, but it turns out it isn’t a real anchor at all. It’s a heavy cinder block on a blackened, fraying
rope. The tug eventually motors out into the channel and the booms trail behind them.