Chapter 25
Annie keeps her eyes closed.
She’s dreamed a sequence of fantasies she does not want to leave. Underwater grottos with squid, their ink blots and bundles
of arms. Reptilian beasts inching onto the shore under towering cedars, water dripping from their backs.
She opens her eyes, and the images fade.
The wristwatch ticks beside her bed. Light pours through the window.
Memories of the night before flitter back. The kissing, Walker’s lips, his secret visions that feel like real life. The way
she could close her eyes and see ocean. She wants it again: his body against hers, the feeling of being . . . in-and-out-of-body?
Then she thinks of Evan. Her heart seizes more than it did in the heat of last night.
Standing to shake it off, she pulls on woolly leggings and a long sweater from the closet. She scans her collection on the
shelf and picks up the lone sand dollar. Who is she now, and what is this thing with Walker turning her into?
She puts the sand dollar down, then collects her hair, running her fingers through to sort out the tangles. A weight sits
on her shoulders, as if she’s carrying sandbags. What about Ruth and Evan? She minimized them, being so consumed by Walker
last night. Is she being selfish, feeding this obsession?
All she really wants is to walk out of this room, take Walker’s face in her hands, and kiss him again, reenter his force field.
But allowing herself this . . . Evan would break. His heart would shatter, and so might her own. Pain and more pain. She goes
to the smudged mirror over the dresser and looks into her eyes. Does Walker have what she needs most?
Or is she losing hold of what’s important?
When she finally gets the nerve to leave her bedroom, she’s still undecided, unmoored, walking a threshold she can’t step
over.
Walker’s already up, feeding the wood stove. He wears a white T-shirt, jeans. Bare feet. “How’d you sleep?” he asks.
“Fine. Good.” Her heart bounces. She looks away from him, pours herself water from the kettle. “You?”
He comes to her and traces his fingertips down her arm. Annie pulls back from him, knocking over her mug. Rivulets of hot
water pour over the edges of the counter, dripping onto the floor.
“I need to wipe this—-” She picks up the mug and sees a large crack down the side. “Oh god. I broke it.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“Ruth’s had this mug forever.” Her skin feels tight.
“I’m sure we can fix it.”
Annie feels like she’s plummeting. “Let me get a cloth.”
“Annie,” he says. “Stop.”
She wants to touch him. But the water keeps trickling off the counter.
“Can we just pretend last night didn’t happen?” she hears herself say. “Between us.”
He takes a step back.
“I just need to think,” she says.
Walker looks at the floor. His right eyelid twitches, and he rubs it away. “Of course,” he says finally. His face softens
as he looks up at her, then turns to go out on the porch. “It’s your choice. That’s the point.”
“It’s just—-”
“You don’t have to say anything else. I understand.” The screen door claps shut behind him.
Annie’s chest hurts so badly it’s hard to move. She cleans up the water, paces around the kitchen, feels like screaming.
She fears she has broken them before they’ve even begun.
For the rest of the week, Walker leaves space around her. She hates every second of it. He’s even quieter than usual, his
expression more faraway. The air is crisper as the temperatures fall. The sky darkens earlier, as night crawls up from the
corners.
The following Friday evening, Annie and Walker work on Polaris in what remains of daylight. Annie feels somehow bereft in the silence of the warehouse. On deck, Walker repairs the leaky
rubber boot for the mast. Annie stitches a rip in the mainsail, not sure anymore why they’re doing the repairs.
A burst of cool air arrives with Evan through the doorway.
Ruth is not with him.
Annie stands up, accidentally pulling out her last stitch.
“They want to keep her for another week,” Evan answers before she can ask. “Henry stayed with her.”
“What did they say?”
“Her hemoglobin was in the sixties. I guess that’s really low, the lowest it’s ever been.” Evan pulls up a stool, dragging
sawdust across the floor with it. “They considered chemo. They talked about sending her to Vancouver.”
“That’s not the news we wanted,” Annie says.
“She was already trying to talk them out of it.”
“That sounds like her,” Walker says as he climbs down the ladder with his tools.
“She can’t wait to get back here,” Evan says.
“How will she get back?” Annie asks.
“I’ll go get them with the last of the booms. They’ll be ready in a day or two.”
“You must be exhausted.” Annie searches Evan’s face but can’t hook into him anymore. He was always clean-shaven but now has days of stubble on his face.
“They didn’t beat around the bush,” Evan says. “She can’t last like this, unless she’s going to stay somewhere with medical
care.”
“What if she stayed there?” Walker asks.
“They said no one has a crystal ball.” Evan frowns. “They kept saying that. But maybe she could have years—-if she got chemo
and kept on top of things.”
Annie’s insides tie themselves in a thousand knots.
“Being there is strange,” Evan says.
“How so?”
“The whole thing . . .” His eyes roam around the warehouse. “Remember what it was like getting food from a grocery store?
Functional hydro, toilets that flush . . .”
Walker places his utility knife and hose clamps back into the toolbox at the base of the ladder, avoiding Annie’s eye contact.
“Are you saying we should leave here after all?” Annie asks. “What would your dad say about that?”
“You should talk about this together.” Walker closes the lid. “I’ll be back in a while.”
“Isaac would lose it if I left,” Evan says. “I’d have to make sure we were up and running first.”
“Well . . . he doesn’t deserve to have you stay.” Annie keeps her eyes on Walker’s back as he goes out the door. It swings
shut behind him.
“What’s his deal?”
“We . . .” How can she explain? It’s the first time in her life she can’t tell Evan the truth. She can’t share with anyone
that she might be in love with Walker; that she might require him in some way she can’t articulate. “He doesn’t want to go with the coast guard,” Annie deflects.
Evan nods slowly like he’s not sure how to address that. “I think we should consider it, Annie.”
“It’s too much to decide right now.” Her mouth feels cottony.
“Walker wants you to stay, too?”
Walker wanted to kiss her; he likes her smooth skin and scrunched nose and the way she makes doubles. He’s repairing this
sailboat for her. Annie puts the sailor’s palm back on. It’s soft and leathery against the base of her thumb. She forces the
needle through multiple layers of fabric, pulling it out the opposite side with her pliers.
Evan waits for her to say something.
Annie looks across to the door again. Should she go after Walker?
Evan follows her eyes. “What do you want to do?”
She turns back but can no longer remember what he was asking. “About what?”
Evan moves closer and takes her hand. He slides the sailor’s palm off and places it on the bench, then holds her face, his
fingers in her hair. “Listen. I just need to finish what my dad needs done here,” he says. “He’s making a killing. Hale Timber
will be fine. Then we’ll go together with Ruth in October. We can always come back when things settle.”
Annie’s heart thumps. “I don’t know,” she says. “That’s my answer.”
But it’s another lie. She knows it as soon as she says it. She has never lived without the sea. Her body has never wanted
anything as badly as the one thing she wants right this minute.
And he’s outside.
Annie pulls away and goes back to repairing the sail.
Evan’s head throbs as he leaves the warehouse.
He’s losing his grip on Annie, that’s certain. Something’s happened and he can’t read her the way he used to. He suspects
none of this involves him, and that makes his stomach feel like the bottom has fallen out.
He should have kissed her in there when he had the chance. He should have reminded her of how good it was between them, how perfectly they fit.
Walker is sitting on the ground, his back against the rusty hull of a fishing boat, his head tilted up, staring at the sky,
at the waxing moon.
“You don’t even know her,” Evan hears himself saying. This is definitely the wrong time to confront Walker, but he’s choking
on the things he needs to say.
“Look up, Evan,” Walker says.
“Where?”
“Look at the sky.”
When he does, it glitters, an ocean of stars, a million pinpricks in the night. More than he’s ever seen before.
Heat builds in Evan’s limbs. “Why the hell does that matter right now?”
“To get some perspective,” Walker says.
“Right. Sure.” Evan paces forward and back. “You can’t ask her to stay here.”
Walker stands. “Evan—-”
“And repairing a sailboat?” he says. “How’s that a good use of her time?”
“That sailboat is meant for her.”
“Are you fucking tone-deaf, man? Her parents just died on a sailboat.” He keeps pacing. “They’re not bringing more supplies,
you know. This is going to be one godforsaken town pretty soon. Then what?”
“I’m not forcing Annie to do anything.” Walker’s voice is calm.
“Can you please not do that?” Evan fumes.
“Do what?”
“This high-and-mighty act of yours!” Evan clenches his teeth. “Talk straight with me.”
Walker hangs his head and takes a breath before looking at Evan again. “What do you want me to say?”
“You’re influencing her in a way that’s dangerous—-”
“You don’t understand.” Walker shakes his head.
Evan steps toward him. “You need to stay away from her.”
“I can’t do that yet.”
Evan squints. “What do you mean, yet?”
“It’s so much harder than I thought it would be.” Walker seems to shrink an inch. “When I’m around her . . . I can’t think
straight.” He blinks and looks around. “My chest wants to explode or something.”
“Oh my god.” Evan drags his hands down his face.
“I think of her all the time.” Walker’s voice is raw. “More than I should.”
“You have a crush on her, is that it?” Evan can’t stand it. “Why are you telling me this?”
Walker locks eyes with him. “Because I know what you’re feeling.”
“You have no idea how I feel about Annie!”
Walker goes on, “I didn’t expect to feel like this. It’s not the way it was supposed to work.”
Evan scoffs. “Now you know how she works, do you?”
“She works the same way I do.”
“You don’t even know her!” Evan yells.
Walker lowers his voice. “I know her story.”
“What fucking story?” he snaps. “The two of us, me and her. We’re each other’s stories. She needs the chance to think about
something different . . . about a real life. And you’re making that impossible.”
Walker puts his hand on his chest. “I love her, too.”
“Oh, you do, do you? But how far would you go for her?” Evan hates how his voice cracks when he’s emotional like this. “How
much would you give?”
“Probably everything.” Walker’s eyes fill with tears.
Evan’s heart is a runaway racehorse. He doesn’t know if he should punch Walker or storm off or scream.
Walker moves toward the break in the foliage at the edge of the shipyard.
“I’m not done,” Evan calls after him. His cheeks are wet. My god, is he crying, too?
Walker faces the sea. His body grows still. Evan detects a new sound. A slow ch-ch-ch-ch-ch pulse, ratcheting, getting louder. Cicadas? Evan looks up—-nothing there—-then back to Walker, whose eyes are closed, his
head turned ninety degrees to the left.
“Honest to god, I’m so done with this.” Evan doesn’t mean to spin out, but here he is, voice ramped. Sweating. He crouches
on the ground to get his bearings, to get some blood into his brain, then stands back up. “I need to have a say.”
The ch-ch-ch below and above gets clearer, as Walker turns back around, striding up to Evan until they’re face-to-face.
“She loves you.” Walker’s unreadable eyes bore into his own. The cicada-pulse is uncomfortable and firm. Cicadas don’t sing
at night, do they? “So be better.” Walker touches Evan’s chest. “For her.”
“Better?” Evan grinds his jaw and tries not to explode. “I’m the one thinking about what’s best for her.”
Walker steps back a few feet, hands to his sides. A gust of wind stirs the sword ferns. He lowers his voice. “Do you really
believe that?”
Evan squeezes his eyes shut. The cicada-sound disappears completely, replaced by his thundering heartbeat.