Chapter 29
Annie’s cheek is covered in sand.
She’s stiff and cold. The waves roar onto the beach while gulls squawk overhead, fighting over a crab leg. Everything has
shifted out of place. The sounds are wrong: amplified, storming. Too close. Painful.
The last thing she remembers is screaming.
Now she’s lying on the sand. Wet, cold, crusted in the salt of the ocean and her own tears. She can’t hear Walker at all.
Annie sits up, face to face with the sea. The sun is rising in the distance and a haze floats over the empty, slack water.
She asks it to give her a sign, to give her his sound back, this beach that delivered him in the first place.
Nothing.
Her skin prickles, stinging, as a thought clicks into place: Walker is gone.
Is he dead?
Her eyes find their way from the horizon to the sand around her feet. The slew of new debris. Her gaze stalls upon a circular
piece of wood . . . Half a steering wheel. She knows this broken circle. She brushes away sand and seaweed until she finds
the names carved into the wood: Annie, Mara, Aiden.
Amphitrite’s broken helm.
She asked for a sign, and here it is. They’re all dead. Her parents, and probably Walker too.
The ascent back to the cabin takes triple the time it should.
Her feet don’t listen to her. She misses a rung on the ladder and skins the palm of her hand.
At the top, a muddy puddle captures her out of nowhere.
Her boots get stuck ankle-deep. Then, a branch of the downed maple trips her on the path to the porch.
In the kitchen, she longs to hear Ruth’s voice. She wants the clatter of her rummaging through the cabinets. A squirrel darts
across the metal roof, and it sounds like the trampling of elephants. The shrill chirp of crickets is like fire alarms.
She lowers herself to the floor, covers her ears, and stays there.
Evan doesn’t get back until the next day.
Annie hears him coming—-his plodding steps on the round stones, the creak of the porch stairs under his weight. He’s breathing
hard as he hesitates outside the door. Is that his speeding heartbeat she hears? She flinches at the heavy knock. As she opens
the screen door, she gasps at the sight of Evan’s cheek. The right side is swollen and red.
His face crumples.
Annie pulls him inside the cabin. Holding on to his arm is a ballast, some proof of life. Proof that she, herself, is still
living. He stands there, his hands now covering his eyes.
Annie waits.
Seconds creep by.
“It was so much worse than we thought,” Evan says. He won’t look at her. “I got thrown into the console by a wave. I blacked
out. I don’t know for how long.”
“Where’s Walker?”
“I woke up on the deck.” Tears start down his cheeks. “He was gone.”
“What do you mean he was gone?”
“I don’t know.” His voice cracks.
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“I was pumping water off the deck. He was at the helm.”
Annie holds onto the doorframe. “Did you look for him?”
“I searched the entire coastline, Annie. I doubled back. I looked everywhere.”
“Nothing?”
Evan digs in the pocket of his jacket and pulls out her whalebone necklace. He dangles it from his fingers. “I found this
in my backpack.”
Annie’s mind races. “How do you have that?”
“You never take this off,” he says, turning the necklace over into his hand.
“Did Walker give it to you?”
Evan stiffens. “You gave it to him?”
“Do you know how it got in your bag?”
“I just found it today.”
Annie lowers to her knees. There’s sand everywhere: under her fingernails, in between the floorboards, stuck to the fine hair
on her arms.
Evan crouches beside her. His voice is quiet. “Why did you give it to him, Annie?”
“I wanted you both to come back. I thought—-” Annie tries to piece things together. Did Walker purposefully give the necklace
back? Did he drown or did he leave?
“I’ve been terrible.” Evan lowers himself to the floor. Their knees touch.
Annie’s mind spirals. “Is there any way he left . . . went somewhere else?”
Their eyes finally meet.
“He must have left . . .” Annie digs her sandy nails into her palms.
“He wouldn’t have left you.” Evan hangs his head. More silent tears fall down his cheeks.
“He said he didn’t belong here.”
“Maybe none of us belong here.”
Annie braces against her knees. “I didn’t believe him.”
“He was trying to get me to listen,” Evan says. “I was so angry I couldn’t even hear him.”
Dread settles in Annie’s belly. He’d been trying to tell her something too. Would he really leave without explaining what
it was? Why would he take off the necklace?
Evan averts his eyes. “I felt like he was trying to take you away from me.” More tears. “This is all my fault.”
Annie expects to cry, too. But instead, she freezes. She can’t feel her limbs. Her body is numb.
The necklace rests in Evan’s open palm.
Annie does not leave her bed.
The days blur together as she hides under the covers, a pillow over her exposed ear. The watch ticks away relentlessly on
her bedside table—-it’s torture. She throws it across the floor. She can’t remember the last time she ate.
Evan drifts through the cabin at regular intervals. He catches a fish and fries it on the stove. From her bed, the sizzle
in the pan sounds like a bonfire. He touches her hand as he places the meal beside her. But she can’t even look at the plate.
A couple of hours later he takes the food away.
Annie is barely aware of him. She doesn’t know where he’s sleeping, if he’s slept at all. Her brain is refusing to string
simple thoughts together. Did Walker drown or leave? Leave or drown?
Late one evening, Evan arrives and pushes aside the curtains. When he opens the window, it gives a drawn-out squeak.
“I know you don’t want to get up.” He sits on the edge of the bed, holding a glass of water out to her. The bruising on his
face has faded to green and yellow.
Her mouth is stale. She takes the glass and drinks. Cool air sweeps over her cheeks.
“Henry called up on the radio.”
“Is she coming home?” Her voice is hoarse.
“She isn’t doing well, Annie.”
Her heart stalls.
“They’ve transferred her to Vancouver.”
“What?”
“Henry agreed to it.”
Annie feels light-headed as she sits up. The periphery of her vision fades, then goes dark.
“The fastest way for you to get down is to go on the coast guard ferry.” Evan holds Annie’s gaze. “It’s October first tomorrow.”
Everything is loud, even Evan’s soft voice.
He’s holding an open duffle bag.