Chapter 39
That same afternoon, Evan is alone in the apartment, a greasy rag over his shoulder and a wrench in his hand.
Johann didn’t show up. Again. But Evan’s managed to repair the leaky kitchen faucet himself while Annie’s at work. Just as
he finishes, there’s a brisk knock on the door. Outside, a gentleman waits in shined black shoes and a three-piece suit. He
seems out of place with the dinged drywall and water-stained carpeting.
“Mr. Hale?” The visitor has a leather folio under his arm and golden cufflinks. “I’m Leonard Gibbons.”
Evan checks his palm for grease, then shakes his hand. It’s a firm shake. He smells like mint chewing gum.
“I’m afraid I have bad news. May I come in?”
“Of course.” Evan shepherds him inside. They sit across from each other at the kitchen table.
“I’m from the legal firm representing Hale Timber,” he says.
“Alright.” Evan folds his arms over his chest, bracing himself. He still hasn’t been in touch with his dad. The last time
they spoke was when he moved in with Annie, and Isaac told him he was throwing his life away. Evan politely thanked him for
the advice and changed his cell phone number the following day.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” Gibbons says. “I’m sorry to let you know that Isaac Hale passed away suddenly about nine days
ago.”
The air seems to disappear.
“They suspect a heart attack. By the time EMS arrived, it was too late to do anything.”
“Oh.” Evan looks for something to say. Something to ask. His windpipe is busy collapsing.
“I’m very sorry for your loss.” Gibbons pauses for only a second before he drills ahead. “You’re the sole beneficiary of Hale
Timber, Mr. Hale. I’ll need you to come into the office to square everything away. There are licence transfer forms. Deeds
for the land you own outright.”
Evan finds himself nodding. “Right.”
He has tried to think of Hale Timber as little as possible. He had never come to terms with his dad, or those decimated trees.
Or how his mother would have felt about them.
And Isaac had never even apologized for sending them out in that storm.
“It’s a bit of a rigamarole, I’m sure you understand,” Gibbons says. “And I know this must be coming as a horrible shock.
But there are a lot of people in Hale’s affected by this.”
“Nearly everyone must be,” Evan says. He wraps his hands around the edge of his chair and squeezes as hard as he can. “I’m
sure it’s everyone.”
“I’m sorry to put all these logistics on your plate.” Gibbons straightens his tie. “But you should be aware the will stipulates
Hale Timber must be run by you alone. Otherwise, it will be liquidated by our firm.”
Gibbons’s words are far away. Suddenly, it’s the dead of night and Evan is inhaling seawater under the waves, gasping, his
heart jackhammering.
“Are you alright, Mr. Hale?”
Evan wipes sweat from his forehead. “Yes. Fine.”
The flashbacks have faded over the years, but they’re never completely gone.
When he relives that night, he tells himself: Without that storm, he wouldn’t have woken up to the fact that he had to leave.
He’d still be working for Isaac, cutting down grandmother trees, transporting logs, taking money for it.
Annie might not be his, might not be safe.
These are the things he repeats over and over.
“It took me over a week to locate you,” Gibbons says.
“We hadn’t been in touch . . . my dad and I.” He clears his throat.
“I’m sorry. You can call to set up a convenient time to take care of things. I would have called you, but the company didn’t
have a number. Do you have one I can jot down?”
As Evan recites his phone number, Gibbons writes it on the yellow legal pad inside his leather folio. “There are a few people
at your company trying to get a hold of you.”
The words your company bottom out in Evan’s brain.
Gibbons shakes his hand again. With a brief nod, he’s out the door.
Evan spends the next hour at the kitchen table with his head in his hands.
Annie arrives home at 5:04 p.m., just after a food delivery person has deposited a stapled paper bag in Evan’s arms.
“Right on time,” he says. He makes his voice sound as normal as possible. “How’d you manage that?”
Annie shrugs off her jacket. “It wasn’t too busy.”
Evan raises his eyebrows.
She kicks off her shoes. “The stars aligned.”
“No scrubs?”
“I showered at work.”
He tears open the bag. He should tell her right now—-tell her everything about his dad and Gibbons and even Walker—-but the
words ball up in his throat.
“Did you succeed?” She picks up the wrench on the counter-top.
He had succeeded at pulling himself together this afternoon eventually, re-collecting the scattered pieces. He put on a clean T-shirt and scrubbed the grease off his hands. He remembered to breathe. He hasn’t cried.
He opens the cabinet under the sink. “No more bucket.”
“One less water problem.” She puts down the wrench and weaves her hands around his torso, under his T-shirt.
Annie knows he has nightmares; she’s held him against her when he wakes with the burning pain in his ribs, the sensation of
nearly drowning. It feels so real every time: Walker hauling him back to the surface—-it replays in every version. He wakes
up in a cold sweat at the same point in the story, when Walker didn’t come back up. The flash of his white shirt under the
surface. His face-down body.
He never tells Annie what happens in the dream.
“Shiro’s?” She turns to peek into the bag.
He ordered all her favourites: agedashi tofu, tuna tataki in a ginger vinaigrette, an avocado roll. Salmon sashimi. A bunch
of plastic trays and cardboard boxes, packages of soy sauce, wooden chopsticks in paper sleeves.
“Have some tuna,” he says. “Protein.”
He does not say: My dad died. Hale Timber is mine. Walker should be alive and not me. Why can’t he say it?
“Remember all the albacore we used to catch near Tofino?” Annie asks.
“Of course.” It’s not so much the fishing he remembers but watching her for hours: the way her face scrunched while she was
pulling in the lines. The strength in her biceps. How her cheeks got so red, but she hardly broke a sweat. “I was no help.”
“Not true.”
“You caught them all,” he says. “You were a magnet for them. The albacore whisperer.”
She smiles.
He wonders if there’s another solution to all of this.
Maybe going back to Hale’s could make it right for Annie, too.
She wouldn’t want him logging—she wouldn’t allow it.
But Evan’s mind turns to some alternate reality where she’s sitting in the cockpit of her own sailboat moored on their dock.
Endless ocean the way she used to have. He pushes it further.
Maybe they could finally start a family in Hale’s?
Their kids would run barefoot, through tide pools, and swim in the sparkling water.
Annie takes off her hoodie.
“What’s this?” Evan touches a taped cotton ball on the inside of her elbow.
“Oh. I forgot to take it off.” She peels it back, revealing a burgeoning bruise. “The med students were practising, is all.
Don’t worry.”