Chapter 46
Hours later, Annie is packing.
It isn’t a decision she made with her rational brain. It’s early morning, still dark outside, and she’s standing in the kitchen
with the backpack in her hands. Evan sleeps while she puts in clothes, a sleeping bag, a pair of mitts. Cash in the front
pocket. Her hands do this without her explicit permission.
But her heartbeat is slow and strong.
Evan comes into the kitchen in his T-shirt and boxers, hair messy from sleep. He pours himself a coffee from the percolator
and leans against the wall. He frowns when he sees the open backpack on the floor.
Annie is slicing white cheddar—-she’ll need a sandwich for the trip.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I have to go up there.”
He blows on his coffee for a few seconds. “What about work?”
“I sent Easton an email.”
“We could go together.” There’s tenderness in his voice. “Greg has the Hale Timber barge here at port this morning anyway.”
“You know the barge schedule?” The cheddar crumbles under the knife, and she tries to scoop the shavings onto the bread.
“It’s headed back this afternoon.”
It dawns on her. “You’re already involved.”
Evan traces the rim of his coffee cup with his thumb and says nothing.
The floor feels like it’s giving way under her feet. “How could you?”
“I’m doing this for us.”
“You thought we would just leave everything here?” She grabs for the countertop to steady herself. “Without even talking about
it?”
He sets his coffee aside. “Do you remember when your mom and dad let you sail Amphitrite on your own for the first time?”
Of course she remembers. She was ten years old, and Evan was there beside her. She used her body weight to tighten the winches,
and she wasn’t tall enough to see over the dodger. She navigated by feeling her way over roaring swells. Laughter. Annie looks
down, now, at her clean, square fingernails. Her muscles have dwindled. Her clothes are clean and tucked. She wonders if she
can find what she left behind; if she has any wildness left in her.
“Why would you bring that up right now?”
“I was just remembering . . .” The trace of a smile appears on his face. “You were ecstatic.”
They stand on opposite sides of the kitchen island, staring at each other.
“I have to go back,” she says. “By myself.”
“And then what?” His voice is sharper. “You’re hoping you’ll find him?”
“I don’t know what I’m hoping.” She has to be honest. “It feels unfinished. I don’t think he’s dead.”
Evan strides over to the backpack and starts removing the clothes from it. “I won’t let you.”
“This is about me, Evan.” She grabs the backpack from him and points to her chest. “Me taking care of myself. I can’t keep
going like this.”
“Like how?”
“On autopilot.”
He sits down on a kitchen stool, dropping his entire weight. “You’re ready to throw all of this away? After everything we’ve
built here? Me?”
“I’m not throwing you away!” she cries.
“You’re where I belong. You’re my place.”
Annie’s voice softens. “Something isn’t right with me, Evan.”
“I was always afraid if I told you about that night you’d leave.”
“You’re not hearing me.” She pulls another stool closer and sits beside him, grabs his hands—-as if touching him could make
him understand.
He does not look at her. “Then explain it again.”
“Henry always said you can fix anything, as long as you know where it’s broken.”
“So?”
“I need to figure out what’s broken. Only I can do that.”
Evan pulls his hands away from hers. He stares outside at the rain, falling slanted against the darkened window. Eventually:
“I want you to have what you need.”
“Can you please ask Greg to take me up on the barge?” she asks.
A longer pause. Evan leans over, covers his face with his hands. His nod is almost imperceptible.
They do not speak as he drives her out of the city toward the port, past land still fallow from the tsunami. They park next
to a wall of graffitied concrete. Evan kills the engine and sits with the key in his hand. The marina is full of boats.
Annie has her eyes on the water.
“Greg’s at the end of the south slip.” Evan moves to open the car door.
“I’ll go on my own.” She stops him with a hand on his forearm. “It’ll be easier.”
“When will you be back?”
She doesn’t know the answer. The space between them feels impassable. A seagull lands on the hood—-long orange legs and a
curved beak. Utterly still, it peers at them through the windshield.
“All those summers when we were kids, when you left to go south?” Evan’s voice cracks. “I never knew what I would do if you
didn’t come back.”
It makes her remember Evan at seven years old, on a high tree branch. They were leaning against each other, a habit neither
of them were fully aware of.
“You would have kept going,” she says.
“I’m not ready for this.”
“My mom always said to listen with my whole body. Do you remember her saying that?” Annie’s eyes fill with tears. “I feel
like I stopped, and I don’t know how to start again.”
The seagull on the hood lifts up and away.
“I might die if I don’t remember how.”
“Is this it, then?” His voice is trembling. She realizes he is crying.
His words make her ache like the coldest winter. Here is the divide and she’s stepping over it, into a place where Evan might
no longer be hers. She cannot make it across. He kisses her. She lets him, lingering there.
“I love you.”
“I love you, Annie.”
She pulls away. “I need to do this.”
She summons her resolve and gets out of the car.
Rust weeps down the hull of the barge. It smells of oil and metal. A ring of old tires forms the fenders, and a crane moves
logs from the truck beds onto a holding area in the middle. The deck is sandy with splinters of wood.
Annie locates Greg in his orange, weatherproof coveralls. He gives her less than five words and a few feet of space to set up her tent for the overnight passage.
She’s grateful he does not want to talk. Because she’s busy second-guessing herself. Evan sounded so confident that Walker
was dead. Impossible that he lived, is what he said. Maybe it is impossible, trying to climb back into a life she can never
return to.
Evan loves her; they love each other. He readies her coffee supplies before she wakes up, premeasures the grounds. Knows how
hot she likes the shower; stocks the freezer with chocolate peanut-butter ice cream for post-shift exhaustion; finds her AirPods
every time she misplaces them, which is often.
The unexplainable, nearly desperate need to leave this behind does have an objective flavour of insanity.
Then why does it feel like the only option she has?
Pitching her tent, Annie conducts a swift mental experiment. She could turn around and march back into her life. The hospital
hallways would welcome her, a never-ending parade of sick patients. The incessant pinging, beeping, clicking, scrolling. The
buzz of electrons turning sparks into numbers. She imagines the clamour of city streets, the grind of machinery, whirring
engines, squeals of tires. Evan would wrap her up on the couch and kiss her forehead.
A tightness winds up and into her.
The crane halts abruptly, finished its unloading. Voices and shuffling on deck. Greg starts the engine and it whirs to life.
The empty barge slowly motors off the pilings as it begins to rain.
It’s not long before they find the open water.
It’s happening. There’s no way to turn around now.
She’d forgotten how much space there is, and the way the waves can seem menacing. They seem to clamour for her. As if at any
moment, whatever is below could reach up and take hold of her.
But her mind clears. The tangle in her stomach starts to unknot.
The engine rumbles onward while she tries to formulate a plan: Get up to Hale’s and figure out if Walker’s there. He must be somewhere. When she finds him, will she keep a distance? Kiss him immediately? What lines is she willing to cross? Could
she truly leave Evan when she’s loved him as long as she can remember?
Or is all of this made-up, is she having a psychotic break?
On the barge, it takes the night and the following day to get to the rocky bends of Hale’s Channel. Annie wades between longing
and daydreams and full-blown panic attacks.
By the time the barge docks with a thud, they’re cloaked in darkness again. She slings her backpack onto her shoulders. Greg
lowers the gangway for her.
“Back home tonight?” he asks.
She does not know where she’ll go tonight. Greg waits for an answer, but all that comes to her mind is the nonsensical image
of Polaris on the open sea. She tightens the straps of her backpack. “I’ll figure something out,” she says.
The gangway touches down and Greg locks it in place with metal brackets. Thanking him, she disembarks. The scent of pine needles
fills the familiar, clarified air. Dim lights emit from the houses and fishing boats.
Walker is nowhere to be seen. Is that what she really expected? Him to be waiting? Of course not.
But his sound: It’s not a single tone anymore. There’s a choral quality, highs and lows. Multiple voices? Dense and expansive,
leaving harmony in the air around her.
Annie does not stop. Her legs have decided on their own accord what’s next, off the wharf, climbing up the main road, past
the post office and Hale’s General Store advertising lotto tickets. Past the darkened pub and its patio furniture wrapped
up for the winter season.
When she reaches the boggy uphill path toward the shipyard, she has an instinct to kneel and place her palm on the earth. When she does, it feels strangely warm. Even the February wind doesn’t feel cold on her cheeks.
Her legs feel stronger—-a welcome burn in her thighs—-as she climbs the path. She allows herself to picture Walker standing
there when she arrives. His lanky body, cheeks ruddy from the cold, a sweat-stained T-shirt, next to Polaris, a sanding paddle in his hand. The heady scent of wind and salt.
Fern and devil’s club flank the tarped boats in the shipyard. A single overhead lamp buzzes. She’s directly in front of the
warehouse. The door handle clicks and gives way.
There’s no one inside. It is dark, but not enough to hide the fact that Polaris is gone.