Upstairs, I stretch. Shower.
With coffee in hand, I pull up a map of Romania. Trace the river. Read about terrain and weather. Make notes. Not because I’m nervous. Because preparation is how I earn trust.
I flip my phone face down on the table.
She called me. After everything, after two months of distance I earned and she enforced, she asked me to step into something that matters to her.
That’s not forgiveness.
But it might be the beginning of trust.
And trust is something I can build on.
41
THE THRESHOLD (WREN)
The Delta doesn’t announce itself.
It just opens.
The channel widens, the banks loosening into reed beds taller than a person, water darkened to the color of steeped tea. Lily pads drift past the hull. Dragonflies skim the surface, blue and green flashes that vanish as quickly as they appear. The air smells wet and vegetal—crushed leaves, warm mud, something alive breaking down into something else.
It’s quieter than I remember. Not silent. Just…absorbed.
Base camp sits where three channels meet, raised on wooden platforms just above the waterline. Canvas tents already staked. A long table under a tarp. Solar panels tilted toward the pale afternoon sun. A fire pit ringed with stones, ash still clean and unused. It’s spare, functional, and exactly what it needs to be.
Mihai cuts the engine and lets us drift the last few feet to the dock.
“Welcome,” he says, gesturing with one hand as if unveiling a living room. “Our base.”
I step onto the platform. It shifts slightly under my weight—not unstable, just responsive—and then settles.
Behind me, the second boat bumps in. Kieran steps out first, boots steady on wet wood, securing a line before lifting a crate and passing it up without comment.
His shoulders flex under the weight. The movement is economical, controlled, nothing wasted. He looks like he did on the train this morning, focused and contained, conserving energy.
I let the awareness pass.
The kids spill out next, backpacks thudding, voices overlapping in Romanian and English. Twenty of them. Too loud. Too excited.
Mihai claps once, sharp.
“Bags to tents. Ten minutes. Then we eat.”
They scatter.
I stay where I am, my pack at my feet, letting the place register. No signal. No plumbing. No easy way out. After Queens. After Cluj. After leaving Larisa with Buni and kissing her cheek in the doorway, this feels like the first real exhale.
“You okay?” Kieran’s voice is low, close.
I turn. He’s holding two crates now, stacked, waiting for me to move.
“Yeah,” I say, stepping aside. “Just recalibrating.”
He nods and passes, heading for the supply tent. I watch his shoulders disappear under the tarp, the steady rhythm of his movement doing something quiet and anchoring to my chest.
We made it. Tulcea, the boat, this place—all of it behind us now.
