“See?” Stefan crows, pointing across the water toward Andrei. “Current!”
“That’s what I said,” Andrei argues.
“You said depth?—”
“Test both,” Raluca calls from my skiff. “Science.”
I catch Kieran’s eye across the water and smile before I can stop myself. He sees it. The corner of his mouth lifts in response.
We reach the confluence where three channels braid together, water folding in on itself, purposeful and fast. We nose the skiffs toward a shallow sandbar and cut the engines.
The kids pile out, lines already in hand.
“This is good,” Raluca declares.
Cristian crouches near the reeds, studying the surface. “There,” he says quietly, pointing. “Shadow. Structure.”
“Good eye,” Kieran says, angling his skiff closer.
Lines arc through the air. We drift. The sun climbs. Heat settles.
I’m checking our GPS against the chart when Ana groans softly. “I had strike,” she says. “Too slow.”
“Timing comes,” Kieran tells her easily. “You’ll get it.”
“You fish a lot?” Stefan asks.
“Used to,” Kieran says. “Not lately. Different water.” He glances toward me. “Wren knows the science. I just know how not to sink.”
“The science is theory,” I say. “You know how water actually behaves.”
Something quiet passes between us. Recognition. Complement, offered without ceremony.
Cristian reels in his line, watches the two of us, then says in careful English, “You work good together.”
The words land.
Raluca doesn’t look up, but I see her smile.
“We’ve had practice,” Kieran says after a beat.
“Good practice,” Cristian agrees, apparently done with the topic.
Lunch isbread and cheese on the sandbar, feet in the shallows, skiffs pulled up behind us. The kids sprawl in the shade, voices lazy now, slipping between languages.
Kieran and I sit a little apart but not far—close enough to supervise, far enough to let them forget we’re listening.
Ana says something to Raluca in Romanian—quick, light—then turns to me.
“Irina?” she asks, eyebrows lifting, waiting for confirmation.
It lands softly, like it always does—familiar, ordinary, mine.
I nod.
Kieran doesn’t react. Not outwardly. But his head tilts just a fraction, the way it does when he files something away. His gaze flicks to me and back to the water, measured and thoughtful.
He doesn’t ask. That’s what tells me he heard it.
