I watch them go. Emma walks with her arm around Olson's shoulders. They look like a photograph—the light, the composition, the woman at the center holding everything together without trying.
I walk to my truck. Get in. Sit.
Sand finds its way out—frommy pockets, my collar, places the water couldn't reach. I don't brush it off.
I almost kissed Emma Mills. The only reason I didn't is because an eight-year-old touched a man o' war he didn't believe in.
I should be relieved. The interruption saved me from a thing I'm not ready for.
I'm not relieved. My hand still feels like her pulse is under it. The breaker didn't trip. And I am not relieved.
The drive back takes twelve minutes. I spend every one thinking about the inch between her mouth and mine. The last inch I didn't cross. The inch that separates the man I've been from the man my father keeps telling me I could be.
I pull into the marina. Walk down the dock. Pass her empty slip. Get on my boat. Stand at the galley window.
My boat is clean and organized. Every line coiled, every surface maintained. Everything in its proper place.
I am not in my proper place. I haven't been since she got here. I've been drifting toward a thing I swore I'd never drift toward again, and today, for one stupid, goldfish-cracker-fueled moment on a beach, Istopped fighting the current.
Holly would have loved her. That's what cracks me open every time I try to seal myself shut. Holly would have loved Emma's noise and her chaos and her kids. Holly would have stood on this dock, watched Emma struggle with the electrical panel, and said,Go help her, Paul. What are you waiting for?
I know what I was waiting for. Permission. From a woman who can't give it anymore.
The running light is there—the one I fixed. It won't be visible until dark, but I know it's working.
I rest my forehead against the glass.
"I noticed," I say. I don't know who I'm saying it to.
A grain of sand sits on the windowsill from where I leaned my head.
I leave it there.
ELEVEN
EMMA
Lottie’s new house smells like fresh paint and possibility, which is a nice way of saying the previous tenant left in a hurry and Mrs. Harding’s nephew did a rush job on the walls.
“Is that primer or paint?” I ask, running my finger along the living room wall. It comes away slightly tacky.
“It’s both. Mrs. Harding said her nephew is efficient.” Lottie sets a box labeledStudio—Fragile—Touch and Dieon the kitchen counter. “I choose to interpret that as charming.”
“It’s still wet.”
“It’salmostdry.”
The house is small and white and sits on Osprey Lane like it’s been waitingfor someone to fill it with noise. Three bedrooms down a narrow hallway, a kitchen that opens to the living room, a fenced backyard with a magnolia tree and enough grass for two boys to destroy by the end of the week. And off the hallway, the room that made Lottie’s eyes light up when she saw it—small, windowless except for one narrow pane with blackout curtains already installed. Her studio. The place where she’s going to build something.
“The boys have already claimed rooms,” Lottie says, pulling open a box of kitchen supplies. “Olson wants the one closest to the backyard because, and I quote, he needs ‘quick escape access.’ I didn’t ask what he’s escaping from. I don’t want to know.”
“Smart parenting.”
The doorbell rings. Lottie frowns. “I didn’t tell anyone we were moving today.”
“You told Hazel.”
“Right. So I told everyone.”
