Simplicity had been easy to find, and Evangeline remembered that George kept a key in the aft-deck storage. She hadn’t seen a soul on the docks last night, not even when she’d used George’s big slicker to trek multiple times to the marina’s head.
When morning came, Evangeline stayed below with the curtains drawn, wondering when Isaac would find her note. By nine, people were walking the docks, playing radios as they hosed down decks and sanded wooden rails. She had to use the boat’s head after that. She trusted that it’d been pumped recently. George seemed meticulous about such things.
At the chart station, she found a manual on the Yanmar engine but set it down a few minutes later and stared at the boat’s teak walls. They were curved and hand-fitted. She pictured George running his fingers over them as he placed each board. It made her sad somehow, this imagined tenderness, the way everyone—even old Quaker men—had lives of quiet passions.
She wondered how she’d ended up in this place. Last night, Isaac had been halfway out the door when he stopped and poked his head back in. “Sure you don’t want to go? George says there’s plenty.”
She should have gone with him. She had wanted to, wanted to forget what she’d heard, wanted to be part of this family she’d made up in her head. And that was the thing—this family wasn’t real. Maybe no family was. She went over the list—her mother and father, Jonah and Lorrie, even Isaac—all people who’d left her one way or another. So she’d said no thanks, figuring if leaving was part of life, she’d better get good at it herself.
Packing gave her pause, being forced to touch all she’d been given. But what choice did she have? Isaac had made a “mistake.” He would probably report her to the state. And what would bureaucrats do with the infant of a homeless teenage girl?
The kitchen was the hardest to leave, with its memories of meals shared, with Rufus curled on his chair. When she entered with her packs, the dog glanced blandly at her. She went to him, put her face close, and stroked his ears. “I love you, Rufus. Do you love me?” He refused to answer, accepting her affection with bored blinks of his eyes.
She gave him another chance, once again putting her face close so he could lick her, get his snot and saliva all over her. He loved doing that. But he refused even this, turning dully away. She stood. To hell with him. Hadn’t she known from the beginning his love was a con?
In the drawer with the oven mitts, she dug out the green one crammed at the back. She felt shitty about the money, but Isaac had told her it was there if she had a sudden need.
SHE SPENT THE REST OF THE MORNING ON SIMPLICITY, peering out portholes, studying the lines that held the boat to the dock. If you took off all but the front and rear lines and looped those once around the cleats, you wouldn’t need any help off the dock. You could pull them up on your own and sail away.
At noon, she ate another can of cold stew and figured Isaac must have found her note by then. She was certain he’d search for her on his own. He didn’t seem like a man who’d go public with his concerns.
She busied herself studying the control panel. Some of it was easy. The cabin-outlets switch was flipped on. That explained why the heater and lamp were working. But what did 240VAC, 50HZ, and LPG Control do? Why were there different kinds of power? She searched for instructions for over an hour and found nothing. How could she leave without knowing these things?
By two, she collapsed in the salon, frustrated at the complexity of Simplicity and furious at Isaac. Not for saying she was a mistake—she knew in her gut she’d gotten it wrong—but because he had failed to find her.
WHEN SHE HAD LEFT THE NIGHT BEFORE, she’d headed to the bus that would take her an hour south to the Seattle ferry. As she neared, she saw two women chatting inside the bus shelter, their faces slick and yellow in the dim light. She stopped and squinted, swore under her breath. One was Ms. Swanson, her chemistry teacher.
Evangeline darted around a corner. This was why she had to escape this town—everywhere you went, people knew you, kept tabs on what you did. She decided on a different ferry, only ten minutes on foot. She could walk right on board. It’d put her well north of Seattle, but she could catch a ride on the other side.
By the time she’d hauled her belongings to the landing, she was sweltering in her jacket. The ferry rose out of the dark, its car deck gaping like a mouth waiting to be fed. Just then, the baby unleashed a series of furious kicks, doubling her over in pain. She stumbled to a nearby bench and studied the far shore. Nothing but an unlit wall of black. Even if she made it to Seattle, it’d be a waste of time. Her mother never returned to places she had left. And her mother, she knew, was why she was here. This wasn’t about Isaac or the jerks at school, it wasn’t even about the state. She was searching for a mother who didn’t want to be found.
It was harder than you’d think, giving up on something like that.
That’s when she noticed the marina lights down the shore, glowing warmly over swaying masts.
ISAAC DIDN’T APPEAR. Not at four or five or five thirty. At six thirty, with the world going dark, she began pacing the salon. Maybe she hadn’t twisted his words. Maybe he had meant exactly what he’d said and, like her mother and Lorrie, was relieved to be rid of her.
At seven, she decided to quit thinking for the night. She was so exhausted she felt certain she could manage it. In the morning, she would have to face her options, but for now she curled in the bow berth with its moldy cushions and sails. Using a small flashlight, she tried to read Gunkholing in the Puget Sound. She was staring at a picture of a lone boat in a pristine bay when Simplicity lurched dockward, bowing under the weight of a man climbing on board. She clicked off the light, pulled a sail over her, the damp heat of her breath falling like mist.
When she recognized the weight and rhythm of his steps, her heart went crazy with relief.
He was coming down the companionway. “Evangeline?”
She ran her hand over the mound of her belly, glad the baby was sleeping. Though it was childish, she wanted to be found right where she lay. Isaac passed through the galley but stopped in the salon, landing on the cushions with a tired sigh.
After a while, he said, “I know you’re in the bow berth. I saw the light. And these are your packs out here.”
She couldn’t make herself move. Couldn’t speak.
“I’m not sure what you heard. But you’re not a mistake, Evangeline. I worried that I was the mistake for you.”
She wanted to throw off the sails and go to him, tell him, I know, I know, but found herself battling anger. Why had it taken him so long to get there? Why had he made her suffer like that?
He spoke as if reading her mind. “I should have been here before. I just couldn’t . . .” He was quiet a long time. Finally, he said, “I’m here now.”
The words were like Isaac himself, unprotected yet firm as steel. Those three words unfolding into so much more: I have found you once again, but this time you will have to take the final steps. Yours is not the only heart that has ever been broken.
She thrashed around a little to confirm she was there, to give him one more chance to come to her. When he didn’t move, she found her voice. “I’m in here.”
The boat rolled, something big going by. “I know where you are.” He waited a moment. “And you know where you can find me.”
This was no idle power play. She knew that. He needed her to prove that what they had—whatever this new family was—could go both ways. That she could learn a new approach to dealing with problems other than running from them.
A foghorn sounded in the distance. Loose halyards jangled a few boats down, and the fresh sea air that had entered with Isaac swirled into the berth. The boat was rocking ever so gently. She knew that Isaac could sit there forever if that’s what it took for things to right themselves.
Suddenly the berth brightened as if a switch had been thrown. Peeking from under the sail, she saw the dark walls shimmering and reached out, sparks trailing her hand as if with phosphorescence. “Wish you could see this, baby,” she whispered. “It’s kind of crazy!”
She wrestled out of the berth then, telling herself she’d have to get up at some point anyway. As she walked into the salon, Isaac stood, gazed at her steadily a moment, then picked up her two bags.
THAT NIGHT AS SHE LAY IN WHAT HAD to be the softest possible bed, Rufus cuddled by her side, she kept thinking of Isaac’s smile as she’d walked into the salon. His mouth had not changed, but his whole face and body had glowed.