Behind the front desk of the Prairie Embassy Hotel, Stewart continued to look at the telephone before setting it on the desk and pushing it away. After sitting motionless for some time, he began cleaning off the desk. He put weeks-old newspapers in the trash. He put bookmarks in the four different novels he was in the middle of reading and stacked them neatly, according to size. He gathered all the plates, carried them into the kitchen and pushed the leftover food into the garbage. Washing each dish by hand, he dried them and put them away in the cupboard before returning to the front desk.
Stewart sat down and looked at the telephone, which did not ring, and decided that tonight was the night he’d finish the sailboat. For months, Stewart had been working at a leisurely pace, but in truth there wasn’t much left to do.
Heading out to the boat and stepping onto the deck, he turned on the lights, took up his hammer and finished nailing the trim around the cabin, both inside and out. Next he applied the final coat of fibreglass waterproofing to the hull. Just before the sun rose, Stewart attached the tackle to the mast, fastened the sail and raised it.
Sitting with the rudder in his hand, Stewart looked starboard at the reds and oranges on the horizon, but he couldn’t think about anything other than Rebecca. For three years he had waited for one of two things: for her to ask him to come back, or for her to say goodbye and mean it. Now that she’d chosen the latter, he didn’t know what came next. He felt a freedom, although one so expansive it was threatening. But more than anything else he felt empty and sad. A dry wind blew over his face, and he looked up just as the wind caught the sail, filling it. But the boat remained motionless on the parched Prairie soil.