Ignacio Reyes had been complaining about the weather for three weeks. Not because it was particularly bad. It was Tacoma in early March. Rain was practically a daily requirement. But the boat had been out of the water all winter, and he had reached the point where he was going to take the boat out on the water even if it was miserable.
So when a Saturday arrived with a little sunshine and no wind worth mentioning, Micah wasn’t surprised to find a message waiting on his phone.
Boat’s not waiting any longer and neither am I. You coming?
He looked at the message for a moment. Elise’s kitchen counter was covered with the things he’d brought home from work on Friday. A legal pad. Two folders. A printout of the revised review queue procedures, which he’d already read twice. There was nothing in any of it he needed to do before Monday. He knew that. He read the message again, his decision already made.
Yeah. Give me an hour.
Ignacio was already aboard when Micah arrived, crouched beside an open compartment with a rag in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. “Thought you’d changed your mind.”
“I’m eight minutes late.”
“You’re making my point for me.”
Micah stepped aboard, automatically checking his footing. The boat shifted beneath him, a small, familiar movement that traveled up through his knees. With a barely suppressed sigh, Micah enjoyed the sensation of the real world causing the movement instead of the ever alarming alternative he’d been experiencing lately.
The older man watched him set down his bag. “You eat?”
“Yes.”
“Something besides coffee?”
“Eggs.”
“How many?”
“Pop.”
“Just checking.”
Ignacio returned to his screwdriver. Micah took off his jacket and hung it where it belonged. The boat smelled different after storage. There was still the faint chemical sharpness of winterizing fluids beneath the familiar scents of canvas, old wood, and salt. Ignacio had been busy restoring things to their proper places. The cushions were back, the lines neatly coiled, the little galley stocked with supplies.
Micah found the coffee thermos in its usual corner. “Want some?”
“Already had two cups.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Grinning, Ignacio held out his mug for Micah to refill.
They spent the next half hour working through a list Ignacio had written on the back of an envelope. Micah checked the navigation lights, inspected a connection that had given trouble the previous autumn, and crawled into an inconvenient space beneath the helm to retrieve a washer Ignacio had dropped.
“Could’ve done that myself,” Ignacio said when Micah finally emerged, a few cobwebs in his hair.
“Sure.”
“I could’ve.”
“I know.”
“You’re getting smart.”
“Getting?”
Ignacio laughed.
It was good work. Small, ordinary things with identifiable problems and straightforward solutions. A connection was loose, so Micah tightened it. A compartment latch stuck, so he adjusted it. Nothing required a meeting or a written assessment of whether further assessment might be necessary.
By eleven they were underway. Ignacio took them out slowly, watching the instruments with the solemn attention he always gave the first trip of the season. Micah stood beside him, one hand resting on the rail. The water was gray-blue beneath a pale sky. The shoreline slipped past in layers of houses, trees, docks, and distant cranes.
Micah drew a long breath. Feeling the familiarity of the motion, the sights slipping past. Something eased. He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been holding himself until it happened. For several minutes he watched the water without thinking about the incident at Site 14, the review queue that had been the consequence of that day, or the strange moments that had begun slipping into his days without his permission. He was simply on a boat with Pop, the man who had given him a place to feel safe when he was 14.
Then a gull cried overhead. For an instant, the sound became something else. The slap of canvas. A rope burning across his palm. Micah caught the rail. The impression vanished as quickly as it had begun.
“You all right?”
Micah looked over. Ignacio hadn’t turned from the helm, but he’d noticed, unfortunately. “Yeah. Just lost my balance.”
“Water’s pretty calm today.”
“Didn’t say it was because of the water.”
Ignacio glanced at him, then returned his attention to their course. “Take the wheel a minute.”
Micah wrapped his hand around the helm and watched as Ignacio disappeared below and returned with two sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper.
“Elise’s request.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Said if I was taking you out, I was responsible for feeding you.”
“She called you?”
“Yesterday.”
Micah looked at him.
Ignacio unwrapped a sandwich. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Good. Keep us off the rocks while you find us a place to eat.”
They dug into the sandwiches after anchoring in a sheltered stretch of water. Ignacio had brought roast beef, cheese, and enough mustard to make Micah’s eyes water. He ate every bite.
Ignacio settled into his seat, stretching his legs. “So. How’s work?”
“Fine.”
“That’s informative.”
“Not much to tell.”
“They got you back out in the field?”
“Not yet.”
Ignacio waited for Micah to continue.
“Review queue,” Micah added after several seconds of silence.
“What’s that?”
“Paperwork, mostly. Reviewing reports. Making sure documentation is complete.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“It’s temporary.”
“Mm.”
Micah folded the waxed paper into a neat square. “After what happened at Site 14, there’s a process.”
“Usually is.”
“I’ve got to finish the recovery requirements, get cleared, and then I can go back.” Micah barely managed to bite back the word ‘hopefully’, but he felt like the older man heard it anyway.
“Okay.” Ignacio reached for his coffee as if everything Micah had said, everything about the entire situation that had landed him in review queue purgatory was completely normal.
Micah waited for the next question. Whether he was sleeping. Whether he was eating. Whether he was sure he was ready to return to work. It didn’t come. Pushing aside the ridiculous level of relief at that development, he shifted the conversation. “How’s the boat running?” Micah asked.
“Beautifully. Although I don’t trust that gauge.” Ignacio pointed to a large dial on the side of the boat’s control panel.
“You didn’t trust it last year.”
“It was wrong last year too.”
“It was reading correctly.”
“That’s what it wanted you to think.”
Micah laughed. Ignacio smiled into his coffee at the sound.
They sat quietly for a while. A little wind moved across the water. Somewhere beyond the anchored boat, an engine rose and faded. Micah watched the sunlight breaking into pieces on the surface. His phone was in his pocket. He could check it. There might be a message from Marty about Monday’s reports. There might be another email from HR. He didn’t reach for it.
“You know,” Ignacio said eventually, “I used to come out here after a bad week.”
Micah turned his head, wondering where this was going.
“When I was still working. Sometimes I’d get up before Mom and come down by myself. Didn’t even take the boat out every time. Just came aboard and sat, looking out at the water.”
“Did it help?”
“Sometimes.”
“What about the other times?”
Ignacio considered. “Well, I still had a bad week. But at least I’d had a decent morning.”
Micah looked back toward the water.
Ignacio took another sip of coffee. “Mom thinks I come out here to think.”
“Don’t you?”
“Sometimes. Mostly I come out here so nobody expects me to.”
Micah smiled faintly.
“Don’t tell her that,” Ignacio added. “She’ll start finding things for me to do.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
A gull landed on the water several yards away and bobbed there, entirely unconcerned with either of them. Micah watched it. He could feel the morning settling around him. The small movements of the boat, the warmth of the sun on his face, Ignacio’s quiet presence beside him. Nothing had been fixed. He would still have to go to work on Monday. He would still have to explain himself to people who knew him mostly through forms and incident reports. He would still have to deal with whatever had happened in the kitchen three nights ago, when he’d reached for a glass and found the taste of salt in the back of his throat that had no business being in Elise’s house. But not right now. Right now, he was having a decent morning.
Ignacio stood, collecting their wrappers. “Want to head back?”
Micah looked toward shore. “Not yet.”
Ignacio studied him for a moment. Then he sat down again. “All right. We’ll head back when you’re ready.” He pulled his cap lower over his eyes and settled comfortably against the seat.
Micah leaned back beside him. For once, there was nothing he needed to say. And Ignacio, who had known him since he was twelve years old, seemed perfectly content to let the silence do its work.
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