Something cold slides down my spine."She is."
"We need her in Concord earlier than planned.The defense filed a motion to dismiss based on a statute of limitations argument, and the judge has moved the deposition up.She needs to be in New Hampshire by Friday."
Friday.Three days from now.
"You should tell her that yourself," I say.
"I've been trying to reach her.Her phone's going to voicemail.If you could pass along the message, it's urgent.The entire case depends on her testimony."
I hang up and stand in the supply shed holding my phone and feeling the walls go up.One by one.Brick by brick.The same walls that kept me functional for four years before she arrived and took them apart with her bare hands.
Friday.She leaves Friday.The case depends on her.
Of course it does.Because Lydia is the kind of person that everything depends on.She's the linchpin.The one who shows up.The one who speaks the truth even when it costs her everything.
And I'm the man who pulled forty-seven people from the ocean and couldn't save two.
I can't save her from this.I can't stand between her and a federal courtroom and a family that's already disowned her.I can't follow her to New Hampshire and hold her hand through a deposition that's going to rip her apart.All I can do is stand on this mountain and watch her drive away, and the math on that equation is one I already know by heart.
People leave.Or the ocean takes them.Either way, you end up standing on the shore alone.
Lydia finds me in the kennel run at two-thirty.I'm cleaning Duke's space.I've been cleaning Duke's space for forty-five minutes, which is about thirty minutes longer than it needs, but my hands won't stop moving and my brain won't stop calculating all the ways this ends with me alone in this cabin again.
"Hey."She leans against the fence.Her hair is down today, loose around her shoulders, honey-brown in the afternoon sun.She's wearing my flannel over her tank top.She wears my flannel every day now, and every day the possessive animal in my chest growls mine."Clara called.She wants us to come to dinner at her and Dan's on Thursday night.She said Logan and Erica might be there too."
"You should call Agent Daniels."
Her face changes.The warmth drains."What?"
"He called my phone because yours is going to voicemail.Your deposition's been moved up.They need you in New Hampshire by Friday."
She pulls her phone from her pocket.Checks it.The screen is dark."Battery died.I was in the field with Scout all morning and didn't notice."She looks up at me."Friday?"
"Defense filed a motion.Judge moved the timeline."I keep cleaning.Keep my hands busy.Keep my eyes on the kennel floor because if I look at her right now, I'll see the exact moment she starts calculating her departure, and I can't watch that math happen on her face."You should book a flight tonight.Billings has connections through Denver."
"Stephen.Stop cleaning and look at me."
I stop.I look.
She's gripping the fence with both hands.Her knuckles are white.And her eyes are searching my face with that devastating ability to read everything I'm trying to hide.
"You're shutting down," she says.
"I'm relaying information."
"You're relaying information with a voice that sounds like a training command and a face that looks like it did the day I got here.Before."She opens the kennel gate and steps inside.Scout stays at the fence, watching."Talk to me.What's happening right now?"
"You're leaving Friday.That's what's happening."
"I'm going to a deposition.That's not the same as leaving."
"You've got a case to testify in.A family situation that needs your attention.A career and a home in Vermont."I drop the brush in the bucket.Water splashes my boots."You came here for three weeks.The three weeks are almost up."
"Are you serious right now?"Her voice sharpens.The patience I've watched her extend to every frightened, reactive animal she's ever worked with thins to something raw."Are you standing in a dog kennel giving me a logistics briefing about my own life like I haven't been sleeping in your bed for two weeks?"
"What do you want me to say, Lydia?"
"I want you to say what you're actually feeling instead of packaging it into something manageable."
