If Noah did not need me during the same hours the ferries did.
I hated thinking of those needs in competition.
They were not.
One was a person I loved.
The other was the means by which four people paid mortgages, bought groceries, and planned their lives.
Love did not erase arithmetic.
It only made the arithmetic feel cruel.
A stack of phone messages waited beside my keyboard.
A marina wanted an estimate.
A customer wanted to know why his invoice had not arrived.
The insurance adjuster needed another copy of the police report already sent twice.
I answered the urgent calls, sent payment reminders, postponed the yard expansion, and drafted a temporary schedule that required all of us to work too many hours.
Then I went onto the floor.
Work helped.
It demanded physical answers.
A wire was damaged or it was not.
A reading fell within tolerance or it did not.
Bolts tightened. Cables terminated. Faults revealed themselves to anyone patient enough to follow the circuit.
People were more difficult.
Grief could hide beneath gratitude.
Fear could sound like anger.
A man could wake after six years of shared life had vanished from his mind and still say your private name in the dark.
By two, I had lost track of lunch.
My phone vibrated against the workbench.
NOAH: Where did you go?
The message tightened my chest despite its simplicity.
ME: Downstairs. North bay. Are you all right?
The typing indicator appeared.
Vanished.
Appeared again.
