I had seen her only once after blocking her.
She approached me in a grocery-store parking lot while Reid was loading bags into the car. She began with an accusation and ended with a threat to challenge the settlement.
I had listened long enough to recognize the old trap.
Then I walked away.
No argument.
No collapse.
No final speech.
I simply chose the car where Reid waited.
She became smaller behind me with every step.
That had been the last time.
At the entrance to the loft, Reid held out his hand.
“Ready?”
I looked at him.
His eyes were bright, his nervousness visible now rather than hidden behind control.
“Yes.”
The music began.
Not “Low Tide Morning.”
That song belonged to too many rooms.
Instead, a local violinist played a simple coastal melody with no history attached to it. Something that could become ours from this day forward.
We walked in together.
No one gave either of us away.
No one placed one man into the keeping of the other.
We entered side by side, our joined hands between us.
Marlowe followed for the first six feet, discovered a crumb beneath a chair, and abandoned the processional.
Laughter rippled through the loft.
Reid’s grip loosened.
“Good start,” I whispered.
“Very dignified.”
“Exactly us.”
The celebrant waited near the open harbor doors. Behind her, Mercy floated at the dock, varnished cedar glowing beneath gray afternoon light.
