Page 54 of Cabin Fever

Dad finds me at the stern rail at six, while Finn's back in the cabin showering off the chlorine. He’s been orbiting me and Dahlia all day.

“I’m not going to keep you.” He puts his hands on the rail three feet away and looks at the water. For a moment he's just a middle-aged man in a golf shirt.

“I wrote you a letter,” he says. “Both of you. It's not an explanation. I’ve been working a program. So it’s everything I know I took from you, and I don't mean money.”

He sets an envelope on the rail between us, one hand holding it flat. “You don't have to read it. You don't have to do anything with it.”

I look at my name on the back in the handwriting that I used to see on my permission slips before I learned to falsify Mom’s.

I take it from him even though I’m not sure I want to read it. But I don’t feel the urge to throw it overboard, so that’s something.

“I’m not sure I can forgive you,” I say.

He lets out a puff of air. “Well, that makes two of us.” He taps the rail, then turns to walk away.

My throat thickens. “I’m glad you got to see this.”

He pauses and turns back. “Me, too.”

My heart breaks as he walks across the deck, weaving through families at the pool. I think of Theo and Dahlia. Of the mistakes all of us have made. And that hole inside of me shrinks by a fraction.

* * *

Bright and early in the morning, over three thousand people get off the Dreamboat Aurora, and seventy-three of them have survived Dahlia’s wedding. The gangway is chaos. Antsy toddlers, sunburnt adults, and luggage carts. My mom tied cans to Dahlia’s suitcase and slapped a “Just Married” sign on the back, so we’re met with cheers the whole way down.

In the terminal, we find a quiet corner to say our goodbyes. Dahlia hugs me so tight, my spine cracks. We both laugh and look at each other through teary eyes.

“Have an incredible mini-moon,” I say.

“Eat the Cuban food,” Finn leans over to interject.

“Theo has your list.” Dahlia laughs.

“Harper, quick question.” Aunt Bev appears at my elbow with a cruise pamphlet. “Is this saying we can get a discount if⁠—”

“Probably best to ask a staff member,” I say, my desire to be in charge completely beaten out of me. I give her a hug. “Love you, Aunt Bev.”

Mom squeezes us both and rushes for a taxi, and just like that, Finn and I are standing alone on the curb. Our flights are both later in the day, so we’re in no rush.

“No tablet, Perry?” Finn asks, nudging my hip.

I give him a look. “I’ll have you know, I haven’t busted it out in over twenty-four hours.”

“Hm.” He smirks, and I want to kiss his dimples. “So what’s the plan?”

I tilt my face toward the sky, letting the morning Florida sun warm my skin. “I don’t know, Gallagher. I don’t think I have one.”

Epilogue

The porch light works now. Finn flew in with a toolbox and had it glowing in less than ten minutes, and then stood under it looking so pleased with himself that I had to kiss him on my doorstep like a teenager. After that it was the sticking window in the bedroom. Then the wobbly step. Then the kitchen faucet, the closet door, the gutter. Small fixes, week after week, month after month.

We visited all the tourist sites, ate at all the restaurants I had on my list, and watched all of Carey Grant’s movies. Finn commuted between Denver and California, repairing my entire house until one day in March I realized what he'd actually been doing.

Building us. Piece by piece.

The U-Haul came in September, the new house in October. A sagging 1918 fixer-upper four blocks from my old place, with what the listing called “significant deferred maintenance” and what Finn called “good bones.”

Our adopted stray cat moved in eleven days after we did, walking through the propped-open back door like he'd been waiting for us. He sleeps on Finn's drop cloths and answers, when he feels like it, to Winston.