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“Maybe he has more holes to dig.”
“He hasn’t.” Poet speaks with a certainty I admire.
I swallow my cynicism and make extra breakfast for Dav. Then I watch him and Poet slip into the easy rhythm of men who’ve spent countless days and weeks working the same land. Reaching for twine. Checking the baler. Backing the biggest tractor out of the yard and seeing her safely through the gauntlet of towering ripe wheat on the neighbouring farm.
It is so ordinary it catches me off guard. Forgiveness is not always overt and loud, and watching them gives me a lot to think about.
So much that I carry my thoughts home with me after I’ve taken Aras to school and decide to keep walking instead of going inside and catching up on sleep. My eyes are scratchy and raw, but my body hums with an energy I’m not ready to let go of yet.
The Joker isn’t open—it’s too early. But I find Jack outside fixing a damaged table. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in a while and we embrace. “You look well, my friend.”
“Thank you.” Jack hugs me back, one arm stronger than the other, and his face still wears the mark of the doorframe he hit when a seizure felled him. But his green eyes are warm and clear. “Where’ve you been?”
“In general or today?”
“Both. I haven’t seen you for ages.”
“I have been around. But we’ve been sailing at night—this heat is bad for me too. And when I have Aras, he likes to visit the farm across the road from Hanna more than he wants to go to the beach.”
Jack nods as though it all makes sense. “He likes Folk’s brother?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“That’s nice.”
It is, but I don’t get the sense Jack has any idea just how nice I find Poet Whitlock and I find that harder to endure than the knowing smirk I get from Mal as I spot him loitering by the back door, covertly watching over his brother.
I leave Jack to his work and take my chances with Mal. He’s in the disused kitchen by the time I get to him, studying the plans I saw a while back. “This is happening then?”
“If we get the grant to pay for it. How are you?”
“I am okay.”
“Aye, you look it.”
His smirk returns.
I cover his whole face with my hand. And then I leave him too and head inside, where I find Sol asleep on the couch—a sight I have never seen in my life. Jack and Mal nap. Skylar doesn’t, and Sol only ever sleeps on the boat when Jack is far enough away that worrying about him is pointless.
A well-thumbed paperback lies on the floor. Knowing I will not wake Sol, I retrieve it and set it on the coffee table. Then I take a moment to study my friend. The wild curly hair and the faint crease between his brows that has been there since Jack was so badly hurt all those years ago. As though worry has lived there so long it will never fade.
But it is softer now. And Sol…he really is asleep and I cannot remember the last time I saw that. Saw him finally remember how to breathe out instead of in and I like the feeling that settles in me as I realise.
We are supposed to set sail soon. A short voyage to the lobster pots, and then on to a bougie harbour up the coast to sell what we haul to the restaurants there. But I let Sol sleep a little longer and finish assembling the half-made sandwich I find in the kitchen.
I put it on a plate for him and find myself at the sink, enjoying a view that lets me see both the ocean and the land. Earth and water. The blue sky. Fire is the missing element. Though after last night, perhaps not so much.
“Looking for answers in the clouds, Os?”
I turn as Sol shuffles into the kitchen, those lawless curls half flattened, bronze eyes so like his father’s still heavy with sleep. “I need to tell you something.”
He drifts to a halt. “Okay. You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Leaving? No, my friend. Aras is here. Where would I go?”
Sol seems to shake himself. “I don’t know. Sorry, I think I’m still asleep. Is that for me?”
He spies the sandwich.
