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The bottom-left is the one I locked three years ago and never opened again. I know some of the paperwork I’ll need must still be mixed in with the insurance correspondence. I stare at the small hole where the key goes in, and for the first time since I locked it the drawer doesn't make my stomach turn over.

Vanessa did that. She walked into this wreck and rebuilt it piece by piece until even the locked drawer lost its hold on me. I'm strong enough now. Because of her.

The key is where I left it, stuck to the back of the top desk drawer with a bit of mounting putty. Small and brass.

The lock turns easy and the drawer slides open like it’s running on oiled hinges.

Three years of correspondence, stacked in order of arrival. The original claim, the acknowledgment, then months of requests for documentation I'd already sent, then more requests, then silence, then more letters asking for things I'd already provided twice.

Eighteen months of nothing while the dock rotted and the workshop roof leaked and I rebuilt with money I didn't have because nobody on the other end of these letters gave a damn.

The denial is on top. Last one in. I haven't looked at it since the day it arrived and I locked it away instead of putting my fist through a wall. I barely looked at it then. Read the first few lines that told me the answer was a big fat fuck you and dropped it in the drawer.

I pick it up. Stiff, expensive paper with their logo printed at the top. The language is the same bloodless nothing it was three years ago. After careful review... regret to inform you the claim does not meet the threshold for...

The signature at the bottom catches my eye.

V. Daniels

Senior Claims Analyst

I blink at it several times, sure I’m seeing things. My eyes go to the callback list above the phone. Her handwriting. The H with the crossbar higher on the left than the right. I open the top filing drawer to pull out her contract. The signature is identical.

Vanessa Daniels, the woman asleep in my bed right now, is the person who decided they wouldn’t cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages that we suffered. She’s the reason I very nearly had to close this place down for good.

Everything stops.

Not the harbor. Not the gulls. Not the fan in the window. Those keep going. But everything inside me, every good and warm and reckless thing that was singing through me twenty minutes ago on the road, every plan and every future and every image of chestnut hair on white cotton and a baby against my chest, stops dead.

She signed it and drove up here and shook my hand and smiled at me and never said a word.

She's known since before she pulled into the lot. She's known every single day. Through every argument, every night, every time I put my hands on her. She knew the first time we danced. When I kissed her in front of her door. Last night when I broke down the walls I still had standing.

I put the letter down on the desk carefully.

Diesel lifts his head.

I don't move for a long time. The sun comes through the window and falls across the letter. I stand there motionless as a statue, letting the thing that's replacing the happiness settle in. It's not rage yet. It's the sound a load-bearing wall makes when the framing cracks. Nothing has fallen yet, but the weight is shifting and everything is on borrowed time.

I pick up the letter. Fold it once and put it in my back pocket.

Then I sit in her chair and wait for her to show up. I’ll wait until tomorrow morning if that’s what it takes. I don’t think I can move from this spot without prodding.

My truck pulls into the lot less than twenty minutes later. The engine cuts. The door slams. Diesel's ears go up, tail starts wagging wildly, then stops. He looks at me, then looks at the door and lies back down without moving.

She comes around the corner of the workshop carrying two coffees. Hair down, wearing one of my flannel shirts knotted at her waist, sleeves rolled to the elbows, collar popped against the morning chill. The mark on her throat is visible above the open collar. She's smiling. Looking delectable in my clothing. It’s a fucking travesty.

"Thanks for the coffee. I brought you a gift in return. You probably think it’s horribly frou-frou. A hazelnut hot chocolate with cinnamon whipped cream. But I swear it’s amazing. I discovered this place on Route One that-"

She stops in her tracks when she gets a good look at my face and her smile dies instantly. I don't know what she sees. Whatever it is, she puts both cups down on the filing cabinet very carefully, like her hands can't be trusted to hold them.

"What happened?"

I take the letter out of my back pocket. Unfold it. Lay it on the desk between us, next to her contract. She looks down and her face goes white. Not slowly. All at once, like someone pulled a plug and all the color drained out.

"Aiden. I can-"

"V. Daniels." My voice is quiet and perfectly even. I’m quite proud of that. Because everything in me wants to rail and shout. "Senior Claims Analyst."