“Can you get all of this put away yourself? Storm and I have to get back to work.” He set the sling on the top of the washer, starting to buckle her into it, but thought to check her diaper first. It was okay for now.
“Leave her with me,” his mother chided.
He was tempted. Covering for Reid meant Sophie was covering for him and she already had her hands full because Randy was still away.
“She was sick the other night and she’s grumpy with so many of us gone. I’ll keep her with me for now and bring her back when she’s ready for her nap.” He checked all the straps as he buckled Storm to his chest, glancing up in time to catch an expression on his mother’s face that said, Look how cute my boy is, caring for his baby sister.
Ugh.
“Also, the contractors are less inclined to swear at me when I have her. I’m using her as a human shield, really.”
Her look admonished him, then grew more serious.
“Sophie’s not coming for dinner. Are you two still fine?” She knew they weren’t. He could hear the suspicion underlying the bland interest in her tone.
He drew a breath that felt loaded with fiberglass. He and Sophie had never been fine. Not since he had left her at the ferry slip eight years ago. He had known it then, but he knew it even more unequivocally now.
I punished myself.
“She told me…” He absently set his hands under Storm’s feet, allowing her to push against them. Beyond the basement window, the backyard fell away, leaving a view of treetops and cloud-skudded sky.
His regret was like that. Endless. He couldn’t even see the horizon of it.
“What do you know about how she was after you and I left here that summer?” he asked.
Her brows went up and her lashes went down, hiding whatever was in her eyes. Her mouth pursed briefly as though she considered her words very carefully. When she spoke, there was no inflection.
“According to Janine, she went on a tear. She was in the pub every night and didn’t come home except to shower and go to work. Janine hoped she would settle down once she was at school in Nanaimo, but it seemed to be more of the same until she came home at Christmas and told Janine she was pregnant. She settled back into school for another semester, but Janine was diagnosed. She moved to be closer to Sophie and treatment. Once Biyen arrived, Sophie withdrew from the program and spent as much time as she could with Janine.”
I fucked around in empty hookups because I thought that’s how I deserved to be treated. Because that’s how you treated me.
Such a heavy ache sat on his lungs he could hardly draw breath.
“And Biyen’s father?” he asked gruffly. “What’s he like?”
“A stray dog.” His mother pursed her mouth again, perhaps regretting such a blunt statement. “I think Nolan was a warm body to sleep against when she needed it. He’s immature in many ways so of course he makes a wonderful friend for Biyen, but what I see in them is a relationship like Reid had with his mother. A boy parenting his parent. Sophie rose to the challenge, though.” Glenda worked the lid off one of the insulated boxes, making the foam squeak against itself. “She tried to make it work with Nolan for Biyen’s sake, after Janine was gone, but she knew when to cut her line. It couldn’t have been easy, coming back here to all the talk about how she had behaved before she left. Being here has been good for all of them, though. Biyen and Art, especially. I’m proud of her.”
So was Logan. And grateful. The marina’s books would be a lot more dire if they hadn’t had someone so invested, historically and emotionally, managing things.
“I don’t know how to tell her I’m sorry,” he admitted in a low voice.
His mother lifted her gaze to meet his and it was hard to allow it. She didn’t scold or reveal disappointment. Somehow that was worse. He swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away.
“You could start by saying it to her instead of me.” She said with her quiet, frustratingly simple logic.
“Yeah.” His voice felt as though it passed over gravel all the way up his chest.
“Storm’s yawning. Give her to me and I’ll call you when she wakes.”
*
Sophie was on the wharf Sunday afternoon, chewing the fat with a couple of trawlers, when she saw the Storm Ridge coming into the cove. As it neared the wharf, Reid came on deck to drop the fender buoys off the port side.
She moved down to catch the bow line he threw to her. He moved to the stern and leapt to the wharf when they were close enough, bringing that line with him and leaning back to draw the cruiser in.
“How was it?” she asked him, looking for Emma among the guests gathering on the deck.
“Great. Definitely good value for the cost. We could be charging more.” He stepped aboard to take the steps from where they’d been stowed and set them for the guests to disembark.
Sophie moved forward to help take the bags he handed off and set them on the wharf for people to collect on their way to the lodge and the rest of their travel plans.
“Sophie!” Imogen came topside and grabbed the rail. She wore a windbreaker and a life preserver over her shorts. “Where’s Biyen?”
“Still camping with his dad.”
“Oh.” She pouted.
“He’ll be home in a few days. Did you have fun?”
“We saw bears!” Her eyes went as big as dinner plates. “They were catching fish. And otters.”
“The bears were catching otters? I’ve never seen that!”
“No.” She giggled. “We saw otters. They were so cute.”
“There’s nothing cuter than otters, is there?”
“One had a baby.”
