Part 6
By the following Friday, the Greenbrier had dropped four feet. The mud line on Rowan’s shop wall remained shoulder high, and two of his spring guiding clients had canceled after seeing flood footage on the news. The check from Claire and Evan covered the outboard repair estimate exactly. It did not cover June’s inhaler refill, the split dock stringer, or the week Rowan had spent repairing his own equipment instead of customers’ motors. He preferred it that way.
At seven that morning, a white pickup towing a drift boat turned into the yard. Two men from Ohio climbed out wearing new rain gear and the bright impatience of people who had paid for an experience.
Rowan recognized them from the booking photos. They were scheduled for a smallmouth trip the next day, after the river was expected to fall below Rowan’s limit.
“Good news,” the taller man said. “We got here early. Figured we’d take the afternoon slot too.”
Rowan looked at the river gauge app on his phone. The level had fallen, but the current still carried whole trees through the outside bends. A county advisory remained in effect.
“There is no afternoon slot today.”
“We’ll pay double.” The man glanced toward Rowan’s old jon boat. “You’re the guy who pulled those people out, right? This is nothing compared to that.”
The sentence found the worst place in him: pride beside need. Double would pay for June’s prescription and leave enough for the dock timber.
Vic came from the shop carrying a propeller shaft. He heard the offer and set the shaft on the bench without comment.
“Water’s high but clearing,” the second client said. “We drove six hours. You know the river.”
“That’s why I’m not launching.”
The taller man laughed. “Come on. You went out at flood stage.”
Rowan saw Miller’s Ford as if the vehicle still occupied it: the hatch breathing at the surface, blue cord tight around his wrist, Claire’s face behind broken glass. He also saw June at the kitchen table with one slipper loose.
“I did,” he said. “It was a bad decision before it became a useful one.”
The men stopped smiling.
Rowan opened the booking app and refunded the deposit for the next day’s trip. The taller man watched the confirmation arrive on his phone.
“That was for tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“So you’re canceling us?”
“Yes.”
“You covering the hotel, then?”
“No.”
“Gas?”
“No.”
“Then you just cost everybody money because you got nervous.”
“That’s one way to write the review.” Rowan put his phone away. “You are not getting in my boat today or tomorrow.”
The pickup left hard enough to throw gravel against the shop siding.
Vic picked up the propeller shaft again. “Double?”
“Double.”
“June’s going to kill you.”
“Probably.”
“Want me to tell her?”
“Absolutely not.”
June did not kill him. She listened at the kitchen counter, turning the inhaler box over in her hands. When he finished, she asked whether he had refunded the deposit before or after the men insulted him.
“Before.”
“Good.”
He smiled despite himself. “We can ask the pharmacy to split the refill.”
“Already did. They can.” She tapped the box against the counter. The clinic had also found an assistance program, and this time she had let the nurse help with the form.
“You aren’t the only stubborn person in this house,” June said. “Just the loudest.”
That afternoon, Vic drove Rowan to the volunteer fire station. Chief Mara Collins had spread river maps across the apparatus bay floor, weighted at the corners with throw bags. Six trainees stood around them. During the first drill, Mara tipped a rescue dummy behind a painted line and told Rowan to reach it without crossing the boundary. His instinct was to step forward. Instead he found the throw bag at his feet and waited until Vic took the other end of the line.
“Ready,” Vic said.
Only then did Rowan throw.
The next spring, the river rose without flooding. Snowmelt and three days of rain turned it green-brown and quick, but the repaired county gauge stayed below action stage. Rowan checked it before dawn anyway. Then he checked the forecast, the upstream reading, and the knot securing the guide boat, in that order.
He now carried a swift-water certification card behind his fishing license. Vic was at the landing, showing two new volunteers how to coil a throw line without twisting it. He had passed the boat-operations portion of training but refused the swim test on the reasonable grounds that he had survived sixty-four years without anybody grading his crawl stroke.
June sat at a picnic table above the ramp with her portable oxygen concentrator beside her. She still had bad mornings. On good ones, she walked from the house to the landing without stopping at the mailbox.
A dark blue car pulled into the gravel lot shortly before noon. Claire drove. Evan sat beside her with a diaper bag at his feet, and Marlow occupied a carrier secured across the back seat. They had arranged the visit two weeks earlier, down to the hour. Rowan had written it on the shop calendar and scheduled nothing over it.
Claire lifted a five-month-old girl from the car seat. The baby wore a yellow knit cap and slept through the transfer with both fists tucked beneath her chin.
“This is Willa,” Claire said.
Rowan wiped his hands on his jeans. “She looks unimpressed.”
“She has been unimpressed since delivery.”
Evan set Marlow’s carrier beside the car. He and Claire moved around each other carefully, not with the old polished ease Rowan had imagined they once possessed, but with attention.
June held Willa first. The baby opened her eyes at the hiss of the concentrator, considered June’s face, and went back to sleep.
Marlow pressed against the back wall of his closed carrier near the ramp, ears angled toward the river. Claire left the door latched.
“He won’t go near moving water,” she said. “Not even the bathtub if the faucet’s on.”
“Smartest one of us,” Vic said.
They carried the closed carrier to the picnic table well above the ramp. Claire clipped a leash to Marlow’s harness before opening the door. He came out when June offered him the corner of her blanket, circled twice, and settled against her hip with the river behind him.
Later, Claire asked whether Rowan wanted to hold Willa. He looked at her before extending his arms. Claire gave a small nod and placed the baby against his chest.
Willa weighed less than the tool roll he carried on the river. Rowan held her with both hands anyway. Her eyes opened. One fist emerged from the blanket and closed around his finger.
At the picnic table, Marlow raised his head. A boat wake reached the bank and slapped once against the lower step of the ramp. The cat’s body tightened, but June rested her hand across his back. After a moment, he lowered his chin to her lap.
“Rowan,” June called. “Lunch.”
He was checking Willa’s cap, which did not need checking.
“Rowan Daniel Beck.”
He looked up before she reached his last name and carried the baby toward the table.