Page 40 of Wanting a Family Man

“Seasickness? Not at all. And what ‘work’? Everyone is really nice. I’m not exactly stuck in a cubicle. Oh, look!” She caught at his arm to stop him as she pointed into the water. “Otter. I have it on my card already, but they’re so cute. I could watch them all day.”

She leaned in front of him, trying to see around the pile that anchored the wharf. The crown of her head was right under his chin.

He made himself take a step back.

She looked up in sudden awareness and her lips trembled into a smile of apology that didn’t quite stick.

He tried to ignore the sense of being drawn into a field of crackling energy while she rubbed her bare arms as though chilled.

Or as though she had felt that same electricity between them.

They continued walking in loaded silence.

The frontage road was paved, but not recently. It was cracked and patched and took them past the first few buildings, which were in good repair. The one labeledCourt Housewas actually the post office and clinic, among other things.

Soon they arrived at the hotel, which was a boxy U-shaped building. Every window had been smashed out and water stains ran down its once golden-yellow exterior.

“It looks so sad when you get up close,” Cloe said.

“It’s sad that it was put here in the first place. I know it’s hypocritical of me to resent that. It’s not like theStorm Ridgeruns on wind. My show leaves a footprint. I wouldn’t be happier if they were still logging the shit out of these valleys, turning trees into toilet paper, but this is such a testament to shortsightedness. Maybe they thought they’d be here for generations, so it was worth erecting something like this, but how could they think that? Trees don’t grow that fast.” Money. That’s what they’d really wanted the paper for. To print more money.

“Have you ever been inside it?” Cloe asked, still studying the hotel with curiosity.

“Lots of times. When I was growing up, my uncle lived here. I visited often. My cousin and I went through all the buildings. We might be responsible for some of the tagging,” he admitted with an unrepentant shrug. He was definitely not without culpability when it came to environmental damage. “Do you want to go in?”

“I’m kind of enjoying the sunshine. I heard Johnny say they have two hundred days of rain here.”

“True. The views are pretty from some of the windows, but the building is full of mold. Think flophouse with a side of fungus.”

“Ew. No black lung for me, thanks. The view from here is spectacular enough.” She looked back toward the wharf and the ferry slip. “I can’t get over how green everything is. I’m used to thinking of ghost towns as the Old West with tumbleweeds blowing down the dusty street. Like there was nothing left to stay for. This is more like Mayan ruins in the jungle.”

As someone who had seen Mayan ruins in the jungle, he couldn’t disagree.

They continued on. She turned her head to look at the rusted frame of a swing set in an unmowed field and up to the roof on a derelict house where the moss was as thick as a high-quality mattress. Overgrown shrubs were trying to consume the sagging structure. A bicycle leaned against the outside wall, all but hidden by the grass that grew to its handlebars. Vines had swallowed the porch rail and posts.

“Look at this tree!” Cloe chuckled with astonishment at a cedar sapling rooted in the moss that had collected on concrete steps that led from the broken pavement of the road to the house. The tree was four feet tall and leggy, but otherwise healthy.

“Will it live, do you think?”

“I’ve seen hundred-foot trees growing out of what looks like solid rock so it has as good a shot as any.”

“This gives me hope. It makes me believe the planet could heal from the damage we humans do, if we only gave it time.”

“You should see the high school, then. The skylight blew out years ago. The library is a fern grove now.”

“That’s so cool. You should set an episode here. Show people how nature can survive the damage done by man.”

He suspected she was being facetious, but he suddenly saw the town through a fresh lens.Huh.

They tracked upward toward the dam holding back Link Lake, where a dramatic curtain of spill water cascaded over the rocks below. When they reached the end of the observation path, they met up with the women from New York, taking a selfie.

“Can I help?” Cloe snapped while the pair embraced and smiled, shared a kiss, and made silly faces.

They left the pair laughing and ambled along a dilapidated road across the top of the township.

Trystan absently helped himself to a huckleberry as they passed a bush growing out of the top of a broken, rotting stump.

Cloe stopped in her tracks. “Can you eat those?”

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