Page 82 of Swept Away

“This isn’t even a choice, Zeke. Staying feels like the safe option, but it isn’t, not anymore. The boat got us this far,” Lexi whispers into my T-shirt.

“Let’s just dry out the shower and see if we can plug the leak,” I say. “Then we can take it from there.”

Once we’ve resecured the drain cover as best we can, we get down on hands and knees in the kitchen and check every inch of the place. It’s so hard becauseeverythingis damp—it doesn’t help that it’s raining today. Houseboats are always a bit wet; that’s what Dad used to tell us when Lyra complained about her clothes smelling of damp.

“Here, this plank looks like it’s been fixed before,” Lexi says, voice strained as she leans into one of the lower kitchen cupboards. “And it’s definitely wet.”

There’s a smallclunk.

“Zeke,” Lexi says.

I stiffen. “What?”

“There’s something…else. In here.”

I sit down next to her, shuffling so I’ve got my back to the fridge and my feet wedged against the wall by the bathroom door. She turns, still crouched, an A5 plastic wallet in her hands.

It’s filled with papers. They look like printouts from an old computer—there’s something about the font and the spacing that’d make it obvious even if the paper wasn’t all worn and yellow.

“Oh,” I say, staring down at the wallet.

“Secrets?” Lexi guesses.

“Very Dad,” I say. “So…yeah. I guess so.”

“It could be about anything,” Lexi says. “These could just be tax returns.”

“I’m not sure my dad paid all that much tax,” I say dryly.

“Insurance forms. Some random stuff that he didn’t mean to hit print on. Spare paper, basically.”

I say nothing. I’m certain the plastic wallet in Lexi’s hands holds the answer to the question I’ve been asking my whole life, and I don’t have a clue what to do about it.

“On the plus side,” Lexi says, “I’ve found the leak. It’s a pipe. I can tighten the join—I’ll go get some tools from the rig. I’ll…”

She stands, but I reach up and grab her hand.

“Do I read it?” I ask.

I look. The top piece of paper seems to be an email. I try not to read it, but I see my dad’s email address, and one I don’t recognize, and a few words, two of which arePaige Lowe. As in, busybody neighbor Paige. What the hell’s she got to do with anything?

“You know what?” Lexi says, sitting down again, keeping hold of my hand. “I think there is absolutely no right answer to that question.”

“I feel like if I don’t read it now, I’ll spend another week ignoring it, like I did with the logbooks. And I don’t want to do that.”

She smiles slightly. Her eyes are as icy blue as always, but they’re at their absolute warmest.

“I think you bought this houseboat because you had a whole bunch of questions, and that wallet looks to me like a whole bunch of answers,” she says.

Now that I’m holding the wallet, I’m not sure I really did buy this houseboat because I had a whole bunch of questions. I think maybe I bought it because I miss my dad.

My finger slides to the snap holding the flap of the wallet closed. I hover there, a shot of fear hitting my stomach. Sometimes the bigmoments in your life are disguised as nothings. The cold, drunk minutes I spent with Paige and Lexi on Gilmouth marina. The sight of Jeremy’s name popping up on my phone five and a half years ago, the call that told me my father had had a heart attack.

But right now I know I’m sitting inside a moment that’ll change my life. It’s eerie, like standing between two mirrors, or looking down from the top of the rig tower. Like facing something vast.

I click open the snap.

Lexi

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