Chapter 16: The Dock at Dawn

I woke at first light with a crick in my neck and a blanket I hadn't put over myself.

Fern's truck was gone.

The fire was ash, and the tide was out, and the slip was a wet black ramp running down to the flats.

At the end of the Point dock a man sat with his legs over the edge and his back to me.

His truck was parked at the top of the road.

He had been there all night, I could tell, because the dew had soaked the shoulders of his shirt.

I walked down the dock in my father's boots.

The boards were cold and creaked, and he heard me and didn't turn.

I stopped three feet behind him.

"Ansel."

"Morning," he said.

"Look at me."

He turned his head.

His face was gray with tiredness, and he waited with his hands on his knees.

I had practiced this for a year in my head and I had a hundred better openings, and none of them came.

"You signed the report," I said. "Eleven years ago. The safety determination. You signed the order that closed the yard."

"Yes," he said.

That was all.

I waited for the rest.

I waited for the excuse, and the part where he explained that the loan was called, and the part where his father made him.

He kept his eyes on me and said nothing more.

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