Chapter 24: Fish and Flowers

Niall took the red tug out past the container cranes and cut the engine where the harbor opened up.

The water was grey and flat, and the wind smelled of salt and diesel.

Maeve stood at the rail with the ring in her fist.

He did not say anything.

He leaned in the wheelhouse door with his arms folded and let her have the silence.

"Ten years," she said at last.

"Ten years."

"I thought I'd feel something when I did this."

"Do you?"

She opened her hand and looked at the thin gold band.

"I feel lighter."

She threw the ring as far as she could.

It made a very small sound.

Then she turned around, wiped her face once with her sleeve and laughed.

"There," she said.

"Do you want to go back?"

"No." She crossed the deck. "I want you to say the rule."

"What rule?"

"Rule three. The one you said the first time."

Niall stood very still, and then he smiled slowly.

"Once I start, I'm not stopping," he said.

"Good. Don't."

"Say it plainly."

"I don't want you to stop, Niall."

He kissed her against the wheelhouse door, with the grey harbor all around them.

She kissed him back until the tug rocked under their feet.

They got home after dark.

At the apartment door he stopped, with his hand on the frame.

"The bed," he said.

"The bed," she agreed.

The sheets were the new ones, washed and dried and put back on.

She took him by his jacket and walked backward until her knees touched the mattress.

For the first time that month she didn't think about who had slept there before.

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