Chapter 9: Power Out

The storm hit Harbor Springs at six on Wednesday evening and took the power out ten minutes later.

I lit my grandmother's oil lamps and set them on the kitchen table.

Then I heard a truck in the gravel, and a car door, and a man swearing at the wind.

Through the rain-streaked window I saw Nathan on the dock.

He was in his work shirt with the sleeves shoved up, dragging a long plank across the dock.

The boards at the end of my dock had been loose since August, and a wave had finally pulled two of them free.

I stood at the window with my arms crossed.

Rule three said he comes to me, and he had.

I opened the porch door.

"What are you doing?" I called.

"Fixing your dock!"

"In a storm?"

"It was coming loose and I wasn't going to let it take your boat!"

He didn't have a coat on, and the rain was running down his face.

I took two towels off the hook and went down the steps.

By the time I reached the end of the dock, I was soaked to the skin, and he was holding the last board against its crossbeam with his bare hands.

"Hold this," he said.

I put both palms flat on it and he drove in the screws.

Nothing was said for a minute but the wind and the hum of the drill.

When it was done, he sat back on his heels with water streaming off his hair and looked up at me.

"I went to see Kendra on Sunday," I said, over the rain.

His face closed.

"She told me she begged you to tell me."

"She did."

"She had a photo of her mother, Nathan. On our dock. The one where you proposed."

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