Harbor Lights in the Fog

The leash snapped tight just as my phone started ringing. I stumbled off the curb, caught myself against a parking meter, and saw a delivery van roll through the patch of street where my knees had been headed. Across the road, a woman in a yellow raincoat shouted something I couldn't make out through the fog. "Sorry," I called, although I wasn't sure who I was apologizing to. Milo, my best friend's long-legged mutt, stood braced at the end of the leash. His ears were pricked. His nose pointed toward the harbor. "Milo. Hey. What did you find?" He didn't look at me. The phone vibrated in my coat pocket. I fished it out with my free hand. The name on the screen made my lungs forget their job. Evan. For eighteen months, I'd managed not to see his name anywhere except old emails I'd never been brave enough to delete. Now it glowed above the fog-damp screen, a small bright interruption to an already lousy morning. I let it ring twice. "Milo, come on." The dog pulled again. I tightened my grip and answered. "June?" Evan's voice came through low and rough, like he'd been outside too. "I'm busy." "I know. You're walking Milo." I stopped. The fog softened the buildings across the street until their windows looked like pale squares floating in the air. "How do you know that?" "I saw you from the coffee shop window. I tried to wave, but you were—" "You were watching me?" "I was sitting at a table. It's not the same thing." Milo gave a sharp bark. The sound cut across my irritation. "What do you want, Evan?" "Have you talked to Mara this morning?" A cold line slid down my spine. "No. I'm walking her dog because she asked me to. Why?" He paused. Behind the fog, a harbor bell sounded once. Milo strained toward it. "Evan." "Her car's in the lot by the ferry terminal," he said. "The driver's side door was open. I found it there twenty minutes ago." "Why were you at the ferry terminal?" "I was on my way to work. I called her, and her phone went straight to voicemail. Then I saw the car." "Maybe she left it there." "With the door open?" "Maybe she got a ride." "I don't know." I hated that he sounded worried. I hated more that he had a reason to be. Mara had gone quiet in the last few weeks. She'd skipped our Sunday breakfast twice and canceled the one evening we'd planned to spend sorting the boxes in her spare room. When I asked, she said work was exhausting. When I asked if something was wrong with Dean, she'd smiled too quickly and told me not to start. Milo yanked the leash. "Stay where you are," I said, mostly to Evan. "I'm going to call her." "I already did." "I can call again." "June, don't go to the terminal alone." "I'm not asking permission." "I know." A breath scraped through the phone. "I'm asking you to let me come with you." I could see him in my mind without wanting to: dark hair damp at the temples, hands shoved into the pockets of the gray coat he wore in winter. The man who'd once held my hand in the emergency room while my father's name sat on a clipboard between us. The man who'd later left town without telling me he'd been offered a job on the mainland. "I don't need you," I said. "I know that too." The steadiness in his voice made me angrier than an argument would have. Milo pulled so hard the leash burned against my palm. His front paws hit the sidewalk edge, then he lunged down a narrow path between two buildings. "Milo!" I clamped both hands around the leash. He didn't bolt. He pulled with an urgency that made my shoulder twist. "June," Evan said. "What's happening?" "Your dog's having a moment." "He isn't my dog." "I know whose dog he is." I followed the lead, because the alternative was letting Milo drag me off my feet. The path sloped toward the harbor, slick with rain. I could barely see the railings ahead. Milo kept his nose low, moving in short, determined bursts. At the bottom of the path, he stopped beside a row of stacked lobster pots. A knitted blue scarf lay in a puddle. I knew it immediately. Mara had worn it the night she came to my apartment in November, shivering in a thin sweater even though the heater was working. She'd left it behind, and I'd teased her for forgetting it. She'd told me to keep it. I crouched and touched the wet wool. "Mara wore this yesterday," I whispered. Evan heard me through the phone. "Where are you?" "Down by the east slip." "Stay there. I'm coming." "I said I can handle this." "And I heard you. Please, June." Milo whined at the scarf, then lifted his nose toward the dock. His body stiffened. The fog swallowed the water and the boats beyond it, leaving only the groan of rope against a mast somewhere nearby. I ended the call. For a few seconds, I listened to the small sounds around me: water knocking against wood, a gull complaining overhead, my own breath turning ragged. Then I looked down at Mara's scarf and saw something caught in the fringe. A tiny red thread. Not blood. Fabric. A thread from the lining of a jacket or a bag, pulled free and caught on the wool. Milo nudged the scarf. I wrapped it in a paper napkin from my pocket and stood up. At the end of the slip, a metal gate swung against its post. The chain hung loose. And beyond it, half-hidden by the fog, someone had left a second set of footprints in the wet grit.