Spring came slow to Crosshaven. The ice broke up in the channel and the gulls came back and the boatworks smelled like fresh cedar again. Asher finished the sloop in March. He named it the Second Crossing, which I told him was the most obvious name in the world, and he said that was the point.
We took it out on the first warm day, just the two of us, down the channel and out past the breakwater into open water. The tremor in my hands had eased, Dr. Reyes said, because I wasn't spending all my days waiting. I had started working in the boatworks with Asher. I was sanding and varnishing and learning to read the grain of the wood. I was not good at it yet, but I was learning.
Asher stood at the tiller with the wind in the sail and the sun on his face, and for the first time since I'd met hi
