Chapter 14 - We Bought Another Boat
Two years after the flood, Liam asked whether we could buy another emergency boat.
My first response was absolutely not.
Then hurricane season approached.
We still lived near the Cape Fear River.
Emergency planning was rational.
So I bought a used fourteen-foot aluminum skiff.
Nothing fancy.
Registered in my name.
Stored with a clearly documented evacuation plan.
Mr. Dalton laughed when he saw it.
“Back at it?”
“Apparently.”
The difference was not ownership.
The difference was assumptions.
My emergency plan no longer depended on one person’s promise to return.
Primary evacuation route.
Secondary route.
County shelter.
Rachel’s address.
Medication bags.
Neighbor contacts.
Boat only if road evacuation failed and authorities recommended water movement.
Liam helped label containers.
Sophie decorated one flashlight with unicorn stickers.
Preparedness no longer felt like compensating for Ethan.
It felt like exactly what it should have been.
Shared knowledge.
Clear roles.
No hero.
No martyr.
Ethan also changed some things.
He completed financial counseling ordered as part of settlement-related agreements.
Closed Harborline.
Took a salaried development position without outside business interests for a period.
He became painfully punctual about custody exchanges.
Maybe because someone was tracking them at first.
Later because habit changed.
I did not mistake improvement for restoration.
We were never remarrying.
But children do not need divorced parents to love each other.
May you like
They need them to become boring enough to cooperate.
We were getting there.
