The skiff
Dev took a photograph of the bow piece after Iris and he finished fitting it. He sent it to Eamon with a note that named what was done and what remained. Eamon replied the next evening: I can see her taking shape. I am still cross about the trip. Call me when you have a date I can trust. Dev read it aloud, smiling at the word cross. Eamon used it when he wanted to be angry without shouting.
They worked three more days on the portion Iris had agreed to complete. She came in early enough to hear the yard before Dev's saw began: ropes knocking against posts, the little engine on a customer's boat struggling to catch, Mara upstairs closing windows against the sea wind. The work did not become a farewell ritual. One screw stuck and had to be taken out. A plank arrived with a flaw neither of them had noticed at delivery. They argued over where to make a new join and ate lunch on the floor while they thought. Dev told a story about her father measuring the wrong end of a railing and insisting the railing had changed overnight. Iris laughed hard enough to spill water down her shirt. The next morning she found herself waiting for the same laughter and heard only Dev, who was alive and holding the other end of the wood.
When her part was finished, he wrote the remaining jobs on a board. Some he could do after the contract he had already accepted; for the others he would ask a builder from the next harbor. Mara read the list, asked two practical questions, and told him she would not take new commissions after Eamon's boat and the small repairs already promised. She said it at the yard table where her husband had once sorted bills. Dev did not ask if she was sure. He asked where the spare keys would be while she visited her sister.
That evening Mara and Iris sat on the floor of the skiff shed. The boat on its supports cast narrow shadows across them. Iris had taken her own tools from the wall and laid them in a canvas roll. Her father's plane remained on its hook. She touched its handle and left it there.
“I thought you'd take that,” Mara said.
“I'd hear him telling me I was using it wrong in every place I worked.”
“He did tell you that.”
“And sometimes he was wrong.” Iris rolled the canvas around her chisels. “You still think he promised Eamon because he wanted to help him.”
“He did want that.”
“He also wanted me to have no time to go.”
Mara rested her head against the skiff's side. “I think he was frightened of an empty place at this table. I think he let his fear make a promise he had no right to make. That isn't a defense.”
“It sounded like one when he was alive.”
“Then I should have said it more plainly while he could hear.” Mara folded her hands in her lap. “I miss him enough that I want to make every memory kind. You knew him well enough to stop me.”
Iris looked at the unfinished edge of the skiff. The last day they had worked on it, her father had held a narrow plank while she marked the curve. He had begun whistling the same three wrong notes as always. She had joined him badly on purpose. They were still angry about Eamon's launch. She could remember the wrong notes as clearly as the argument.
“We can leave this here for now?” she asked.
“Yes. Dev needs the space for Eamon's boat, but not until after you're gone. He can move it under cover. When we close, we'll decide what to do with it.”
“You might sell it.”
“I might. I won't do it without telling you.” Mara nudged Iris's boot with hers. “And I might finally spend that week at my sister's. I haven't stayed in her house since you were small.”
“You'll complain about her kettle.”
“She'll complain about how I make tea. She always does.”
Iris tightened the tool roll. “We're closing the yard, then. After the work we promised ourselves. The sale can wait.”
“It will have to.” Mara had kept accounts here for two decades; she knew how long a property could sit. “Dev can finish Eamon's boat with us paying what we owe him. Then we can take our time with the rest.”
The decision did not change the shed. A gust moved the cover over the skiff, and a loose corner came down against Iris's shoulder. She stood to tie it. Her father had made the cover too long so it could shelter whatever odd boat they brought in next. There would be no next odd boat for them to build here. It was still a good cover. She pulled the knot tight enough for the night wind and not so tight Dev would curse her in the morning.
On the last evening before her departure, Iris packed clothes beside her tools. The berth manager had sent directions and the name of a woman who would show her the new yard. She read them once, then put the phone down. Mara came in with a sandwich she insisted Iris take for the drive. “You can buy food on the road,” Mara said. “This is better.”
“You sound like him.”
“I made the sandwiches for twenty years. He learned from me.”
Iris took it. At the door Mara asked what time Julian would arrive. Iris told her. Mara nodded and did not ask why she had invited him. They had decided enough for one week. Tomorrow they would say goodbye without deciding every future name for what remained.