I’m close enough to see the officers standing in front of the accident scene. I remember that our rental car is a blue sedan. So far, I just see a black Jeep. It’s crunched, accordion-style. My God. I peer farther ahead and see a stretcher. A dark-haired child, a little girl, is being wheeled into an ambulance. I can’t make out her face, but I see a fleck of pink. “Ella!” I scream. “Ella! Mommy’s here!”
Another police car pulls up along the roadside, and an officer leaps out of his car and restrains me. “Ma’am,” he says, “you’ll have to stay back.”
“But my daughter!” I cry. “She’s my . . .” And then I see the minivan with a huge dent in the side. I see blood on the roadway. A man with a torn shirt is hovering over a woman who is screaming into the ambulance. “My baby!” she cries. “My baby!”
I step away. I feel scared and horrified but also relieved. My heart aches for this mother whose baby is fighting for life, and yet, mine is safely buckled in her car seat with her dad somewhere on the road ahead.
I hear my phone ringing in my bag. It’s James. “Hi,” I say, sighing.
“Where are you? I hear a lot of noise in the background.”
“There was an accident,” I say. “I thought it might be you, so I walked up to make sure. Oh, James, I was so scared.”
“Honey, don’t worry about us. We just got to the restaurant. Ella ordered mac and cheese.”
“Mac and cheese,” I say, the words instantly soothing me. “James, I thought—”
“Hey,” he says. “Everything’s fine, honey. Please, don’t worry.” I hear Ella making adorable noises in the background. I want to be there, sitting beside her. “I was thinking that after we’re back from this trip, maybe you could take some time off, or at least talk to your editor about not taking on so many assignments.” He pauses for a moment. “I mean, if you want. It’s your decision, and I don’t want to pressure you. It’s just that, well, we miss you.”
I take a deep breath, then exhale. I hear Ella giggling about something. “You’re right,” I say. And he is. Something has to change.
An hour has passed, maybe more. I’ve paddled across the lake and back, narrowly avoiding an incoming seaplane, and am now staring ahead to my houseboat and the adjoining dock. It’s not one of the fancier docks, comparatively speaking. Most of the houseboats on the neighboring docks are newer, two stories, and generally less cobbled together than the ones on my dock. But there’s something a little stiff and cold about the newer ones, with their elaborate architecture and pristine finishes.
I see Alex ahead. He’s waving at me from his deck. I smile and paddle toward him.
“Hi,” I say, handing him his vest. “Sorry if it’s a little wet.”
“I’m glad it served as a nice seat cushion,” he says, grinning. “Want to come in for a bit? I could offer you three-day-old takeout. I think there’s some pad Thai somewhere in the fridge. We could scrape off the layer of mold.”
“Sounds appetizing,” I say, smiling again.
He helps me tie the kayak to the cleat, then offers his hand to help me out. I take it, just as I begin to lose my footing. He reaches for my waist and catches me before I fall backward into the lake.
“Sorry,” I say as I steady myself on the deck. I unzip my life vest and survey my jeans. They’re a little wet, but not soaked.
“Did you enjoy your three-hour tour?” he asks.
“Yeah. There are some ritzy houseboats out there. I was shocked. I saw one that looked like an Italian villa.”
Alex nods. “The newer docks don’t have the same character. They’re McMansions on barges.” He shrugs. “It just doesn’t fit. This community was built by poor artists, bohemians. Fifty years ago, you could buy a houseboat for five hundred dollars. Nowadays, on most docks, you have to be a millionaire to move into the neighborhood. I don’t know, somehow that just doesn’t seem right.”
I nod, admiring his idealism. I’ve read a bit about the history of the houseboat community myself and was surprised to learn that the neighborhood sprung up from such humble beginnings. In the late 1800s, for instance, Lake union ’s “houseboats” were simply crudely built shacks on barges, inhabited by poor laborers, mostly loggers, and their families. There was even a saloon and adjoining brothel perched at the end of one of the docks. “How about you?” I say, suddenly curious about Alex’s own history. “Have you always lived in Seattle?”