Innis Harbor

by Patricia Evans Cox

  Amir Farzaneh lifted the last of the paint cans into the back of her truck and shut the tailgate behind them. She’d spent the last seven hours repainting the trim on Cal Horton’s cottage, barely finishing the final upstairs window with the last of the twilight. The air had grown sharper as the temperature dropped, and she pulled on her Carhartt jacket from the front seat before she climbed in.

  Amir had owned her own business now for seven years; she’d started with small carpentry jobs when she was twenty-three, then trained to be a locksmith and combined that with the odd jobs she was already doing. After a few years, the business had grown, and she was known in town as the one to call for pretty much anything. In a town as small as Innis Harbor, there wasn’t enough business for specialized tradespeople, so she’d learned to do everything from plumbing to roofing over the years, as well as marine repair and maintenance.

  She had just started the truck when her cellphone rang. Someone was locked out of their house on White Street. She knew the house, it was three blocks from the Horton cottage, but she also knew the owner had died, and as far as she knew, no one had been there since. Her headlights illuminated the house as she pulled up and cut the engine. Someone was standing in the shadows beside the door, and Amir saw as she came up the walkway that the woman definitely wasn’t from the area. She wore an expensive black leather jacket, a beanie pulled low on her head, black jeans, and a white T-shirt. She had her hands shoved all the way down in her pockets and barely looked at Amir as she climbed the steps; she just kept her gaze fixed on the door.

  “You need a key cut?”

  The woman finally looked her way and nodded, and when she did, Amir was startled. She was beautiful, in a spare, angular way, with deep blue eyes and the palest wash of freckles across her nose. Amir watched her pull off her beanie and run her hand through her hair. She looked tired, and there were fine lines around her eyes that she rubbed away with the heel of her hand.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I need to get into my aunt’s house, and I don’t have the key. I didn’t realize until I got here.”

  Amir looked at the bag Loch had dropped onto the chair by the door. “You’re Samia’s niece?”

  She nodded. “She died a few weeks ago and left me the house. I just flew in today.”

  Amir paused until the woman met her gaze.

  “I can do that for you,” she said. “But I need to see something that lets me know you have the right to be in the house.”

  The woman just shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment, before she looked back at Amir.

  “As far as I know, criminals don’t usually call a local locksmith to let them into a house before they rob it.” Loch stopped, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Look, it’s been a long day, and I just need the key. I guess I can find something in there to prove it to you if you really have to have it.”

  Amir leaned over to switch on the porch light, then looked her up and down. “I’m not trying to be difficult here, but I can’t just let some random person into a locked house.” She paused. “And you don’t exactly look like a local.”

  Loch zipped up her jacket and held Amir’s gaze as she spoke. “I’m not a fucking local. That’s kind of the point.”

  Amir shook her head, pulled her truck keys out of her pocket, and started back down the stairs. Whoever she was, she wasn’t the only one who’d had a long day.

  “I’m the only locksmith in town,” she said as she walked down the hill to her truck. “So, good luck with that door.”

  The seagulls called overhead as they glided down to the harbor to pick over the remnants of the day’s catch left on the dock after the crews finished unloading the boats. The truck door slammed shut as Amir started the engine, and she looked back over her shoulder as she shifted into gear. The woman was sitting on the porch steps, but her head was in her hands now, her hair falling forward and covering her face. Amir leaned her head back against the seat for a moment, then cut the engine, looking out to the stars barely visible through the tops of the trees.

  “Congrats, Amir,” she said to herself. “You’ve managed to make a random woman cry in the space of thirty seconds. That may be a new record.”

  Amir sighed and reached over to the cooler on the floorboard and pulled out the Friday afternoon beers she’d been too busy to drink and shifted her truck back into park. As she walked back up to the porch, Samia’s niece looked up and turned her head away to swipe at her cheek with the heel of her hand.

  “Let’s try this again.” Amir held out a beer. “I’m Amir Farzaneh.”

  The woman paused, then took it and looked over at her in the yellowed porch light. “Loch Battersby.”

  They both popped the tops on the cans and drank, looking out over the sea. Amir looked at her and smiled, nodding toward the step. “So, you’ve been here for five minutes, and you’re already copying my style?”

  Loch looked down. They were both wearing black high-top Chuck Taylors, scuffed and unlaced at the top. It was enough to make her smile, and when she did, Amir saw the flash of resemblance to Samia.

  Night sounds fell around them. The silence was surprisingly comfortable, and Loch pulled her beanie back on as she glanced at Amir. She was taller than her, rare outside the modeling world, with defined arms and square hands crisscrossed with scars. Her skin was dark olive, with black hair cut close and streaked with white paint at the tips. When Amir finally looked back at her, her eyes were the color of honey, like backlit amber.

  Amir glanced at the door. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”

  Loch looked down, tightening the laces on her shoes while she tried to stop the tears threatening to gather in her eyes. “Thanks. Did you know her?”

  “I did,” Amir said. “I did some work for her last year.”

  “I haven’t been here in a long time.” Loch ran a hand through her hair. She stared out toward the sea, then shook her head and glanced back at the house. “And to tell you the truth, I don’t know what I’m doing here now.”

  Amir studied the sharp lines of Loch’s shoulders as she spoke. She looked fragile, as if she might break if someone touched her. “I’d better get going and leave you to it.”

  Amir stood and offered a hand to Loch, who looked surprised, but let her pull her to her feet. She stopped briefly at the front door before she started walking back down the steps, handing Loch a key as she passed.

  “Your aunt was always locking herself out of the house. I finally just put a spare on top of the doorframe.”

  Loch watched Amir climb into her truck and pull out, the red glow of her taillights finally disappearing around the bend in the road.

  Loch woke the next morning to the sounds of the fishing boats leaving the harbor, the horns clashing and echoing over the surface of the water. She rolled over in the sleeping bag, her back dotted with what felt like bruises after sleeping on the porch. She’d finally walked into the house the night before after Amir left, turning on a single lamp by the door, but the memories hung dense and layered in the air. She’d stood there for a few minutes, but in the end, she just pulled a sleeping bag out of the hall closet, eyes straight ahead, and switched the lamp off on her way out the door.

  But now it was a new day, and as Loch rolled the sleeping bag back up, she told herself to stop being such a baby. People die. It happens all the time. It just shouldn’t be this big of a goddamn deal to walk into the house.

  She left her jacket and the sleeping bag on the nearest chair and opened the door. The screen door creaked behind her as she turned the handle and stepped inside. The curtains were all pulled shut, and dust particles hung in the air, suspended in the slivers of sunlight that had managed to edge in. There was a magazine and a mug beside the chair Colleen used to sit in, as if she’d been there yesterday, and a deep imprint on one side of the couch where Samia had always sat beside her. The ashtray Loch had made them when she was eight sat in the center of the coffee table, the sides covered in glued-on seashells. Two of the sh
ells were missing now, leaving wide gaps showing only the rough edges of the hardened glue.

  Loch pulled the curtains back one by one and opened the windows halfway to let in some fresh air. She gathered the pile of mail that littered the entryway, dropping it into the trash without looking at it as she picked up the magazine by Colleen’s chair to do the same. As she folded it into her hand, she noticed the date. September 2012. The month and year Colleen had died.

  Loch’s phone rang just then, and she jumped, startled back into the present. She carefully smoothed out the magazine and set it back in place on the end table before she looked at the name on her phone and answered.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, baby,” she said. “Are you at the house?”

  Her mom’s voice broke the spell, and Loch walked back outside into the sunshine and sank into one of the porch chairs.

  “Because I remembered this morning that I forgot to send the key.”

  Loch nodded, then remembered she was on the phone and cleared her throat. “Yeah, I got here last night just before dark.”

  “Don’t push yourself, okay? Just give yourself some time for everything to settle and then you can decide what you want to do.”

  Loch took a deep breath, her gaze locked onto the ferry gliding sideways into the docks below.

  “I know,” she said. “I will.”

  After they hung up, Loch grabbed her wallet and locked up the house. While she was on the phone, she’d gotten a good look at how badly the wooden porch stairs were peeling. The overgrown grass around them was littered with paint flakes still clinging to the fragments of wood they’d taken with them as they fell. The sun seemed unnaturally bright, so she slipped on her sunglasses and let the breeze play with her hair as she walked toward town. She stopped at the hardware store and bought some white paint and a paintbrush, then picked up a sandwich and a few groceries before she climbed the hill to the house. Not one person gave her a second glance; it felt luxuriously strange to be able to wander through shops and back out onto the sidewalk without flashbulbs going off in her face every two seconds.

  By the time she got around to painting the steps, it was late afternoon. It turned out to be trickier than she thought it would be; the peeling edges of the old paint wouldn’t stay down no matter how hard she pressed them with the wet paintbrush. She’d only gotten through half of the lower step when a truck rumbled up to the curb at the base of the hill and parked. The locksmith from the night before got out and slammed the door shut behind her. Loch went back to her painting until she heard Amir’s voice beside her.

  “Your aunt had me change the locks on the back door last summer and gave me a key in case she locked herself out again.” She pulled the key out of her pocket and held it out to Loch. “I thought if you didn’t have the front key, you might not have the back one, either.”

  Loch nodded and slipped it into her pocket as Amir leaned down to study the can of paint.

  She looked up at Loch with a raised eyebrow. “What the hell are you doing with this?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Loch held a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun. “I’m painting the steps.”

  She picked up her brush again and went to dip it in the paint, but Amir lifted the can swiftly just out of her reach.

  “Do you know what kind of paint you’re using?”

  Loch closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Why the fuck did it matter? “White,” she said, her eyes still closed. “It’s white paint.” She sat back on her heels and nodded toward the half-painted step. “Coincidentally, you’ll see the steps are also white.”

  She moved to dip her brush back in the paint, but Amir got the lid on the can before she got there.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Amir said, setting it back on the step. “Trust me.”

  She walked to her truck and dug around in the back, then headed back to the steps carrying a different paint can, along with two brushes and some tools.

  “I know you think I’m just busting your chops here, but you can’t paint exterior stairs with…” She paused, clearly trying not to laugh. “…interior semi-gloss.”

  Loch looked up, squinting into the sun behind her. “What are you—the paint police?”

  “Yes.” Amir pried the top off her can and handed Loch a tool that looked like a metal spatula. “Yes, I am.”

  Loch watched as Amir used the same tool she’d handed her to start chipping the old paint from the unpainted side of the stair, so she started on the one above, scraping the loose pieces onto the grass. Maybe removing the old paint shards first was a good idea, but Amir didn’t have to be a jerk about it.

  They worked together in silence for the next few minutes until the old paint was almost completely gone, then Amir pulled some sandpaper out of her pocket and sanded down the edges of what was left, smoothing her hand over the dust, testing for stray chips. Loch sat on the grass to the side of the steps.

  “So, you paint, too? I thought you were a locksmith.”

  “I am.” Amir scraped the last of the wet paint off the first step and wiped it on a towel. “But people in town call me for everything.”

  She was wearing khaki work pants and a black T-shirt rolled up at the cuffs with black work boots. She was nowhere close to Loch’s type, but it was hard not to notice the sharp definition in her arms that flexed as she worked, which almost made up for the attitude. Almost.

  Amir looked over at Loch, shielding her eyes from the last of the afternoon sun. “So, what do you do?”

  Loch looked down at the steps, now smooth and ready for paint. “Nothing this useful.”

  Amir handed her a brush. “We’re going to use marine paint on these,” she said. “It’s waterproof and designed for ship decks, so it holds up much longer outside under a snow load.”

  They painted the steps from top to bottom, which went quickly with two of them working. Amir painted three steps to Loch’s one, then touched up the corners on Loch’s stair before she put her brush down. Loch stepped back. Not surprisingly, it looked great.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  Amir put the top back on the paint can and gathered her tools. “Nothing,” she said, glancing up at the house. “But I could use a sink to clean these brushes before I toss them back in the truck.”

  Loch pulled herself up on the porch beside the wet steps and turned to help Amir, but she’d lifted herself up before Loch could put out her hand. Loch opened the screen door, led Amir into the kitchen, and turned on the hot water in the sink.

  “Sorry about all the dust. I don’t think my aunt was much of a housekeeper after her partner died.”

  Amir worked the brushes with her fingers, paint flowing in a translucent white river into the drain below.

  “Wow.” She glanced over at Loch. “She was gay?”

  Loch nodded. “She and her partner, Colleen, were together for forty-two years.”

  “I never knew that,” Amir said. “I must have met Samia after her partner passed away.”

  She nodded toward the back door. “Which reminds me, that deck is going to need another coat of polyurethane before the snow hits this fall.”

  Loch’s eyes followed hers. “What deck?”

  Amir shook the water from the brushes and laid them on the counter. “You haven’t been outside yet?”

  Loch rubbed her temples, trying to stave off the headache forming like a murky cloud behind her eyes. “I haven’t really been past the front room and the kitchen.”

  Amir nodded, then turned the water off and dried her hands on the kitchen towel. “It’s a lot to deal with, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Loch let out a long breath. “It’s like she’s still here.”

  “I get it.” Amir paused and looked over at the door. “Come out back with me.”

  She opened the door for Loch, who reluctantly walked through it, only to stop in her tracks once she did. The backyard had always been just a fenced plot of patc
hy grass, but now curved cedar steps led to an expansive, glossy deck with a sunken rock-lined firepit in the center, surrounded by built-in cedar risers. Globe lights crisscrossed above more white Adirondack chairs along the upper deck, surrounded by handmade bird feeders mounted on the railing.

  “This is amazing.” Loch turned to Amir. “How did you even know this was here?”

  Amir leaned back through the door and flipped a switch on the inside wall. “Because I built it.”

  The lights sparkled against the falling dusk and scattered amber light across the deck. Loch spotted the firewood rack next to the door, pulled two split pine logs off the top, then walked over and dropped them in the center of the firepit with a resonant clatter.

  “Hang on.” Amir smiled and lifted the lid of the wood box beside the firewood rack, pulling out some smaller kindling and a stack of newspaper. “You’re going to need these.”

  She walked over and picked up the logs Loch had dropped in the firepit and crumpled the paper at the bottom, adding the smaller pieces of kindling in a vertical grid over that.

  “Wait,” Loch said, looking back toward the door. “I have no idea where she’d keep a lighter.”

  Amir pulled a chrome lighter out of her pocket and clicked it under the edge of the newspaper. It caught quickly in a burst of blue flame and ignited the dry kindling. Loch watched it for a moment, then walked back into the kitchen and pulled two beers from the refrigerator. When she got back, she sat back on the bench seat, zipping her hoodie and pulling the sleeves down over her hands. She handed one of the bottles to Amir.

  “Thanks for this,” Loch said, her gaze following the first sparks from the fire up into the navy blue evening sky. “I feel like I can breathe out here.”

  Amir sat and looked over at Loch. “So, where are you from?”

  “Manhattan. The last time I was here was about nine years ago when I was seventeen.”

  The logs caught fire suddenly from the kindling and shifted, sending flames toward the sky.

  “But I wish I’d come back sooner.” Loch’s voice was suddenly softer, and Amir watched her eyes fall as she peeled the label from her bottle. “I wanted to. I was just always working.”