Page 24 of Pull Me Under

He doesn’t even know what we left behind.

The thought arrives sharp as a fishhook, catches somewhere behind my ribs. He doesn’t know about Grandad’s hands shaking as he packed the van – the only time I ever saw those hands shake, hands that could strip an engine blindfolded, that carved seals from driftwood and never missed a line. Doesn’t know about Dad’s silence that lasted three months after we left, a silence so complete it was like living with a photograph. Doesn’t know about Grandad standing in the lane at three in the morning, loading the last box, and not looking back. Not at the shed. Not at the harbour. Not at the life he’d built from nothing and was leaving with less.

He doesn’t get to rage at me for things I was too small to understand.

I set the mug down harder than necessary. It doesn’t break – things rarely do when you want them to.

The manual’s still open to the page I was reading when he burst in. Hydraulic pressure systems. The inside cover reads Property of P. J. Curnow – Sea Salt Bay Harbour Mechanic in careful block letters, and the margins are filled with scrawled handwriting that suggests Peter Curnow thought fast and understood even quicker. Check seals monthly – salt corrupts everything. Underlined twice.

Even the dead leave instructions, if you know where to look.

Wind howls through a cracked pane I hadn’t noticed before, bringing the smell of rain that’s coming but not here yet. Everything in Sea Salt Bay is like that – always about to happen, never quite arriving. Storms building. Truths hovering. Hearts about to break but holding on for one more tide.

I should have shouted at Reuben. Should have given him the fight he wanted, the confirmation that Trelawneys are exactly as awful as he’s been telling himself. Should have blasted a cruel line about his absent wife, his golden son who got to step back and build his own life, his younger son who watches me like I’m a problem he can’t solve.

But I’ve never been good at rage. Not the loud kind where the perfect put-down and response are ready on the tip of your tongue.

The quiet kind, though? The kind that builds foundations and tears them down? The kind that brings you back to a place that doesn’t want you, just to prove it wrong? That kind I know like my own heartbeat.

I fold the tarp that doesn’t need folding, straighten tools that are already true. My fingers need to work, while my brain sorts through the mess of being Brynn Trelawney in a place that wishes I wasn’t.

There’s a box under the workbench I hadn’t noticed before. Old biscuit tin, the kind that gets repurposed for everything but biscuits. Inside: fishing flies, a dried seahorse, three marbles, and⁠—

My breath catches.

A piece of driftwood, half-carved into what might have been a seal or might have been a dream. Grandad’s work. Has to be. Nobody else carved like that – finding the shape that was already in the wood, just waiting.

See there, little fish? The seal’s already inside. We’re just helping her out.

The memory surfaces whole and uninvited. This workshop – this workshop – smelling of sawdust and the peppermints he always had in his pocket. Me, maybe five, standing on a crate to reach the bench. Him, guiding my hands on the carving knife, teaching me to see what could be instead of what was. His waxed jacket rough against my cheek. His laugh, which was rare and deep and made you feel like you’d won first prize when you didn’t know you were trying.

He didn’t speak that night. The night we left. He just carried my suitcase to the car, his hands unsteady, which made my stomach twist, a sensation I still remember all these years later. He didn’t look back. Not at the shed. Not at the harbour. Not at the life he’d spent forty years building.

I didn’t understand then. Thought we were coming back. Thought it was an adventure, a holiday, a brief interruption in the story of being the Trelawneys of Sea Salt Bay.

Twenty years later, I’m holding his unfinished seal, and I still don’t understand. Not completely. But I know more than Reuben thinks. Know about the meetings that happened after midnight. The threats that weren’t quite threats. The way certain contracts got cancelled, certain moorings got reassigned, certain families got frozen out until leaving seemed like the only option.

I know about survival that looks like cowardice from the outside.

The notebook is where I left it. I flip to a fresh page, write with a focus that keeps the shaking at bay:

IMMEDIATE ACTIONS:

Check cottage roof (storm’s coming)

Source building supplies (not from Harding-friendly vendors)

Register with harbour master (official claim on shed and mooring)

Set up proper workshop operations

Establish income stream – fill Peter’s gap?

Fix what can be fixed

Ignore what can’t

Do not engage with Reuben Harding