This, he thought, playing with Astrid’s fingers. Playing with the future as he laughed and teased and reminisced about the past.

I want this.

I want this to be my life.

Just like this.

A Small Hotel

Later that night he was in the boathouse, making small repairs on the Hildur. The radio on, a litter of Tootsie Roll wrappers on the workbench. When he heard footfalls on the dock outside, he knew without looking around it was Astrid.

She slipped inside the door and leaned her back against it.

“And whose little girl are you?” Kennet said.

Her eyes crinkled. “You make a terrible lecher.”

“I do, don’t I?”

Her dress was green and white stripes. Her undressed hair parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears. Her cheeks a little sunburned. Her eyes silver.

“I’m so in love with you,” Kennet said. Or tried to say. Half of it stuck in his throat.

On the radio came Rodgers & Hart:

There’s a small hotel

With a wishing well

I wish that we were there together…

He held out his hand to her. “I dance better than I lech. But only a little.”

They danced and kissed and disappeared in each other. Kennet tried to make up better words to the song:

There’s a Hotel Fisher

With a wishing fish…er…

I wish fish were dished up for dinnnerrrrr….

“You compose worse than you lech,” Astrid said.

“Don’t marry Zé,” Kennet whispered in her hair.

She leaned back to look at him, but he tucked her head back against his chest and kept going. “Don’t marry him. Don’t leave New York. Don’t go home. Stay here forever. Stay with us.”

“Stay with you.”

“I’m part of here. Part of us. Stay.”

She wound both her arms around his waist, forehead to his heart.

“Don’t marry him,” he said.

“I’m having a hard time seeing how I can.”

“Then stay in Clayton.”

“I don’t see how I can do that either, but… I’ll come back. I’ll… I’ll figure it out. I can work. I’m not afraid to work. I’m not afraid to be on my own.”

“You’ll be with us.”

“Don’t let’s talk about it anymore. I came to tell you the fika is continuing in my room tonight. With cake.”

He put his tools away and locked the boathouse door behind them. Holding hands, they were only a few steps along the dock when he stopped. “Right here,” he said.

“What was right here?”