The Unsinkable Greta James(81)

And for the first time in a while, she thinks maybe she does.

When she looks up again, her dad is standing beside her. “What you did up there,” he says, “was pretty amazing.”

“I was only trying to help her out. She’s a nice kid.”

“I don’t just mean that,” he says, and the way he says it—so full of sincerity—makes Greta’s throat go tight. “It was beautiful, what you played.”

“I’m sorry yours wasn’t.” It isn’t something she was planning to say, not at all. But there it is anyway. Conrad blinks a few times, looking as surprised as she is. She clears her throat and starts again: “I can’t apologize for writing it. It was how I felt. But I am sorry I hurt you. And that it took me until now to say that.”

He stares at her for what feels like a long time, so long she’s convinced he might walk away. Instead, he says, “You were just being honest. You were being…”

“What?” she asks when he trails off.

“Look, we both know I tend to play things safe. Your mom wasn’t like that. When she came back to my bar that night, nobody in her life thought it was a good idea. Things would’ve been a lot easier for her if she’d stuck with the other guy. But it turned out he wasn’t her dream.” He smiles. “I was.”

Greta nods. “And she was yours.”

“Right, but for me it was easy,” he says. “Wanting to be with her? It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. For her, it was more of a risk. She had to take a leap, a big one, but she wasn’t afraid of that.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “What I’m trying to say is that sometimes I forget how brave she could be. How fearless.” When he opens them again, he looks right at Greta. “Just like you.”

She stares at him, lost for words. “Thanks, Dad,” she manages, blinking a few times, though she doesn’t feel particularly fearless right now. In fact, it’s the opposite. She’s been too afraid to revisit “Astronomy” because it would mean revisiting not just the hope she’d been holding on to when she wrote the song but the grief that’s now a necessary part of it too. Finishing it would mean saying goodbye. And she hasn’t felt ready for that. So instead she’s been hiding. But it’s time to take her own kind of risk.

“You know how you could really thank me?” her dad is saying. “You could write me a new song. Maybe call it ‘Oceanography.’?”

Greta laughs, unsure what to make of this. “Why?”

“Because your mother’s was called ‘Astronomy,’?” he explains, looking pleased with himself, “and oceanography is sort of the opposite of that. It’s as far as you can get from the stars. But it’s still interesting in its own way.”

She doesn’t know if he came up with this on the fly or whether he’s been thinking about it for a while now. She’s not sure it matters.

“To opposites,” she says, clinking her glass against his, and even as he tips his head back to drink, she can see that he’s smiling too.

Later, as she makes her way back to her tiny box of a room for the last time, Greta realizes she hasn’t thought about Ben in hours. And maybe that’s okay. They had a week, and now that week is over. Sometimes that’s all you get. Maybe it was enough.

But when she unlocks the door, the first thing she sees is the book, right where she’d left it, in the middle of the bed. She sits down and picks it up, turning it over in her hands. Her brain is still hazy from the cocktails, her body still buzzing from the show. But when she opens it to the first page, she finds herself yielding to the words anyway, and by the time she closes it again, hours later, she can hear the attendants starting to collect the luggage in the hall, as beyond the walls of her room, the ship glides into the Port of Vancouver.





Chapter Thirty-Two


Greta is on the observation deck, elbows on the railing, watching the city grow closer, when a text comes in from Ben.

She’s okay, it says. No surgery.

That’s all it says. But she’s relieved to know.

I’m so glad, she writes back, and then she waits, watching the screen for a few seconds, hoping more of the little bubbles will appear. But they don’t.

The air is chilly, and though it’s only the beginning of June, it smells of fall, like leaves and wood smoke and damp. Greta stays there for another minute, soaking it all in, then slips the phone back into her pocket, picks up her guitar case, and heads inside.

Everyone else is at the buffet, having one last meal before they’re set to disembark. Greta’s flight is the earliest, which means she’ll be getting off soon, with the first group. So she grabs an apple before walking over to say goodbye.

Conrad stands up when he sees her. “You off?”

She nods and hands over a bag from the gift shop. He reaches inside uncertainly, then pulls out a puzzle.

“A new beginning,” she tells him as he studies the box, a thousand pieces of blue-and-white glacier.

“Wow,” Davis says, peering over his shoulder. “That looks like a complete and total nightmare.”

“It does,” Conrad agrees; then he looks up at Greta, his eyes damp. “Thank you.”

Greta smiles. “Thank you for a great week,” she says, and to her surprise, he begins to laugh. She does too, then tries again: “An unexpected week?”