PART 2: Still Waters

The days unfolded slowly in Pine Grove. Morgan woke early, brewed coffee, and sat on the back steps with her father’s fishing hat resting in her lap like a talisman. Some mornings she scribbled in her notebook—half-thoughts, memories, the shape of Jeremy’s smile—but mostly, she watched the lake. It reminded her of breath: sometimes still, sometimes restless.

Luke stopped by every few days, never uninvited. Once, he brought her a box of fresh tomatoes from his garden. Another time, he handed her a tattered paperback and said, “You strike me as a person who likes a sad book with a good ending.”

He never asked what she was doing there. Never asked the big questions, which made her trust him.

One afternoon, Morgan wandered into the cabin’s attic looking for a blanket and instead found a metal box tucked behind an old chest of drawers. It was her father’s: a cigar box crammed with lures, loose change, and a folded Polaroid of the two of them on the dock, holding up a sunfish no bigger than her palm. She was nine. Her cheeks were sunburned, but she was grinning wide.

The memory rose with startling clarity. Her dad behind her, big hands braced on her shoulders, saying, “You don’t have to catch anything big. Just hold on tight.”

That night, she wrote until her fingers cramped.

Later that week, Luke invited her to the town's weekend market. “They sell the same pies they did twenty years ago. I feel like they should’ve added a new flavor by now, but the cherry one’s worth it.”

“I’m not much for crowds,” Morgan said, but something in his expression—easy, not expecting—made her add, “Maybe I’ll stop by.”

The market was busier than she remembered. Strings of lights crisscrossed the small square, and the scent of kettle corn mingled with roasting meat. She wandered past tables of hand-knitted potholders and watercolor postcards, half-looking for Luke. Instead, she found a man carving tiny canoes out of driftwood.

She paused, mesmerized.

“My granddad used to make those,” she murmured.

The man looked up. “Yours too, huh?”

She smiled and bought one, tucking it into her coat pocket like a charm.

“Thought I might see you,” came a voice behind her.

Luke had a cherry pie in one hand, a second fork in the other.

“You came alone?” she asked.

“I tend to do that.” He tilted his head. “Want to sit?”

They ate off the pie tin on a bench near the edge of the square, legs brushing, not speaking much. The sweetness of the pie reminded her of being thirteen, of sticky fingers and sugar highs and laughing so hard her chest hurt.

When she caught Luke watching her, he didn’t look away.

“You seem different than you did before,” he said gently. “Not in a bad way. Just… quieter.”

Morgan thought about that. “I guess I lost some noise.”

He didn’t press her to explain. Just nodded like he understood.

That night, back at the cabin, Morgan placed the driftwood canoe beside the Polaroid on her nightstand. She stared at both before bed, wondering how long it would take to fill the hollow parts.

Outside, the lake shimmered beneath the moonlight—still, but never lifeless.