Chapter 10 - The Marine Repair Shop-10
The rain was falling in a steady, miserable drizzle by the time I parked my rental SUV near the commercial piers of the Halifax waterfront.
A weathered wooden sign hanging above the corrugated metal door of a dilapidated warehouse read: VANCE MARINE REPAIR - ENGINES & HULL RESTORATION.
My son. Lucas Vance.
I sat in the driver’s seat for ten minutes, watching the rain streak down the windshield, my heart thumping a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs. Through the grime-covered front window of the workshop, I could see a tall man in a grease-stained canvas jacket bent over the engine block of a diesel boat motor, using a wrench with fierce, practiced concentration.
He had my jawline. He had the same slope of the shoulders that my father and I shared.
I opened the car door, stepped out into the freezing downpour without an umbrella, and walked across the gravel-strewn parking lot toward the open bay door of the shop.
The interior smelled of WD-40, burnt oil, saltwater, and welding gas. As I stepped over the threshold, the man at the engine looked up, wiping his grease-blackened hands on a rag tied around his belt loop.
“We’re closed for walk-ins today, old man,” he called out, his voice gruff, carrying the sharp, flat cadence of the Canadian maritimes. “Try the yard down the pier if you need an outboard serviced.”
I stopped ten feet away from him, my boots squelching slightly on the oil-stained concrete floor.
“I don't need an outboard serviced, Leo,” I said softly.
The man froze. The rag slipped from his hand, fluttering down onto the concrete floor like a wounded bird. He stared at me, his sharp blue eyes narrowing as they scanned my face—my silver hair, the deep lines around my mouth, the trembling way I leaned on my cane.
“What did you call me?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave, instantly tense.
“Leo,” I repeated, taking another slow step forward, fighting the weakness in my knees. “You used to collect smooth beach stones in your pockets and leave them on the kitchen windowsill. You had a scar on your left knee from falling off the backyard oak tree when you were six.”
Lucas took a sharp step back, his hand gripping the heavy iron wrench resting on the workbench behind him. His chest rose and fell in heavy, suspicious breaths.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his voice trembling slightly with suppressed rage. “Who told you that? Some social worker digging through sealed files? Some private investigator looking to cash in on an old cold case?”
“I’m not an investigator, Leo,” I whispered, tears finally breaking free, streaming down my weathered cheeks through the cold rain clinging to my skin. “I’m your father.”
The workshop went dead silent, save for the rhythmic patter of rain leaking through the corrugated roof overhead.
Lucas stared at me, his eyes wide, searching my face for any sign of a joke, a con, or a cruel illusion. For a second, I saw the seven-year-old boy who used to laugh while riding on my shoulders buried beneath forty years of abandonment, anger, and survival.
May you like
“You died,” he whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, ugly sound. “They told me my parents died in a river crash when I was seven. They told me my name was Lucas Vance and I had no one left in the world.”
“You were lied to,” I stepped closer, holding out my shaking hands. “Every single day of my life for forty years, I believed you were gone. I waited for you.”
