“How did you meet?” she persisted.
“We did some skydiving together, some canyoneering.”
Shanal was well aware of Raif’s interest in adventure sports. For a while it had seemed he was always hurling himself off some high peak or out some airplane, or kayaking down a wild river. The activities seemed a perfect match for the man he was—physical, daring and impulsive. But Raif’s interest in such activities had waned suddenly after the death of his girlfriend, Laurel, in a canyoneering accident a few years ago.
“Did he know Laurel?” Shanal blurted, without really thinking.
“She was his daughter.”
“Oh.” Her hands shook as she went to put her standard spoonful of sugar in her mug, and the white granules scattered over the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”
“It’s okay,” he replied, his voice gruff. “I don’t mind talking about her.”
Shanal flicked him a glance, noted the way his hands had tightened on the wheel, his knuckles whitening. “That’s the hard thing about losing someone, isn’t it? People often don’t know what to say, so they say nothing at all.”
Raif grunted a noncommittal response. Shanal finished making the coffee, thinking about what she’d said. She’d discovered the same thing applied when people suffered other tragedies—like illness. No one really wanted to face the issue, and conversation usually skirted around things. At least that’s what she’d found with her father. As the motor neuron disease ravaged his body, piece by piece, he’d lost his independence and ability. Their friends, not knowing what to do or how to help, had slowly withdrawn.
It hadn’t helped that her dad was such a proud and private man. He’d hated being forced into retirement because of his illness—still hated every lost ability, every task that he could no longer complete on his own that forced him to depend on the care of others. He had always taken such pride in his independence, his abilities. His work as a surgeon had saved lives and allowed him to provide handsomely for his family in a way that gave him a sense of purpose and meaning. Losing all that had been devastating. He’d become reclusive, despising himself for his growing dependency on others.
And then there was the financial situation.
Shanal slammed the door on her thoughts before guilt could overwhelm her. She had, literally, run away from the answer to her parents’ financial problems. She didn’t want to go down that road right now. She just couldn’t. Maybe in a few days a solution would present itself to her—and maybe vines would one day grow grapes of solid gold, she thought, deriding herself.
She handed Raif his coffee and sat down beside him as he negotiated the boat up the river.
“How far do you plan to go today?”
“Not far,” he replied, before taking a sip. “The sun will be setting in a couple of hours. We can pick a spot along the river, tie off for the night and then make an early start tomorrow if you feel like it.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Here,” he said. “Do you want to have a turn at the wheel?”
“Is that safe? I’ve never done this before.”
“Gotta start somewhere,” he replied. “Besides, we’re not doing more than seven kilometers an hour. I don’t think even you could get us into trouble at this speed.”
“You’re referring to the time I crashed one of the vineyard tractors into the side of a shed, aren’t you?”
His lips quirked.
“In my defense, no one told me where the brake was on that thing.”
“Point taken. Which brings us to your first lesson today.”
He briefly explained the controls in front of them and then let her take the wheel. Once she got the hang of it, Shanal found it surprisingly relaxing as she gently guided the boat along the river.
The sun was getting low in the sky, sending the last of its watery golden rays through the trees silhouetted on the riverbank, when Raif suggested they pull in at a tiny beach on the river’s edge. After they’d nosed in, and he’d set up the small gangplank, he went ashore to tie ropes to a couple of large tree stumps. Shanal shut down the motor, as instructed, and walked out onto the front deck.
“I know this is crazy,” she said. “But I feel as if we’re the only people on the river right now.”
“I know what you mean. You get a sense of isolation very quickly out here. It’s good in its way.”