The Last Refund Cleared As My First Summer Booking Arrived

"Can you tell me what's actually wrong with it?" Eli asked.

He kept one hand on his drysuit bag.

"I can inspect it," I said. "That doesn't mean you have to leave it here."

He put it on the counter.

We checked the name inside the neck, the suit number, and every item in the bag. I wrote them on a new intake form while he watched. The old receipt stayed in his folder. It would not become payment for this job unless he chose that after his refund arrived.

He chose to keep the two apart.

"That's what I'd do," I told him.

His zipper did not need replacing. Salt had stiffened the teeth, and a small patch near the hip had begun to lift. I quoted $175 for cleaning, the patch repair, and a pressure test.

"Not nine hundred?"

"No. And I'll call before I do anything outside that quote."

He signed the intake form. For the first time that evening, he took his hand off the bag.

Two days later, he confirmed that the full $900 refund had reached his account. He paid for the new repair only after I showed him the test result.

The others followed. One refund check had to be sent again after its owner left for a job out of town. We canceled the first before issuing the next. Ruth kept that claim open until the replacement cleared.

On June third, it did.

Leah marked all thirteen rows paid. The total was $9,600, with a date and bank proof for each payment. There were no missing suits to find, no unused credits, and no customer still waiting on a promise from us.

I called the last man that afternoon.

"I see it," he said. "We're square."

Afterward, I sat very still at the clean table.

Saskia let me have a minute. Then she slid a sandwich out of a paper bag.

"Eat before you repair another wrist."

The final eighteen partnership jobs had all been collected. Their deposits had been applied to the right invoices, and their owners had signed pickup records. Leah closed the old books and sent a complete set to both former partners and the tax preparer.

We paid the last ordinary bills, divided the small remaining cash balance as the settlement required, and closed the old accounts. The partnership's winding up and state filings were finished. Ruth sent me the entered judgment and a final letter confirming that the required payments and property returns were complete.

I put it in the flat box.

Merritt still lived in Juneau. I saw him once across a parking lot. He looked away. He held no share, keys, booking access, or right to my room. I had no reason to follow him and no unpaid promise that required me to call.

The business name on my new paperwork was Halvorsen Drysuit Repair. I had registered it, opened its accounts, and arranged the insurance before accepting new work.

Nell signed a short acknowledgment that I remained the tenant under the existing master lease. I did not have to buy my own room back or negotiate away the years I had left.

Owen sent one overflow inquiry. I quoted it myself and accepted a single suit, with its owner copied on every message. The job paid $240. That was enough business between us for a start.

My new booking sheet had fewer spaces. Each space needed a suit number, a written quote, and a payment entry I could check. Booking deposits stayed in a separate reserve until the work earned them.

On Fridays, before I swept, I matched the reserve to the open jobs.

The first time, I found a payment entered twice. It took one call and a corrected line to clear it up. I kept the correction where it could be seen. A neat page was less useful than a page that told me what had happened.

Saskia called it my expensive new hobby.

"It costs less than the old one," I said.

In June, daylight stayed late over the channel. The mountains showed between strips of cloud. When the front door opened, the air smelled of wet rope, boat exhaust, and water warmed just enough to feel different from March.

Saskia brought her patched suit back from a dive beneath a float.

"Dry?" I asked.

"Dry."

She hung it on the check rail instead of dropping it on my bench. I had trained at least one customer.

Before closing, I took a new cuff from its clamp. I moved the smooth back of my spoon around the bond, slowly enough to feel the whole edge. It held.

I wrote the result and the time. Through the open drying room door, six empty hangers turned in the warm air, ready for work I had chosen to accept.

Then the bell rang, and a woman stepped inside with a drysuit over her arm. My spoon shone beside the open intake book.