The Crew Reached The Gate With A Paid Deposit

Jonas let me use the small table in the harbor maintenance office. He put a mug beside the blue folder and turned the heater toward my wet shoes.

"I have the gate log," he said. "Changed lock at ten. Bags outside at ten-twenty."

"Did she ask you to help?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"No."

That one word warmed me more than the heater.

I opened the folder. The first page held a twenty-year lease dated October 1, 2018. Taesuk had signed as the owner. I had signed as the tenant. A drawing marked my ground-floor room, the full net loft, the covered stair, and my right to use the shared kitchen and washroom.

The end date was September 30, 2038.

Two receipts followed. One covered $38,400 for the room. The other covered $57,600 for the loft. Both said paid in full for the entire term.

Jonas read them slowly.

"Ninety-six thousand," he said.

"My share from selling my mother's house in Tacoma. Nearly all of it."

"He gave you a low rate."

"He needed the money at once. I needed a place no bad fishing season could take away."

At $400 a month across twenty years, the deal had been fair enough to both of us. The loft had no heat then. I had paid to insulate it and put in a work sink.

I turned to the recorded lease notice, which carried the state recorder's stamp and a document number. Taesuk had wanted it filed so the agreement would survive him.

It had. The property had passed to Eunhee in 2020, with my lease still on it.

"She knows," I said. "She just thinks I won't use it."

I called Mara Bell, the lawyer who had helped write the lease. Her assistant found my file before I finished spelling my name.

Mara came to the phone.

"Are you safe tonight?"

"I can pay for a motel."

"Save the receipt. Send me photographs of the bags, locks, and any damaged work. Don't force the door. I'll send a demand for access today and prepare an urgent court request."

"How much?"

"A $1,200 advance. We'll discuss the rest before we spend it."

I had $4,870 in my checking account. I gave her my card number.

The motel cost $126. I hung my socks over a chair and photographed the brown water dripping onto a towel.

At seven, Eunhee called.

"You hired someone to threaten an old woman?"

"I hired someone to read our agreement."

"That money was family help."

"There are two receipts."

"His father wrote whatever made you happy."

"Then the court can read what he wrote."

She hung up.

I cried after that. Not because I doubted the paper. Because I still wanted Min to answer the phone in his sleepy voice and say he would come get me.

Before bed, I called each customer whose net was locked upstairs. I told them the truth in plain words. Three agreed to wait. One had a sailing date in two days.

"I can't promise what I can't reach," I told him.

"Keep me posted," he said.

By morning, the sky above Pillar Mountain looked like wet wool.

I met Jonas at the service gate. His keys stayed on his belt. He had no right to open Eunhee's private building just because he thought she was wrong.

A hired van pulled in at eight-fifteen. Four tired people climbed out with duffel bags. Their captain, Tess Venn, held a printed booking slip inside a clear sleeve.

"We're looking for Eunhee Kwon," she said. "She said the caretaker would let us in."

"I told her I wouldn't," Jonas said.

Tess studied the bags in my wagon.

"Is there a problem with the rooms?"

"They aren't empty," I said. "They're mine under a prepaid lease."

She took out her phone and called Eunhee on speaker.

"We're at the gate. Your tenant is here."

"She's not a tenant. She's my son's widow."

Tess looked at me while that sentence hung between us.

"Those can be the same person," she said.

Eunhee told them to wait. She said a family issue would be settled by lunch.

The first hard rain struck the van roof.

Tess asked for a refund instead. Eunhee refused, saying the deposit was nonrefundable and she had already spent part of it on beds.

Jonas called two places with open rooms. He found four beds inland, clear of the dock road. Tess paid $960 for three nights and wrote the amount on her booking slip.

Before she left, she forwarded me Eunhee's offer. It described the loft as "vacant, heated crew lodging, ready now."

At the bottom was a new message Eunhee had sent that morning.

The woman claiming the space has no legal papers. Her things will be removed by noon.