My Mother-In-Law Handed Out My Dock While I Tested The Seat

I heard the first click before I heard Rosalind call me temporary help.

The transfer seat had two locking pins and a safety latch. I sat in it, moved my weight, and listened for all three clicks. Then I checked the seat again. I was an adaptive kayaking instructor, and I tested every transfer seat myself before a guest arrived.

At forty-four, I was a broad-shouldered Native Hawaiian woman with brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair braided down my back.

Our launch sat on a creek in Beaufort, South Carolina. That morning, my braid was damp from the morning air. Pluff mud showed between the creek grass. The tide had dropped enough that I had adjusted the gangway before breakfast.

Rosalind stood above me with two visitors in pale linen.

Rosalind Trent was a slim white woman of sixty-seven, with a silver bob, pale blue eyes, and a cream jacket she kept brushing free of invisible dust.

“This is Malia,” she told them. “Our temporary dock help. Such a strong back.”

I stood up slowly.

“Malia Kamaka,” I said. “I own Blue Current Adaptive Paddling.”

Rosalind laughed as if I had made a sweet mistake.

“She built the little program. Now we're ready for proper management. My son will take over after this weekend.”

Behind her, my husband, Colin, held a tray of iced tea. He looked at the cups.

The visitors stopped smiling.

“You told us Colin already ran it,” the woman said.

“He handles the family side,” Rosalind answered.

“There isn't a family side,” I said.

An osprey cried over the creek. Somewhere beyond the live oaks, a delivery truck backed up. Our launch suddenly seemed much smaller than the ground I had worked six years to make usable.

“Excuse us,” Rosalind told the visitors. “Malia gets nervous before demonstrations.”

She took my elbow. I removed her hand.

“My nine o'clock guest needs that seat,” I said. “You can speak to me in the office.”

The woman offered a card. Miriam Voss. The man beside her was Grant Bell. Neither name meant anything to me.

On the office table, Rosalind spread out a glossy drawing. It showed our low launch replaced by a dining deck. The transfer seat was gone. So was the wide turning space where guests parked wheelchairs.

“Where would people transfer?” I asked.

“We can keep a charity morning,” she said. “Once a month.”

Colin set down the tea.

“Mom brought serious money, Mal.”

“For what?”

Rosalind tapped the drawing. “A waterfront experience. You will keep a salary. Forty-eight thousand dollars, plus the comfort of knowing your husband carries the risk.”

Last year, I had paid myself $62,000 after expenses. I had also set aside money for a second wide kayak.

“Who said you could offer my operation?”

“Your operation?” Her voice rose. “I introduced you to half this town.”

She had introduced me to a printer and a caterer. For four years, she had sent me invoices made of favors.

“I thanked you,” I said.

“And I welcomed you into this family.”

Colin finally looked up. “Can we stop making this personal?”

I looked at the wall behind him. My tide chart hung beside a survey of the leased parcel. Beneath the desk, in a gray file box, lay a blue folder with a worn brass fastener.

I had signed that ground lease fourteen months before our wedding. Thirty years. My business was the tenant. I had paid for the survey, the lawyer, and the first rent from my own savings.

Rosalind had never asked what the blue folder held.

She slid another paper across the table.

“A routine transfer. Sign beside the yellow tab.”

The heading read ASSIGNMENT OF GROUND LEASE AND OPERATING ASSETS.

The proposed new tenant was Harbor Access Ventures LLC. I had never heard of that company either.

“No.”

“Read it first,” Colin said.

“I read enough.”

Outside, my assistant, Beth, called that our guest had arrived. I folded the proposed assignment without signing it.

“I have work.”

Rosalind blocked the door.

“You cannot embarrass me in front of investors.”

“Then introduce me correctly.”

She moved when Beth called again.

For the next hour, I helped a retired school bus driver named June get onto the water. We talked about her grip, the wind, and whether she wanted a tow line nearby. Nobody asked whose wife I was.

When we came back, Colin's car was gone.

Miriam waited beside our hose rack. She held a brown envelope against her chest.

“I need to know whether you authorized this,” she said.

Inside was a receipt for an $84,000 deposit.

Under Purpose, someone had typed: Ten-Year Exclusive Operating Rights, Blue Current Waterfront Site.

The seller's signature was Rosalind Trent.