Chapter 54: Emmet

By seven-thirty the next morning, the kitchen at the ridge house is thick with the smell of sizzling bacon and dark roast coffee. The yellow laminate counters are covered in stacks of porcelain plates, and my father's old blue binder of basin yard charts is set wide open right next to the toaster.

My mother stands over the cast-iron skillet, a wooden spatula in her hand, her apron strings tied tight around her waist. My father sits at the head of the oak table, his reading glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose as he stares at the digital printout of the Vancouve registry logs I...