The Swap - Robyn Harding Page 0,14

And then, I realized I had seen her before. I knew who she was. And I knew how to get to her.

I turned and hurried away, my gown billowing out behind me like a Dickensian villain.

summer 2019

10

jamie vincent

On a Wednesday afternoon at the end of June, Low Morrison came into my gift shop with her résumé. She’d been there before, browsing through the items, paying particular attention to the pottery section. She was hard not to notice—over six feet tall with a bushel of dark red hair and pale, almost translucent skin. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t place her. I observed her with my nerves on edge, afraid she’d break something. She just seemed so gangly and awkward. But then I saw her pick up one of Freya’s cerulean-blue dishes. She handled the piece delicately, almost lovingly.

On this visit, she strode directly to the counter. “Hi. I’m Low Morrison. I’d like to apply for a summer job,” she said.

I hadn’t advertised for a shop assistant, but I hoped I was going to need one. I’d opened my store last fall, when the tourist season was in decline. Retail was new to me, and I was nervous. Opening off-season gave me a chance to ease into the business before the summer’s tourist boom. Covering rent over the slow winter months was not ideal, but thanks to our savings and my husband’s recent book advance, it was possible. And I knew the shop would be a success. I had carefully curated my merchandise, supporting local artisans and other Pacific Northwest designers. My price point was high-end but within reason for the clientele I was sure to attract. I’d done my research into the tourist market.

But, something about Low made me uneasy. She was so intense, so direct, so . . . looming. Maybe it was discriminatory hiring practices, but I was afraid she would scare away customers.

“I’m not actually hiring at the moment,” I said sheepishly. “But I’ll keep your résumé on file and give you a call if things pick up.”

The girl just stood there, blinking at me for several seconds. “You’ll be overrun by tourists come July, and you’re going to need help.”

“I hope you’re right,” I replied with a smile. “I’ll give you a call then.”

She stood for a beat longer and then stalked out.

Hopefully, I’d get a few more applicants before the summer rush. I’d envisioned a salesclerk who was bubbly, warm, and gregarious. Low was the opposite. Perhaps she’d be fine with customers, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend so much time with this odd girl in close quarters. I was vulnerable then, still shaky from what I’d endured. I was healing, but slowly. Very slowly.

The move to the island was supposed to be a fresh start. I was leaving behind a stressful career in marketing, manifesting my dream of owning my own gift shop. My husband, Brian, had recently sold a series of young-adult fantasy novels and was eager to leave his teaching job to write full-time. If we sold our Seattle house (thanks to Amazon, real-estate prices had skyrocketed), our stock portfolio, and most of our furniture, we could just afford to pursue our dreams on this relatively affordable island.

“And we won’t talk about the baby,” Brian said. “We’ll put all that pain and ugliness behind us.”

“Okay,” I said.

But I couldn’t. While my husband was able to immerse himself in a dystopian universe filled with heroic teenagers, my mind still drifted to our loss. The store—Hawking Mercantile—was demanding, time-consuming, energy sucking, but it was not mentally taxing enough to distract me from what we had endured: the crushing disappointment as all our efforts to become parents failed.

I had always wanted to be a mom. Despite my devotion to my career, I didn’t take my fertility for granted. When I turned twenty-eight, I suggested we start trying to get pregnant. Brian wanted to wait. He wanted to save more money, buy a bigger home, get a better car. “If we wait until everything’s perfect, we’ll never have a child,” I cajoled him. He acquiesced and we pulled the goalie. After a year of fruitless unprotected sex, we saw a fertility doctor.

Thus began three years of acupuncturist visits, funky herbs, hormone injections, expensive in vitro treatments, and tears. Endless tears. I was the problem. Tests confirmed that Brian’s sperm were swift and healthy, but I had a hostile vagina. That’s the term my (male) doctor used to describe the bacteria in