The shore held memories of what had happened to it.
Elias walked along the restored area with a loop of keys in one hand and a thin folder of city reports in the other. The edges of the paper were worn from rain and stress. Where the seawall used to form a smooth curve, there were now jagged breaks, concrete pieces that had shifted like broken teeth, rusty iron poles that had bent, and a thin band of salt-stiff sea grass hanging on at the edges. Kids still played near the water's edge, but their laughter felt fragile to him, like it could stop if the weather changed. He kept his head down, reading the details on his tablet the way someone might read an important book.
Three months after the storm, engineers found that the seawall had failed because of a tiny mistake in the design, a small decimal error that got worse with the tide. This error had real consequences, two people were hurt, and a family's photos floated away in the drainage ditches, plywood nailed over broken windows. Elias had been in charge of the project. He had signed plans that, in hindsight, looked careless. He had apologized publicly and sat through meetings where council members read statements about taking responsibility. But none of that changed his memory of that day: how the water first found the weak spot, the sound of the concrete breaking. The memory felt heavy inside him.
He set the folder down on a bench and watched a crew replace a section of the boardwalk. One of the young workers, hired through a local program, waved at him with a friendly smile. "Morning, Mr. Rhee," she called out. "Thanks for the grant. The benches look great."
He nodded without taking his eyes off the water. "Make sure to keep the tide markers high and the drainage clear," he advised. "And double-check your anchors when the next wave hits."
She laughed softly and went back to her tools. Elias felt like someone who had been given a list of small tasks to avoid feeling the weight of everything else, which was the point: rebuild little by little so that small conversations could help ease the pain. He had learned, through hard experience, that apologies meant little without action to back them up.
He walked toward the inlet where the flood had changed a neighborhood alley into something else entirely. A neighbor had turned part of a public lot into a community garden after the storms, wooden pallets, potted plants, and a hand-painted sign that read "KEEP THIS FOR ALL." An old woman in a patched coat was tending to a plot and looked up when he approached.
"You're the designer, right?" she asked kindly. Her voice had the gentle tone of someone who had heard many promises from the city over the years. "You built the wall."
Elias paused. Confession felt different here. "I was on the team that created it," he admitted. He didn't try to make excuses. He had been practicing honesty since the investigations began. It made the guilt feel less sharp but didn't take it away.
The woman reached into a basket and handed him a small folded piece of paper. "We keep reminders that the tide can be gentler sometimes," she said. The paper was a child's drawing of a sun and a house strikingly similar to a drawing he had once held dear. He felt heat rise in his ears. "We found it after the water rose. It came from a house down the lane. Thought you might like to see what was saved."
He took the drawing with care, feeling a tremor in his hand. "Thank you," he said. "I" He stopped. The packet he had given up his summer for made whole by Mara, felt personal until this moment. Seeing another child's drawing, unknown and tender, brought up feelings he was already grappling with.
"Do you know when they'll finish the wall?" the woman asked, practical as a clock. "We don't want to worry every time it looks like it might rain."
"We have a new plan," Elias said. "More input from the community. Smaller sections. Materials that give a little so the energy softens. It won't be perfect, but this time we're working with people who live here. I'm overseeing the consultations." He meant it. The work felt more meaningful when it involved the hands of those who would be affected.
She studied him and then said something he didn't expect: "There was a girl who used to come around after that last storm," she said. "Called herself Lena sometimes, Lenka other times. She'd hand out tea and those orange slices that kids liked. Short hair, always wearing a scarf. Helped sew a tarp for the Thompson boy. She didn't put her name on anything official, just moved around."
The name hit him like a stone dropped in still water. Elias held the child's drawing a little tighter. "Did she stay in one place?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
"Not for long," the woman replied. "She was like the tide, came, did what she could, then moved on. People called her Lena. Some called her Lenka." She looked at him closely. "Why? Did you know her?"
"No," he said honestly. "But I've been looking." He felt foolish saying it out loud. He had been searching, awkwardly and sporadically, in the weeks after he donated his summer, checking lists, asking around, making small inquiries that often led nowhere. He had hoped that part of the search would help calm him, would bring the memory back to a person he could meet, thank, or at least connect with. The idea of loving an idea made from many people scared him.
The old woman nodded as if she understood more than he had time to express. "People like that don't do it for rewards," she said. "They do it because they want to help." She turned and pointed toward a community board nailed to a post where flyers flapped in the breeze. "If you want to find her, check where they give out food. People leave notes there sometimes."
Elias walked toward the board. Among notices for yoga classes and a lost cat poster, he found a small flyer for a volunteer meeting from two summers ago; the paper was wrinkled from rain, but the ink was still clear: COMMUNITY AID RELIEF ROSTER, AUGUST. A few names were readable; next to one name, someone had written "Lenka?" with a question mark that hadn't been answered.
His stomach flipped with a familiar feeling, hope mixed with caution, which was dangerous because it encouraged him to act. He tucked the drawing into his folder and took a photo of the flyer with his phone, his fingers trembling with sudden determination. The flyer felt like a clue. The city's official records might show nothing, but people left traces in the margins, in pencil marks and handwritten notes.
He remembered the summer packet he had given away, how Mara had handled it, the soothing energy around the woman in the kitchen. He had sacrificed the afternoon that had steadied him, thinking that by doing so, he could spread that steadiness into the world. Now, with the flyer and the woman's words in his pocket, he felt a new sense of responsibility: not just to fix the shoreline but to find the people who had shown kindness in small ways.
As the tide worked against the concrete, indifferent and constant, Elias made a mental list: follow the volunteer roster, ask at the community center, check the storage boxes for relief supplies, talk to the people who tended the garden. This was work that would allow him to face where the mistakes had happened, that would let him show up without hiding behind a press release. It felt like both penance and purpose intertwined.
He continued on, the child's drawing a gentle weight in his palm, the sounds of the city blending with his footsteps. He had given a summer to the Exchange because he couldn't face the day alone. Now he would look for the woman who had given him small kindnesses in memory, a real person or a blend of them and he would ask what, if anything, could hold him accountable beyond just saying sorry.
At the edge of the lot, a group of volunteers was loading a van with potted trees and a stack of painted signs. One of the younger workers paused and called out, "Mr. Rhee! We have a meeting later about community design. Are you coming?"
Elias looked up and nodded. "I'll be there," he said. In that moment, he felt a small sense of steadiness he hadn't had since the storm hit. It wasn't forgiveness. It was work. It was a step toward those he had let down.
He slipped the photo of the flyer into his folder and, for the first time since he had given up his summer, allowed himself a thought that wasn't just for him: if Lena was real, in whatever form she took, he would try to find her. If she was a mix of many people, he would find the pieces. Either way, he would do the small, public things that might honor whatever kindness had helped him when everything felt unsteady.
He turned back toward the water, a plan of small actions forming in his mind. The tide moved steadily, indifferent and constant. He moved with it, one careful step at a time.