The Phan­tom Gramps began to man­i­fest on the third morn­ing on the sea­wall, cast­ing a shad­ow over Sol’s oth­er­wise hope­ful demeanor. As she climbed aboard for break­fast, the nar­ra­tor couldn’t help but notice the unusu­al gleam in her eyes, the hol­low, far­away look she car­ried as if a sec­ond pres­ence lin­gered behind her. This unset­tling ener­gy, which the nar­ra­tor referred to as the “wait­ing child,” filled the air around Sol, mak­ing her seem like a dif­fer­ent per­son alto­geth­er. In an attempt to draw her back to real­i­ty, the nar­ra­tor offered her food, but she bare­ly touched the plate. Instead, their atten­tion was soon caught by the arrival of an offi­cial ves­sel, prompt­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about a man named Griff whom they hoped to find. Sol’s brief agree­ment to search for him seemed to wane as she described him in vague terms, men­tion­ing his var­i­ous roles as a mechan­ic, ven­dor, and part-time actor. The ambi­gu­i­ty sur­round­ing Griff’s exis­tence raised sus­pi­cions, mak­ing the nar­ra­tor won­der whether Griff was noth­ing more than a fig­ment of Sol’s imag­i­na­tion, craft­ed to help her escape from her trou­bled past with Richard.

Their search for Griff con­tin­ued, tak­ing them along the coast to a town called Ghent, where Sol insist­ed he was locat­ed. How­ev­er, when they arrived at the des­ig­nat­ed spot, they found noth­ing but ruins and bro­ken rem­nants of a for­got­ten place. No town exist­ed there, only the rem­nants of a brick chim­ney and an aban­doned break­wa­ter, fur­ther deep­en­ing the mys­tery of Griff’s sup­posed where­abouts. Unde­terred, they pressed on to Baglow and Red­field, only to be met with more emp­ty promis­es and no sign of Griff. It became clear to the nar­ra­tor that Sol had like­ly con­jured up the idea of Griff as a way to cope with her iso­la­tion, a bea­con of hope cre­at­ed out of neces­si­ty rather than real­i­ty. The emo­tion­al toll of these false hopes began to show in Sol, mak­ing the nar­ra­tor ques­tion how much of their jour­ney was ground­ed in truth and how much was an attempt to escape a past that refused to let go.

As the days passed peace­ful­ly on the water, the bond between the nar­ra­tor and Sol seemed to grow, though there were still moments of dis­com­fort. They shared tran­quil evenings fish­ing under the stars, but the fish Sol caught seemed unhealthy, adding an omi­nous under­tone to their oth­er­wise serene rou­tine. Approach­ing Port Min­er­al, the nar­ra­tor grew more con­cerned about Sol’s future, hop­ing to find safe­ty and respite among calmer, more sta­ble neigh­bors. Their arrival at the har­bor brought no imme­di­ate answers, but the nar­ra­tor ven­tured ashore to explore, leav­ing Sol behind to con­tin­ue fish­ing. When he returned, he found Sol still at her task, but just as the day felt to be slip­ping into anoth­er cycle of qui­et monot­o­ny, a famil­iar voice broke the silence. It was Griff, stand­ing on the shore with an overnight bag, both sur­prised and relieved to see Sol.

Their reunion was filled with bit­ter­sweet emo­tions, and Sol’s face reflect­ed a mix­ture of joy and res­ig­na­tion as she moved toward Griff. Griff, in turn, seemed to exhale a breath of relief upon see­ing her, as though his own bur­dens had been lift­ed, yet his past was hint­ed at in his weary expres­sion. Despite the seem­ing­ly pos­i­tive reunion, there were lin­ger­ing com­plex­i­ties about Griff’s back­ground that made the nar­ra­tor wary, unsure of whether this man was tru­ly the pro­tec­tor Sol believed him to be. Nev­er­the­less, Sol asked Griff to join them on their jour­ney to Cana­da, con­vinced that this was the begin­ning of some­thing new. The nar­ra­tor, though cau­tious, felt a sense of duty to extend kind­ness to Griff, won­der­ing whether the new dynam­ic on board would shift the course of their jour­ney. As they set sail toward Jolie, the warmth of the sun pro­vid­ed a sense of hope, fill­ing the air with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of new begin­nings, even as the uncer­tain­ties of their past loomed in the dis­tance.