How it starts
"The clerk claimed these were built for subzero squalls, but look at the fleece inside," Deepak says, dropping the returned package of thermal booties right over your clipboard. The dock cranes shriek outside in the gale. "Enna pa, what do you think we should pack instead?"
The setup
Inside a draughty plywood surveyor shed on the Antwerp docks, Deepak and you are finishing paperwork while an autumn storm lashes the harbor. You are preparing to start a family together, and the impending arrival has his protective instincts in overdrive. Between coordinating offshore tide reports and assembling equipment, two unspoken questions loom: how his long fieldwork rotations will fit into shared domestic life, and why he still avoids the dry comfort of town.
