Some Things Are Waterproof

The rain came down in sheets over Ottawa, turning Bank Street into a river of reflections. Claire stood under the awning of Bridgehead Coffee, watching water pool around her boots. She had just locked the door of her little bookshop for the last time. The sign still read “Papeterie Clair de Lune,” but the shelves inside were bare, the fixtures sold off for pennies. A burst pipe two nights ago had done what slow sales never managed: it finished her.

She was thirty-four, divorced, and now uninsured in every sense of the word.

Her phone buzzed. Marie-France, her oldest friend, university roommate, and—Claire had almost forgotten—the person who actually understood things like deductibles and liability clauses.

“You still have that umbrella?” Marie-France asked without greeting.

“It’s inside with the ruin of my life.”

“Stay there. I’m five minutes away.”

Marie-France arrived in a sensible Subaru, hazards blinking. She wore the same navy trench coat she’d had since 2009, the one Claire used to steal in residence when Ottawa Februarys tried to murder them. Some things, at least, refused to change.

They drove in silence past the wet glow of Elgin Street. Claire stared at the dashboard and finally said, “I let the policy lapse last spring. Couldn’t afford the increase after the rent went up.”

Marie-France nodded once, the way people do when they’ve already guessed the worst.

At a red light on Laurier, she spoke. “When Sébastien and I started the agency, we swore we’d never let friends become statistics.” She glanced over. “Come by tomorrow. No sales pitch, I promise. Just coffee and math.”

Claire laughed despite everything. “Math sounds terrible.”

“Math is the only thing that doesn’t lie.”

The next morning, Claire walked into the small office on Sparks Street. The sign was understated: Assurances MF Laroche & Associés. Inside smelled faintly of cedar and fresh paper. Marie-France waved her past the reception desk to a corner office with a view of the Parliament’s Peace Tower shrouded in fog.

They sat. Marie-France slid a single sheet across the desk.

“Business insurance Ottawa isn’t one-size-fits-all,” she said, tapping the page. “Your shop was unique—retail with a café license, heritage building, flood zone. Most brokers would have quoted you the standard retail package and called it a day. That’s why people drown.”

Claire traced the numbers with her finger. They were surprisingly gentle.

“I thought you said no sales pitch.”

“This isn’t a pitch. It’s a post-mortem.” Marie-France leaned back. “You needed a policy written for a bookseller who served espresso next to irreplaceable first editions. Instead you got whatever the call-center kid in Toronto read off the screen. That’s the difference between a file number and someone who actually walks your street.”

Claire felt the heat rise behind her eyes. “I can’t reopen, MF. The stock’s gone. The floors are warped. I’m done.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you open smaller, smarter, somewhere the pipes were installed after Confederation.” Marie-France smiled, small and fierce. “Either way, next time you’ll have someone who knows the difference between home insurance Ottawa and the kind that covers a woman who kept Neruda beside the cash register.”

Claire exhaled something between a laugh and a sob.

A month later, on a bright, cold Saturday, Claire met Marie-France at a narrow storefront on Dalhousie. The previous tenant—a failed gelato place—had left behind gleaming white tiles and a plumbing system built this century.

“Rent’s half what you paid on Elgin,” Marie-France said, dangling the keys. “And I already had our underwriter walk through. Proper coverage starts the day you sign.”

Claire took the keys. They were cold and real and heavier than any book she’d ever lifted.

“I still can’t believe you did this,” she said.

“I didn’t. You did.” Marie-France shrugged. “I just introduced you to a couple of insurance brokers Ottawa actually trusts. The rest was you refusing to disappear.”

That spring, Clair de Lune reopened—smaller, brighter, with a espresso machine that didn’t sound like a dying moose. On the wall behind the counter hung a framed photo: two girls in 2009 trench coats, arms around each other, laughing in front of the same Peace Tower now visible through the new window.

Underneath, in Claire’s handwriting, a single line:

Some things are waterproof after all.