“Well, hello,” I said. “Whose little girl are you?”
The dog bumped its head—warm, soft—against my fingers and then stuck its nose in my crotch.
“Honey! Heel.”
That voice…
The back of my arms prickled. I dropped my hand.
That guy, there, his long, rangy body obscured by heavy boots and a bulky jacket, a faded cap over his thick brown hair. A dark beard covered half his face, but I recognized him. Joe Miller, my father’s former apprentice and the bane of my childhood existence.
“Is that your special pet name? Or her actual dog name?” I asked.
“Dog name.” Was it possible he colored slightly under the beard? The dog left off sniffing me and trotted over to him. “My sister named her.”
He had a half sister, I remembered. Hannah? Hailey? She must be in her teens by now.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
His deep brown eyes met mine. “Could say I came tomeet you.” My jaw must have dropped, because his mouth curled in a near smile. “I’m picking up some windows for a job on Bogan Lane.”
Dad wasn’t an ordinary builder—he was a rebuilder, specializing in restoration carpentry. Memory stabbed me: eight-year-old me perching on somebody’s front porch steps, prattling away as my father painstakingly replaced rotted balusters while teenage Joe watched and handed him tools. He called me the Pest. I thought he was a jerk. Four years ago, Dad had made him a partner in the business.
I stuck out my chin. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“I won’t.” He lifted my bag smoothly and loaded it into his utility cart.
I could wrestle him for it. I didn’t need his help. But I didn’t want my mother’s neighbors to see me scuffling—with an older boy!—within five minutes of landing in town. Not that they’d be surprised.Oh, Annie, Mrs.Mosley would sigh. Or,It’s that Gallagher girl again. I winced.
Plus, it was over a mile to Harrisonville, aka the Village, where the year-round residents lived. No big deal, unless you were dragging a hard-wheeled rollaway over crumbling asphalt.
“Thanks,” I said.
He nodded shortly. Conversation over. The dog settled at his feet and sighed. They made a funny pair, the dark, surly man and the cheerful golden dog. He should have had a Doberman. A Rottweiler. I shivered again.
“So. I’ll see you.” I shoved my hands deep in my pockets and started up the hill.
“Sorry your dad died,” he said behind me.
Something stuck like an awl in my throat. Gratitude, maybe, that he’d spoken the awful truth.
I was sick of people avoiding the subject, pussyfooting arounddiedanddeadas if my father’s death was something dirty and unspeakable. As if saying the words out loud would summon their own mortality, like Voldemort. But no polite euphemisms—passed,gone,lost—mitigated the terrible reality.
Dad was dead.
It was a relief to have someone acknowledge it. Even Joe.
I waggled my fingers over my shoulder and continued on my way without looking back.
Through the quiet downtown, past quaint storefronts and shuttered restaurants on Main Street. A new coffee shop (closed). A new restaurant (help wanted). Thirteen Moons, the gift shop owned by my best friend Daanis’s family.
My mother’s teal-and-white shop—Maddie’s Candies—was ahead. The big picture windows, where she made fudge in summer to a sidewalk audience, were dark, but down the street, the lights were on in the Mustang Lounge. My mother declared eating out was for tourists. But sometimes Dad would take me to the Mustang after work. I’d suck pop through a straw, my legs dangling from a bar stool, feeling grown-up and special, while he ordered a beer he never finished. Sometimes, to my secret resentment, he invited Joe along.
It occurred to me Dad’s death must be a loss for him, too. For Joe. Dad had been his mentor as well as his business partner.
The road climbed past stately Victorian houses and million-dollar mansions, winding under trees and along the cemetery. Patches of ice lingered in the ditches and shadows. I breathed in. The mineral scent of the soil, the earth waking from its winter sleep, stirred something inside me, instinct or guilt.
When I’d left the island, five months into the pandemic, Mom told me not to come back. But I could have visited more often. I should have stayed longer at Christmas. Dad had said he understood, but we never got the chance to say goodbye. Another stab.
