I know that engine. Every marina kid knows their father's boat by sound the way other kids recognize their parent's car in the pickup line. Dad's center console has a particular rumble—low and steady, well-maintained, because Harold Spencer may have retired from the marina but he did not retire from engine maintenance. The man can't let go of an oil change schedule. It's genetic. I got the stubbornness and Justin got the patience, but neither of us got the charm, which Dad reminds us of regularly.
The morning haze is starting to burn off the water, that thin veil of mist that hangs over the marsh grass this time of year. The sun is angled low enough thateverything has a gold edge to it—the dock boards, the faded paint on the boathouse. Dad is pulling into slip two with the casual ease of forty years on this water. He's wearing a fishing shirt that's seen better decades and a hat that saysRetired: Gone Fishin'that he wears without a trace of irony. He ties off and steps onto the dock, stretching like retirement is a full-body sport.
The breeze shifts and brings the marsh with it—salt and mud, which means the tide is going out. Diesel from Dad's boat. The faint sweetness of creosote baking in the sun. I grew up on this air. To me it just means home.
And then the kids find him.
Aidan gets there first, because Aidan always gets there first—the child has a sixth sense for adults who might sit still long enough to hear a ten-minute monologue about crabs. He comes sprinting up the dock at full tilt. My father opens his arms and catches him mid-collision like this is a drill they've practiced, which, knowing the two of them, it probably is.
“Mr. Harold.” Aidan pulls back, breathing hard, eyes enormous. “Gerald has babies. Four of them. I named them. Gerald Junior, Lady Gerald, Geraldine,and Steve.”
“Steve,” my father repeats, with the gravity of a national security briefing.
“He doesn't look like a Gerald. He looks like a Steve. You have to respect that.”
“Absolutely. Steve knows who he is. I admire that in a crab.”
They've had this kind of rapport since the second week Emma docked the houseboat. Dad showed up one afternoon to “check on the marina”—which meant check on Emma's kids, who he'd already decided were his—and found Aidan trying to catch Gerald with a pool noodle. Instead of telling him to stop, Dad sat down on the dock and asked what the plan was. They've been co-conspirators ever since.
Millie appears next, book tucked under her arm, and wraps her arms around my father without saying a word. They have their own thing—he loans her paperbacks from a box in his garage. She returns them with Post-it notes stuck to her favorite pages. It's the most civilized relationship at this marina.
“What are we reading this week?” Dad asks.
“A Wrinkle in Time.”
“I read that in 1965. Blew my mind wide open. The sequel's good too.”
“There's asequel?”
“Five books, sweetheart. Come find me later and I'll give you my ranked list.”
Millie drifts back toward her reading spot with the dreamy focus of a kid who's just learned four more books exist in her favorite series.
Jenna waves from the end of the dock, Dawson on one side of her, Finch on the other. “Hey, Mr. Spencer.”
“Jenna.” Dad tips his hat, then looks pointedly at Finch. “Looking sharp today, young man.”
Finch goes completely still. Jenna turns a shade of red I didn't know human skin could produce. Dawson grins and says nothing, because my son knows exactly what his grandfather is doing. Dad doesn't even slow down. The man drops grenades and keeps walking. It's his gift.
Then the twins arrive.
“Who are you?” Olson—I've already learned to tell them apart because Olson is the one who's always wet—plants himself directly in front of my father with the fearless curiosity of a kid who has never met a stranger, only future allies.
“I'm Harold.” Dad squats down—knees popping, seventy-two years of wear on those joints—and extends his hand. “I built thismarina.”
“Youbuiltit?” Olson looks at the dock with new respect. “The whole thing?”
“Every board. Took me four years. Almost lost a finger twice.” He holds up his left hand and wiggles it. “Almost.”
“That's so cool,” Mitch says. He's the quieter twin, which is like saying one volcano is quieter than the other. “Did you use power tools?”
“Son, I used every tool known to man and a few I invented when the regular ones quit on me.”
“Can you show us?”
“I have a workshop behind the boathouse that would make your eyes pop out of your head. But first—” He looks between the twins. “Can either of you tie a bowline knot?”
“What's a bowline knot?” Olson asks.
