“That’s right,” she says. “That’s right, Daddy!”
“I remember when there was a moose there,” Martin says. He points to the small pond across the street from the post office. Louisa pulls into the parking lot at the little general store next to the post office and turns to her father. He remembers the moose in the pond! Her heart begins to lift.
“I remember that too,” she says. “He tied up traffic for the whole day. He wasso big.So much bigger than I ever realized a moose is.”
Mail, the drive to the pound, the man in waders who doesn’t even need to weigh the lobsters because he’s been doing this since he was knee-high to a grasshopper and can tell by sight within a quarter-ounce what any lobster weighs. They’re driving back up the hill from the harbor when Martin says, “How’s Steven?”
How’s Steven?Her heart lifts further. This is the first time since Louisa arrived that Martin has mentioned Steven. This is a positive sign—right? Her father remembers the pastandthe present. Maybe—and Louisa understands that this thought is contrary to decades of Alzheimer’s research and basically to all of science—maybe he’s getting better! Maybe his brain is untangling itself.
“He’s doing pretty well,” she says. “He’s super busy at work.” She almost considers telling Martin the whole story about Steven and their agreement. What a relief it would be, to be a child again, instead of a parent, to have somebody solve her problems instead of presenting theirs for her consumption. She rolls down the minivan’s window and takes in the smell, the mix of pine and harbor and silt, and feels, for the first time since April, truly hopeful.
“When do you think you’ll think about children?”
Her heart plummets. She glances at Martin.
“Daddy—” How can her father remember the name of Louisa’s school from more than a quarter century ago and not his own grandchildren?
“I suppose there’s plenty of time for all of that,” Martin says pleasantly. “No hurry, no hurry.”
“Daddy,” she says.
“What?”
“Never mind.” She takes the turn onto the gravel road too fast, throwing them both to the left.
She delivers her father to Barbara and finds her mother in the playroom. Her mother is working on a cross-stitch of the Owls Head Lighthouse. She’s sitting in the chair by the window, but soon, Louisa knows, she’ll move to the bench in the dining room, where the light gets better as the day wears on.
“Steven called while you were out,” Annie says, glancing up.
Louisa’s stomach clenches. “On the house phone?”
“On the house phone. He said he’d tried you a bunch of times on your cell but hadn’t gotten you.”
That, Louisa knows, is because she hasn’t answered Steven’s last few calls. She’s walking a thin line between irritation at the intrusion—she’s got the kids, she’s got her dad, she’s got her work—and fear that if she tries to lean on Steven to talk about her father she’ll lose the tenuous strength she’s trying to build up. Worse, what if she tries to lean on him and he’s not really there? He probably has only a few minutes to talk between recording sessions or an editing marathon. He’s probably so busy with All Ears he has No Ears left for her.
There’s a commotion outside the playroom door and Abigail and Matty come trooping in, followed closely by Otis, who is wearing a pair of goggles, pushed to the top of his head like ladies’ sunglasses, and a life vest, the kind that are stored with the kayaks under the back porch.
“Oh, come on now,” says Louisa. “Otis, you poor thing!” Otis manages to look both shamefaced and stoic. “Oh, honey,” she tells him. “You’re a very, very good dog to put up with everything you’re asked to put up with.”
“I told them not to,” says Claire, bringing up the rear. “I told them he wouldn’t like it.” She is quivering with the injustice of it.
“If I was allowed to have a phone, I could definitely make Otis TikTok famous,” says Abigail. She looks pointedly at Louisa, who says, “Forget it. Not until seventh grade.”
“I could use Matty’s but he won’t let me.”
“It’s mine,” snarls Matty, uncharacteristically grumpy. Hormones? Heisalmost thirteen. Louisa isn’t equipped to handle boy hormones on her own. Now she’s irritated with Steven all over again. “I don’t have to share it if I don’t want to. Use the iPad if you need to use something.”
“I don’t have a TikTok account. Mom, can I get one?”
“Definitely not.” They’ve been over this, but Louisa is too tired of talking about it even to say, We’ve been over this.
“Otis doesn’t want to be TikTok famous!” says Claire. “He just wants to be himself, you’re making himmiserable!”She makes little cooing noises at Otis and eases him out of the goggles and the life vest. Otis, exhausted from the ordeal, melts to the floor and puts his chin in his paws with a great and long-suffering sigh. Claire rubs his ear, and Louisa thinks about her father and feels the fissures in her heart expand.
8.
Kristie
Danny doesn’t officially move in with Kristie so much as he stops sleeping at his mom’s house and starts keeping his toothbrush, all of his Gil’s Gardening shirts, and his special beer mug from the 2011 Rockland Lobster Festival at the Linden Street apartment. He’s still looking for another place to buy, but he’s not in a hurry. Kristie hopes Danny never finds a place to buy. She could go on like this forever! Some days she almost forgets why she came here in the first place.
