The bartender smiles and says, “I’ll need to see some ID for that.”
Matty stays quiet. Grown-ups making jokes for other grown-ups, using Matty as the straight man, are endlessly confusing. He asks for a Coke. His dad doesn’t bat an eye and orders a Rock Harbor Storm Surge.
When the bartender brings the drinks, pressing each into a square napkin she’s laid out, she says, “Enjoy, lads.” She leans her hands on the bar and smiles. “I’m Fiona. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
His father is studying his phone, but when he catches Matty’s glance he smiles and says, “Work thing, sorry. I’ll put it away now.” He puts his phone into his pocket and takes a long drink of his beer. Matty does the same with his Coke, trying to match his dad’s timing and gestures.
“Anything you want to talk about, Matty? Or do you want to sit here and just drink our drinks?”
Matty looks at the bubbles in his Coke and says, “Well. Actually. Yeah.”
“I’m All Ears,” says Steven. “Pun intended.”
“It’s about, like...” He squirms. He doesn’t know how to say it, or even really what to say. “It’s about, well. There’s this girl I met this summer. Hazel. She’s gone now.”
Steven nods. “Mom mentioned a Hazel.”
“I think I—we—I mean.” Matty can’t figure out how to put it. “I’m just not sure how to do it.”
“Do what?” His dad glances around, then moves his face closer to Matty. “Hold on. You’re not talking about sex, are you?”
“No!” says Matty, horrified. Sex! He only just barely survived his first kiss. “No.No.”
“Phew.Okay.” Steven pretends to wipe fake sweat off his forehead.
Matty thinks about Hazel’s cool strawberry lips. “No. I’m talking about, just. How to be. How to be, like, a man. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all. It’s a good question.” His father leans back on his stool. “It’s different for you than it is for your sisters. Girls, they’re hearing all sorts of empowering messages. Which is great. I want your sisters to grow up strong and confident.”
Matty snorts. “I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be a problem.”
Steven laughs. “But for you . . . it’s complicated. I think what we need to do is not think about how to be a man but think about how to be aperson.Does that make sense? Treat people with kindness. Think about how your actions affect them. Everything we do in life has an impact on someone else, sometimes on purpose and sometimes inadvertently. And so the best thing we can do as men—but also just as people—is to try to leave the world better than we found it. That’s something your grandfather used to say, actually.”
“Yeah,” says Matty. He thinks about the photograph of the court in the library, and about the fact that his grandfather had a baby with someone else and didn’t tell Matty’s mother, and about how that baby turned into the person who left the note Matty found. He used to think that grown-ups had everything figured out, that you reached an age where, pop, suddenly things made sense, and all the math added up correctly, but if he’s learned anything this summer it’s that nobody has it figured out. But what his father is saying makes sense, yeah, it definitely does.
“And it seems easy enough to do. But if I’m being honest I don’t think I’ve done a very good job of listening to your mother over the past year. I think I’ve been thinking about myself a lot and not thinking about how my actions affect her, and affect you kids. I think I can do better.”
Fiona is back then, smiling. “You boys staying for the music?”
“Wish we could,” says Steven. He reaches for his wallet in his back pocket. “We’ve got dinner waiting at home.”
“Well done, you two. Lucky boys.” Fiona takes Steven’s credit card.
“Yup,” says Steven. “We sure are.”
When they get back to Ships View the dining room is abuzz with activity and nervous energy. Abigail is helping Louisa set the table, and Claire is clowning around with one of the lobster bibs, tying it around her waist like an apron. Annie is in the kitchen, mixing a drink.
Louisa smiles when she sees them, and she lifts her face up to kiss Steven on the lips. Matty looks politely away, but it still makes him happy. “Oh, this came for you,” says Louisa. She hands Matty an envelope. He studies it. The envelope is square and plain and white. There is his name, Matty McLean, and this address. Ships View. Hidden Beach Road. Owls Head, Maine. No return address. He looks more closely at the envelope, where the postmark is partially worn off. He sees anA,anH,the lettersVILL.
His heart skips at least seventeen beats.
Nashville.
Matty McLean has run pretty fast in his young life, but he’s never run so fast up those stairs as he does right then.
Dear Matty,
I lost my phone! I got a new one but I didn’t have my contacts or messages backed up so I lost EVERYTHING. I’m sorry! If you texted me I never got it.
