Page 168 of Key West Homecoming

Emma remembered the pleasure on her mother’s face when she came out of the water. Emma understood something she hadn’t been old enough to see then. Her father hadn’t simply loved her mother, he had delighted in her.

“You okay?” Maeve asked.

Emma turned her head.

“Yeah. I was thinking about my mother.”

“Good memory?”

“I think so.”

Maeve didn’t ask anything else.

Emma appreciated that.

They swam back to the boat.

Patrick handed Emma a towel when she came up the ladder.

“How was it?”

“Wonderful.”

Maeve climbed up behind her and dropped onto the deck in the sun.

“Anybody hungry again?”

“I could eat,” Jake said.

Emma laughed. “Of course you could.”

They finished the chips and most of the bread. Patrick stretched out on the deck with a small pillow beneath his head and closed his eyes.

Jake moved toward the stern and began looking through something Patrick had shown him near the console.

Maeve sat beside Emma.

“You okay?”

“I am.”

“You looked like you had something going on in there.”

Emma smiled. “I’ve been figuring things out for days. I thought eventually I’d be finished.”

“You don’t get finished.”

“I’m beginning to see that.”

Maeve tucked one leg beneath her.

“Are you going back to Chicago?”

Emma looked toward Jake.

He was facing the water. If he could hear them, he gave no sign.

“No.”