Muscle memory takes over then, well, of a sort. I know these roads like the back of my hand; know which ones to take to skirt the worst of the downtown traffic and, after that, which ones lead to the sea. Little has changed in the years I’ve been gone, a fact that eases me in an odd kind of way. I see the same modest houses, the same gas station and hair salon. What used to be a strip mall has become a shopping center with a supermarket, a CVS, and Urgent Care, but the languor of seaside New England remains.

Joy turns off the radio and watches it all with the same awe she might show the Grand Canyon, which amuses me. This is no Grand Canyon. We are in understated Yankee territory here, a stiff backbone in the most unassuming of homes. Wood siding is uniformly on a gray scale, green lawns are neatly mowed, and while the occasional shrub patch has been left wild by a mutinous owner, the rest are neatly trimmed. Even the ancient maples and oaks, whose Puritanical primness hides motel cottages from prying eyes, are limbed with lavish green leaves in a way that suggests Old World wealth.

We pass a small independent pharmacy, a florist with purple petunias cascading from hooks on the porch, a cemetery stretching so far that my sisters and I always believed strangers came here from miles away just to be buried near the sea. I’m thinking that it’s really very sweet—when we hit the BAY BLUFF ANIMAL HOSPITAL, and my qualms return. There are no names on the signpost, no John Sabathian DVM or some such. But it has to be his, doesn’t it? How many vets are there in a small shore town?

This is the first visible reminder of what I’m walking into, and it shatters my poise. I dread being here, but feel guilt at not having come sooner. I’m afraid of what I’ll find when I get to the house, but feel an overriding responsibility for whatever it is. I’m having second thoughts about surprising Anne and not calling Margo. And seeing my father? That’s the worst. My relationship with him has always been iffy. And now? He may be angry to see me, or pleased that I’ve come. He may not recognize me at all.

Deep down, though, driving along these streets, I feel a touch of excitement. For all the emotional baggage this place brings, I loved it once. The Rhode Island shore and I have a past, and it isn’t all bad.

Take Gendy Scoops, I realize, smiling when I see the rambling white house with sea green awnings. “Gendy was an old lady,” I tell Joy, “but this looks rehabbed. Her kids must run it now. Or their kids. Summers, we hung out here.”

“Not in Bay Bluff?”