Anne rescues me with a quick, “Okay, Daddy, we can talk about this when we get home. There are other people here, and we’re in the way.” The reception area is barely full, but the excuse is enough to get us moving again.

We are barely out the door and on the porch, though, when my father snags Joy’s hand. “Margo, with me,” he says. “I don’t see her enough.”

“Our back seat is available,” Anne offers with an inquiring look at Joy, who quickly looks at me. I’m not sure if her expression is a May I? or a HELP! So I waggle a finger between us and hold up my hands, as in, either way is fine.

It’s a moot point, since my father is already leading her down the porch. Trailing them, I watch her slide into the back seat of Anne’s Volvo. It is actually Dad’s car and likely on its last frugal legs, but at least Anne is driving. Last time Dad drove, he phoned Anne in a panic when he couldn’t start the car. She laughed telling me the story—he got confused, forgot how, kept trying to start it like it was his old wagon—and while that might in fact be a common aging problem, seventy-two isn’t terribly old. Forgetting how to start the car is one thing, forgetting how to brake in traffic something else. Though the latter hasn’t yet happened, Anne promised me that she wouldn’t let him drive.

She hides the keys, makes it a game. She tells me this often, like she’s handling a child. The fact that my father doesn’t call his buddy at the local garage, whom he once helped with a DUI and who then did every last bit of service on our cars for free, puzzles me. Maybe Dad doesn’t think of hot-wiring the car. Maybe the buddy is retired or dead. Maybe Dad doesn’t want to drive because he has nowhere to go.

Whatever, he takes the passenger’s seat without a fuss. As soon as the door is shut, he swivels to look back at Joy. I see this through the window, see that he stays that way as the Volvo backs around and heads out.

Alone in my car, I follow them back to Bay Bluff. Gravel has been strewn over pavement, a summer ritual that hasn’t changed. Under the hot sun, it will embed itself in the tar, adding traction for winter’s ice. In the here and now, it adds crunch to a soundtrack whose background is, always and forever, the sea.

My car climbs. The shrubbery now is more dense than I remember, a wealth of sea grass, myrtle, and juniper, with scrub pines interspersed, all a safe bet against the ocean wind. After a minute, two houses rise against the hazy sky like a pair of standing stones.