Harry stayed on Sohier Road and reached the three-quarter-mile beach, flanked by Micmac Road, metered parking along the narrow strip of sidewalk. The beach itself was half sandy and half rock strewn, expansive at low tide, but reduced to a sliver when the tide was high. He walked along the sidewalk and found the grey-shingled rental that his father and he had rented for an entire month the summer his father decided to open up another store in Maine. It looked empty now, but it was early in the season. Only some of the rentals had cars in front of them, and the beach was almost abandoned. There was one walker, a woman in a hoodie striding along the sidewalk that lined the beach, and one rock collector, idling along the tide line, occasionally crouching to pick up a find. It was a slack tide, the water as still and glassy as Harry had ever seen it. A truck rumbled by, its inhabitant glancing at Harry from underneath a sun-bleached Sea Dogs cap.

He decided he’d walk all the way up to the Buxton Point Lighthouse. He kept thinking about that summer with his father, how he’d spent so much time with Alice Moss, the Realtor showing him commercial properties in the area. Harry had liked the idea of his father opening a new store, of taking the chance to leave New York City and settle closer to where he’d grown up. And he’d liked Alice. She was low-key for a Realtor, not flashy or loud. She might have been blond and leggy, but she didn’t wear too much makeup, she didn’t drive a white Lexus, and her fingernails were unvarnished and cut short. These weren’t necessarily attributes that Harry had noticed, but his father had, and he’d mentioned them on a number of occasions. In retrospect, it was clear that his father had already fallen hard for Alice Moss and was testing the waters with his son, nervous that Harry might not approve. It was only at the end of the summer, after they had packed up and were driving back to New York City so that Harry could start his senior year of high school, that Bill confessed his relationship with Alice had become romantic.

“I’m happy for you, Dad. I like Alice.”

His father’s relief was palpable. His shoulders relaxed, and he began to talk about Alice, how much they had in common, having both lost parents when they were young, and how they both felt left behind in this new, modern world.