Each afternoon he returned home, oddly energized, always with reports for Kevin; he spoke knowingly now about wing flaps and Air Speed Indicators, pressure units, and turn brackets. Kevin found his new lexicon a bit alarming—almost voyeuristic—but said nothing. What was the use of knowing any of those terms? It wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to anyone on the plane.

Kevin meanwhile stayed at the inn the entire time. He avoided the drama at Government Dock and Caginish Point. He swept the cottages, cleaned the main house, prepared for the families—whether or not they were actually coming. Sheila Quinn vacuumed and mopped while Kevin scoured each room, editing out books people had left on the shelves. Anything to do with shipwrecks or deadly fires or hacked-up body parts he removed; and for some inconceivable reason there were so many of them—paperbacks on fatal hurricanes, the Titanic, the Halifax Explosion (three copies alone of Jaws). Why this preoccupation with disaster in casual seaside reading? Kevin wondered. He took the books to the garage and dumped them in a wine crate. Then he distributed other volumes in the rooms, books he thought might offer consolation or comfort: poems of Rilke, Seneca’s letters (dubiously), Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Mindful Living. A preposterous book about heaven someone had left behind (who knew, it might help). At the same time, the neighbors with the summer cottage kept calling from Montreal. Could Kevin go over and check their house? They had two young daughters and didn’t want to expose them to the turmoil on the island. Kevin told the husband, as soon as he had a free moment, he’d go.

On the morning of the fifth day, the Red Cross coordinator called again. The families were arriving that afternoon. There’d be seven of them. Maybe eight. Perhaps more. She couldn’t say how long they’d stay—or even if, once on the island, they’d choose to spend the night. But she wanted to make sure all the rooms were ready.

Kevin hung up and walked to the kitchen and tied on his apron. He felt all at once, unexpectedly, anxious—as he had when they first opened the inn. He took vegetables out of the cooler, pots from the rack, and lit the stove. The morning was overcast, blustery. Comfort food, he tried to concentrate, that was what he’d serve that night. A pea soup, a macaroni and cheese casserole. A meat loaf. Lots of cake. He needed to get working.