The next day was a library day. Eddie normally let me know that he didn’t approve of library days, since he vastly preferred days that he rode along in the bookmobile. This morning, however, he was snoring hard when my alarm went off, was still sleeping when I finished my short shower, and was still asleep after I ate breakfast and went back to check that he was breathing.

“Yesterday tired you out, didn’t it?” Trying not to get any Eddie hairs on my library clothes, I kissed the top of his furry head. He opened his eyes the thinnest of slits, closed them, sighed, and managed to make himself go a teensy bit flatter on the bed.

“Poor little guy,” I murmured, patting his hip. “See you tonight, okay?”

He didn’t “mrr” in reply, but he did purr, which reassured me that the previous day’s events hadn’t caused any lasting damage. And which told me that though Rafe was probably right, that I was at least a little traumatized, Eddie probably wasn’t. At the door, I blew a kiss to the back of the boat, which my cat ignored. I smiled and went out into the morning.

Dawn had long since broken, and there were signs that my marina neighbor to the west, Eric Apney, was already out and about. His morning newspaper was flopped atop a back deck table, his coffee mug on top of the untidy sections. Eric was a divorced downstate cardiac surgeon in his mid-forties and spent every minute he could Up North. In a couple of weeks his boat would be stowed away for the winter and he’d spend his nonworking weekends on the slopes of Colorado.

My eastward marina neighbors, the retired Louisa and Ted Axford, had already pulled up stakes. In the old days they’d been one of the last boats in the water. Now, however, there were adorable grandkids downstate and I wondered if they’d be selling their boat. The marina’s slips were very close to each other—only a few feet apart—and having polite neighbors who were considerate and fun was something to celebrate. If the Axfords sold, something for which the marina rats had already set up a betting pool, who would I get for my new neighbors?

Then I remembered. In a few weeks, just like normal, I’d be moving, but I wouldn’t be hauling my belongings up the hill to the boardinghouse. And next summer, I wasn’t going to be schlepping my stuff back down the hill to the marina. In a few weeks, I’d be living in Rafe’s house. Our house.