“No, I couldn’t have, Ellie. You come home or there is nothing to talk about.”

He hung up and I curled into a ball on the couch, my heart’s doors closing one by one, locks clicking shut.

And even as I knew the wrongness of it, I called Hutch and asked if he wanted to come on the boat trip and hear the Summer House stories. Of course he did.

The forty-foot Boston Whaler was named Blind Faith. It was tied to the edge of Birdie’s dock, and Uncle Cotton was pulling the covers off the seats, tossing the fishing poles into the storage bin, and checking the engine. Birdie handed a cooler to Hutch, and he loaded it into the bow of the boat.

“Who is going to drive this thing?” I asked, stepping into the hull.

“I am.” Birdie threw a pile of towels into the backseat. “It’s mine. No one else touches it.”

Uncle Cotton laughed and wiped down the dashboard. “Yep, until it’s time to dock at dark with an outgoing tide.”

Birdie threw a cleaning cloth at him. “Don’t go telling all my secrets. I like everyone to think I know how to do it all.”

Hutch jumped up onto the dock and unwound the front ropes. “I still believe, Ms. Birdie.”

A voice then called out from the yard, “Hello.”

We all looked up to see a woman walking toward us wearing white pants, a pink button-down, and a pink headband, as if she were in a Lilly Pulitzer commercial for “a day on the boat.” I looked to Birdie and we both smiled.

Uncle Cotton walked toward her and offered to take her bag. He then helped her onto the boat. She smiled a pink-lipstick smile. “Hello, I’m Babs Friedman, writer for Coastal Living.” She held out her hand to Hutch, and introductions were made all around.

Birdie drove slowly and narrated the history of Bayside. When she had finished, she turned off the motor, and with the water caressing the hull like silver hands, she allowed us to float while she opened the cooler and handed out lemonade and cucumber sandwiches. “So, Ms. Friedman,” she said, and swiveled around in her captain’s chair, “tell me what you’d like to know.”

“Well …” Babs smoothed her hair back into her headband, blotted her lips. “As you know, this is a story about legends connected to homes. I’ve heard—through the grapevine—that when people stay with you, their wishes come true.”

“Well, well …” Ms. Birdie shook her head. “You’ve heard wrongly, then. That is not the legend at all. At all.”

“Oh,” Babs said, switching her sandwich from one hand to the other. “Then what is it?”

“That when people stay at the house, they discover a truth. There is a big, big difference between coming here for wish fulfillment and discovering the truth.”