He laces his fingers between mine and squeezes. “How’ve you been?”

“Yeah, good.” I wish I had something to tell him, but nothing’s changed. I take my hand away and put it across my eyebrows to keep the sun out of my eyes. “I’ve been changing the name of Mrs. Tyburn’s husband’s boat.”

It doesn’t sound as difficult and complicated when I say it like that.

“In a home movie, frame by frame,” I add. Walking wakes me up a bit after the day cooped up in the edit suite. And the island is beautiful. It seems made for summer. The spaces between the houses are green with wispy grasses and wildflowers, or lumpy with funny stacks of rocks and moss. It’s not uptight like a suburb with buzz-cut lawns and prissy flower beds. The island is like someone who’s really pretty and knows she looks better without makeup. The sea is silver and reflect-y like a crumpled piece of foil.

Most of the Swans ignore younger visitors, but everyone nods to Jason when they pass us, even though he’s only twenty-two. Jason’s essential here. When First Friday rolls around, and the handful of younger relatives and Wrinkly friends who can’t or won’t leave the mainland come over, Jason visits his grandmother, Giddy. He comes every month, our most regular guest. They talk and eat, take walks. He fixes things around her house or helps in her garden plot, reminds her of her Facebook password so they can look at the latest photos his mother has posted.

And then he gets to work.

In front of the swirly rainbow walls of the Psychedeli, Johnny is washing out a massive stockpot with the hose while Suzie sits in the grass in her big red cat’s-eye glasses reading on her Kindle, skirt hitched up to get some sun on her pale, freckled legs.

When Johnny sees us, he lifts his big, leather-vested torso and waves us over, shouting, “Jason! What’s up, dude?” He drops the hose and splashes Suzie.

She waves her e-reader at him. “Old man, you wreck this hundred-dollar rock and I’ll have your hide with my eggs tomorrow!” She reaches for Jason’s arm and he hitches her up and gets pulled right into a hug. “Ain’t you here right on time! Come on in, you two.”

Johnny turns off the water and follows us in with the clean pot, which he carries as if it weighs nothing.