The air was so sour as he got closer. He put his hand on my face—it covered almost my entire face, as if to hold me there. His hand smelled like a match. My mouth filled with salt. I wanted my dad to hear me wishing for him, hear me needing him in that moment. But I didn’t call him, and he didn’t come.

Wait. What is that smell?

I sit up in my chair in Lolly’s spare room and the noise comes again. An explosion, not nearby but not super-distant either. Like cannons in historical dramas on TV. I listen for a while and eventually start to wonder if I’d imagined it.

I felt bad for him on Christmas. Dad. I never knew what to get him. December would come around and I couldn’t ever think of anything that he might like. Nothing I saw brought him to mind. Nothing ever made me think, Daddy would love that. How lonely. Yeah, I think he was pretty lonely.

The too-harsh bang of the bell to end the round. The smell of booze-sweat and matches—hot matches sizzling at the bottom of a beer bottle. The horrible thud of a boxer’s fist on another boxer’s face.

And then it happens again. My eyes spring open and my head turns toward the noise—the north side of the island.

I’ve developed the attention span of a retired person. Easily intrigued, ready to march to the village green or whatever and sniff out trouble. I guess everyone in a small town has this, the need to latch on to anything out of the ordinary. There’s no point thinking about it too much. I’m getting old, like everyone else.

Chapter Nine

By the dock at the north side of the island, a few Swans are gathered, looking out toward Duck Island, and some other Wrinklies who have been sunbathing on towels are sitting up, pointing or shrugging as they toss a conversation between them. There’s something I really like about seeing old people naked, but I’d never tell anyone that. It sounds too weird, though I actually don’t see why it should.

Earl seems like a good person to ask what’s happening. He’s really smart, plus he has a pair of binoculars pressed against the black freckles on his cheeks. I walk up and ask him if he knows what all the noise was about, and I know he hears me, but it takes him ages before he even turns his head in my direction. Then he just does this I’m really disappointed in you head shake, and I start to wonder if I should’ve asked Louise instead.