I left work early. I walked quickly as if chased. I wasn’t sure what I was running from, or to. All I knew was that I couldn’t go home. It hurt my chest in a complicated way to think that somewhere in the house I loved so much was the stranger. I felt a knot of fear inside my ribs, a tough bud threatening to blossom open. Instead of going home, I went to Island Pie and ate two slices with tomatoes and broccoli. It began to rain and I stood under an awning on the street. The drops started fat and distinct, making satisfying plunking sounds on the gutters, drumming on the leaves. Then more rain, and more, one long blur, a murmur. The nails holding shingles in place gleamed. The masts of boats flashed out in the harbor.

Eddie, a kind of blur through the rain, waved me over to One Eyed Jack’s.

“Get out of the rain!” he said. “I think I just heard thunder.”

“I guess I’ll have one drink,” I told him.

“Totally on me,” he said.

“You’re a real gentleman.”

“Where are the two musketeers?” he said.

“Home.” I felt the muscles of my jaw tighten as I said the word, imagining Cole and Lucas, eating dinner together in a circle of light at the kitchen table, maybe drinking wine out of mason jars. Home certainly didn’t feel like the haven it had always been for me; I was putting off returning to all that was waiting for me there.

Eliot Moniz brought me a scotch and soda. Beside me were the old fishermen. I couldn’t hear their conversation, just comforting cackles of laughter. Over near the back porch, Elijah West was having a beer with his dad and brother. At nine, a band called Gin and Soda started strumming guitars in the corner near the porch. Eddie helped plug in their amp and microphone. Gin was the name of the bass player, an angular girl with thick dark hair. She’d grown up on the Vineyard and she still lived there, but she had a sense of otherness about her somehow.

The whole place was full of people I knew, plus the heartiest of the lingering tourists, artists probably. I liked the late lingering tourists. They typically had a we’re-in-this-together attitude. At the table next to me, the tourists were yelling out the names of towns in New York. New Paltz! Ossining! Poughkeepsie! Redding!

I was lonely. I was envious of the people talking about New York towns. “Saratoga. Ticonderoga. Utica!” They all cheered. The band was playing weepy songs, drawing out the guitar.