But now, another, equally important force was pulling me away. I was looking for Cole. Not for the Cole who was probably still happily stacking wood with Lucas right now. The past Cole, the real Cole, the Cole who had a different name altogether. In other words, I was trying to understand his history, his identity—and I had one clue, only one: Lindenberg, Vermont.

I looked up from the mirror.

“Do you want to stay here for a while?” he said, this beautiful boy.

We sat there together, and we sat there together, and we sat a little longer.

So this is the story of how I met Tuck, because that’s what his name actually was, not Oz of course. First Tuck sent the ambulance away. Then he went out onto the street somewhere and brought me back a little bowl of chowder and a bag of oyster crackers. We sat there in the back office.

“Don’t you need to—what about the booth?”

“Who cares about the booth?” he said.

A few people drifted in and out of the back office where we were sitting, but mostly we were alone.

“Panic attack, huh?” Tuck said.

“I guess so.”

“First time?”

“I’ve had them before. But I didn’t know they were panic attacks.”

“What did you think they were?”

“I’m not sure. I thought there was really something to be scared of.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I know how that feels.”

I doubted that. Everything about him—his posture, his legs, his open face—seemed to say not afraid. But I knew he was trying to be kind, so I smiled and kept on eating soup.

If I couldn’t leave the ferry terminal without having another panic attack, then my only option was to go back home to Wolf Island. There was no room on the four o’clock ferry for my car, so I made a reservation for the nine o’clock boat. I migrated from the back office to the waiting area, so I could look out the windows at my car and the rippling water in the harbor. Tuck was back at the information booth, talking with tourists, chatting with locals. He was tall, smiling, friendly. People gravitated toward him. He was totally unselfconscious, throwing back his head to laugh, not caring who saw or heard.

During a lull, Tuck came over to me on a bench looking out over the harbor.

“I pretty much saved your life, right?” he said. “I figure you owe me.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Kidding,” he said. “Sort of. What I mean is I’m curious about you. And since you don’t have anywhere to go, I think you should tell me your story. And I brought you gumballs.”

He rolled six small green and red gumballs into my palm.