“Libby? Maisie? Are you ready?” Papa’s cheerful figure appeared. He wore about him the sharp pine scent and cool air of the morning, and his mood was expansive, determined to breathe in the day with great gulps. Bidden to don my things quickly, I raced to the coat closet and searched among the layers of wool and fur for my own cloak, slipping into my leather long boots at once. Papa was wrapping Mama into her pelisse as I returned, while they waited for me outside on the verandah. And glad I was then to escape this disquieting House with them.

“Will the fog thicken still more do you think?” I noticed my mother’s gloved hand creep into Papa’s.

“It very well could do.”

But the seemingly unaffected words covered his squeeze of her hand, and he kept it in his as we proceeded to the boat, the lawn glowing beneath the fog. The sky held no height, so we walked in what seemed a type of soft tunnel, a green shot to the blackened sea. Against the white rocks on the shore, the water lapped, but then beyond where one could see, a blank mist erased the border between atmosphere and liquid.

The excursion boat bobbed slightly at the float. Mr. Coates waited, his expression clouded by the smoke of his pipe. I remembered a whispered remonstrance to Mr. Coates that Papa had rendered years ago upon his smoking before ladies—lady guests, my father emphasized. And I recalled the respectful way in which Mr. Coates had regarded my father, agreed, “Ayuh,” and continued to smoke. It seemed the man’s response had endeared him to Papa, for I could not fathom my father’s summer happiness without including there the hours he spent smoking on the float with Mr. Coates, the men’s twin silence rocked gently by the waves of passing craft. As we approached, he raised his hat to Mama and grinned at Papa. “Thickafog.”

The Posy L. had a handsome wooden hull, sleek and gray. Papa and Mr. Coates stood on either side of the wooden mounting box set upon the float and handed Mama and me up into the boat. Then Mr. Coates hopped aboard and cranked the engine while Papa cast off, leaping onto the gunwales as the boat slipped away from the float. I drew to my favorite seat, at the side of Mr. Coates in the stern, and turned to watch the disappearing land as the boat nudged into the harbor and its envelope of fog.