Harry heard the door swing open behind him, and turned to see Anne, silhouetted in the lamplight from inside. “They’re asleep, finally,” she said, coming up beside him. She fit perfectly in the crook of his arm.

“Are you all right?” Harry said.

She looked up at him. “I think so.”

“We can leave in the morning, if you’d like.”

She sighed. “There’s no need, darling. I wouldn’t like for us to change our plans on his account. And I know what it means to you to be here.”

He sighed, too, acknowledging that. “It’s a little like being a kid again, for me. Back before Chase died. When things were okay. That’s what my mom feels, too, I think. Why she likes it here so much. It’s like his spirit came here to live. He always loved it here, on the water.”

“Things can be okay again, Harry. Can’t they? Aren’t they?”

“Of course. You’re right. They’re perfect now,” he said. “It’s just that sometimes the past—it catches up to a person, you know? When you’re a kid, you have all these grand ideas that nothing bad is ever going to happen to you.”

“Yes, I know.”

They stood a moment, absorbing the low hum of contentment that seemed to sound in such quiet times between them. It would sustain them through the next wild day and the next, come what may. Of that much, he was sure.

Suddenly, she flinched. “JJ,” she whispered, pointing her chin toward the other cottage. Harry looked, and saw his nephew just shutting the door behind him as he came out onto the porch. The distance was great enough that Harry thought if he and Anne stayed perfectly still, JJ might not notice them. She evidently had the same idea; she stood frozen in place.

They watched as JJ lit a cigarette. He pulled a flask from his pocket, its silver winking in the moon. Lifted it to his lips. Then he paused, and reared back and flung it. End over end it spun across the night sky, disappearing into the shadows as it descended toward the ground, making no sound when it landed.

Harry looked down at his wife. A tear glistened in her eye. And suddenly, he felt no more anger, only sorrow for all that had been, and joy for all that would be.

Epilogue

HOME OF MRS. CECILIA FRYT
412 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
October 1950