“More to life than work, boy. Yer daddy taught you that.”

Truer words were never spoken. Somehow Big Mac had managed to run a thriving business that demanded his full attention every summer without sacrificing his family. His five children always knew where they stood with him and that nothing was more important to him than their safety and happiness.

As Mac watched the road to home unfold around him, a sudden and powerful urge to recapture the magic of his childhood overtook him. He wanted to go back to the time before the island closed in around him like a prison. He wanted to go back to those endless summer days of fog and sun and boats and people. The startling realization shocked him to his core and sent his life plan out the window like a piece of paper sucked into Gansett’s balmy breezes.

“Ya know,” Ned said, “if just one of you kids showed the slightest interest in the place, yer daddy would never sell it.”

Mac had no idea how to reply to that, so he said nothing. Approaching his parents’ rambling home at the top of the hill, Mac caught his first glimpse of the action below: McCarthy’s Gansett Inn, perched on a hill of its own overlooking the marina and busy harbor. Adirondack chairs peppered the hotel lawn, and boats were packed three and four deep against the marina’s main pier. After five years away, not one thing about the cluster of white buildings and docks looked different to Mac.

They pulled into the driveway of Mac’s childhood home, and he reached for his wallet.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ned growled.

“Thanks for the lift.” Mac shook Ned’s hand. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too.” Ned held Mac’s hand longer than necessary. “Ya know, sometimes life puts things in yer path to show ya where ya belong.” Ned fixed his eyes on the marina. “Don’t miss what’s right in front of ya.”

Mac had a sudden vision of the lovely but bitter woman who’d crossed his path earlier in the day and was filled with a profound sense that something huge was about to change.

Ned released Mac’s hand and smiled at him as if he hadn’t just rocked his world.

“See ya ’round,” Ned said.

“Yeah,” Mac said. “See ya.”

He flipped the latch on the gate to his parents’ two-story white colonial. Stepping into his mother’s rose garden, he took a moment to appreciate the fragile multicolored blooms and intoxicating scent before continuing up the stairs to the wide front porch.

Since none of the year-rounders believed in locks, Mac walked right into the house. “Anyone home?”

Silence and the aroma of potpourri greeted him.

Walking on gleaming hardwood floors, he passed a wall of school photos of the young McCarthy siblings on his way to the recently modernized kitchen that looked out over the marina and North Harbor. Mac remembered his father staring out those windows, taking in every nuance of the goings on below. The employees often joked about Big Mac spying on them from “The White House.”