As Levi paid, I scanned the beach for a good spot to sit and eat. Some of the other diners had brought their own picnic blankets and were sprawled out nearby. The soft drone of their chatter was accompanied by the lulling sounds of foamy swash rolling onto the sand.

Those people were definitely on a date, I thought, stomach tightening. Unbidden, a memory started to take shape. Chad, Penny, and me eating on the smooth, flat rocks by the wharf, watching the fishermen bring in the evening’s catch.

“Babe?” Levi appeared at my side, stuffing his wallet into his back pocket, two bottles of Moxie nestled in the crook of his arm. “Where should we sit?”

“There are some picnic tables over there,” I said, pointing to a grassy knoll straight ahead of Lorcan’s crab shack. Separating the beach and the rest of the town was a wide stretch of grass where a few picnic tables were scattered in between children’s playground equipment and an ice cream vendor. “When I was a little kid, my mom and grandma used to bring me here. There was this crabber’s shanty near where Lorcan’s place is now.” I smiled at the memory. “This old gruff guy with a beard and eyebrows so thick you could barely see his eyes. He sold the best steamed crabs I’ve ever eaten. Gran showed me how to crack open the crabs. She gave me a little wooden hammer and I just whaled away on the little suckers.”

Levi glanced down the beach like he could actually picture the shanty still standing there. “I don’t remember doing anything like that with my parents. Dad mostly just stuck me in front of the TV or sent me out to play with the neighborhood kids. We didn’t do things together like that.”

“What about art? Didn’t your mom color with you or anything like that?”

He shook his head. “Not since I was really little. Like elementary school.”

We stood in silence, until Levi shifted his stance. “Until I got good at something—drawing—they didn’t have a lot of interest in what I was interested in. Dad loved travel shows and those luxury vacation magazines. We didn’t have the money, but it was pretty much the main thing we ever talked about.” He shrugged. “He didn’t care about sports or movies or cars, nothing like that. But if I needed help on a world history paper or something…”

“What about your mom?”