He’d set the glass he’d been washing onto the bar, which smelled like lemon polish, and put both arms around her to pull her close. She’d rested against his flannel shirt, which carried the aroma of salt and sea and whiskey. Her mother had often joked that she could sense him coming home not by the sounds he made but by the scents that preceded him. Colleen had rested into her dad as he whispered, “You’re a chip off the old block, Lena. Someday I’ll take you there, take you to the land of eternal green, and staggering cliffs you can’t imagine even with the best of your imagination, to the land where fairies live in the knots of old oaks and the ocean is always thrashing itself against a land so beautiful there’s not another like it.”

Colleen stared off with this memory fresh in her mind—so quick and vivid in its entirety—as she answered Beckett, “I think he wanted to bring only me. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe he told the others, too, at a different time.”

“Maybe.” She smiled at him as he placed his hand on the brass doorknob. “Or maybe I’m special.”

“Well, that you are.” Beckett opened the door and together they entered the dimly lit space.

“I was joking of course.” She shut the door behind them. “Of course I’m not.”

Beckett stopped so quickly that Colleen bumped into him, their bodies touching. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in close. “Yes, you are.”

Colleen blushed, felt the heat in her face and under her ribs, along her arms and thighs. Thank God for the dim light. She kissed his cheek lightly and let go to glance around the room.

Her dad stood behind the bar talking to a man on its far side, engaged in a conversation that had put serious expressions on both their faces. There were only six patrons, two couples and two women alone, scattered at different tables. It was too early for the crowd to be settling in, but this had always been Colleen’s favorite part of the day, when she could be alone with her dad. He’d tell her an old myth or joke. He was always saving news from the beauty of the day to share with her—a dolphin that had visited the dock with its new calf; a phone call from his sister; a pub patron who had found true love; a sick person healed. He gathered these gems like Hallie had gathered oyster shells to place around their room.

“He looks so serious,” she said to Beckett.

Together they approached the bar and Gavin spied them. His smile spread sure as a sunburst across his face. “My Lena!” he called out.

“Hi, Dad.”

“When did you get here?”