“He kept coming over to give me things and saying that people returned them and he couldn’t resell them. It was total crap, of course, but I was desperate so I shut up and accepted it. Now I just deliver a bouquet of flowers to his house every week to say thanks. Not that it’ll ever even out.”

Truman’s heart swelled at the image of Ash honoring Bob’s generosity every week forever.

“Anyway. Now that it’s fixed up, Carlton’s offering about ten times what I paid for it. I don’t know, I’ve got a little time to figure it out, but…”

He trailed off as they turned another corner, and the rocky coastline came into view. Once exposed to the water, the wind whipped them, but the sun shone brightly, sparkling off the wavelets and shadowing the giant-tumbled rocks.

“Wow,” Truman breathed, awed, and for the first time that day, it was exactly the right word. “The ocean is absolutely gorgeous.”

“That’s Penobscot Bay.”

“Oh. Great word. Is the bay different than the ocean?”

“Nah, not really. Same water.” Truman smiled as Ash continued, “The Penobscot are the Indigenous people whose land we’re on. It’s a mispronunciation of the Algonquin for the people of where the white rocks extend out.”

And extend out they did. There was a line of rocks that looked like they made a path of steps into the water. Truman felt like at the right moment, he would be able to follow them down below the waves into a salt-crusted crystal palace.

“Wanna sit?” Ash tugged lightly on Truman’s jacket and pointed at a flat-topped boulder.

They picked their way across the rocky shore, Bruce trotting easily alongside them, and sat down. It was immediately more comfortable. The sun warmed their faces, and two large boulders buffered them from the punishing wind. The smell of salt and the sound of the waves were lulling, and Truman sipped his latte in a state of unfamiliar bliss.

“My mom has early-onset Alzheimer’s,” Ash said, sipping his own coffee and gazing out over the bay. “She was diagnosed three years ago. That’s why I moved back to Owl Island.”

Truman felt like he’d swallowed a stone. “I’m so sorry, Ash. That’s…damn.”

“Lots of the time, she’s okay. Like her old self. Around dinner, though, she gets really confused. And at night, she sometimes freaks out, doesn’t know where she is. She…” He didn’t finish the thought.

“And you take care of her.”

“I try.”

Ash paused for long enough to eat half of a blueberry muffin. Long enough that Truman wondered if the kind thing to do would be to change the subject. But then Ash continued.