“Go explore, buddy,” Anthony told Max. To his mother, he said, “How’d you even know where to find me, specifically?”

Dorothy beamed and held up her phone. “I’ve known where you were all along. I use the Find My Friends app. I use it for your father too, so I can keep his schedule straight. He hasn’t been home in twenty-one days. This is the book tour to end all book tours. He did Books Inc. last night.”

“I love that store,” said Anthony. (He couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of his voice.) “Which location?”

“Alameda, I think. No, Laurel Village. Oh, who can remember? But, Anthony, that’s also why I brought Max here: your father’s coming to Block Island next week.”

“I know.”

“I thought we could have a bit of a vacation—a family reunion of sorts.”

It took some negotiating, but Cassie agreed to let Max stay. She had commitments at the gallery the next several days, and then she’d come to Block Island on the sixth. She would stay one night, in a hotel if she could find a room, leaving with Max on the afternoon high-speed ferry on the seventh.

“Ground rules,” said Cassie.

“Anything,” said Anthony. Max had finished his exploration of the house and had come to sit next to Anthony, pressing his shoulder into Anthony’s chest.

“Watch him near the water. He can’t swim without a bubble. And don’t give him sugar after three p.m. If he gets water in his ears you have to use these drops to dry them out or he could get swimmer’s ear. He really needs to be asleep by eight-thirty. And sunscreen! Lots and lots of sunscreen. And a hat.”

“Sunscreen,” said Anthony. “Roger that.” He was so happy to have Max for a few days that he would have gamely applied sunscreen to an entire rhinoceros, even getting in the wrinkly nooks and crannies. In the shower, all he could think about was showing Max around Block Island. He wanted to take him to see the alpacas at Manisses Animal Farm and Mohegan Bluffs and the colorful stones at Pebbly Beach. He wanted to buy him ice cream at Mia’s and fried clams at Finn’s.

When he returned to the living room, refreshed, Max was pointing the remote at the television. Dorothy was standing in the kitchen looking at the slice of ocean just visible from the window. “It’s such an adorable little cottage!” she exclaimed. “So old-fashioned.” She returned to the living room and settled herself on the couch. Then she rested her eyes on Anthony and said, “You look better than you’ve looked in some time! A suntan, a new haircut, you’re looking very fit and dapper.”

“Dapper?” asked Anthony.

“Oh, very dapper. Your belly is gone too.”

It was true, Anthony knew. He hadn’t stepped on a scale since he’d arrived—Fitzy’s uncle didn’t have one—but he knew he was slimmer and fitter from all of the hiking he’d done with Joy, and the swimming, and the bike rides. In the sea air, the salt air, abstaining from alcohol (the previous evening violently excepted), his body had tightened and grown stronger, more like it used to be. “It really is beautiful here,” continued Dorothy. “I can’t believe I haven’t been to Block Island before. The water is so blue! It looks like . . .”