Dustin? Joy hadn’t seen Dustin in more than a year. They’d communicated about Maggie’s visits, of course—they’d texted, they’d emailed, occasionally they’d talked on the phone. Joy followed Sandy’s Instagram account, where Sandy posted (too many, in Joy’s opinion, one per day would have been quite enough) photos of Tiki at the beach, Tiki wearing a Santa hat, Tiki and Sandy together on the back of a horse. Joy refrained from liking or commenting but she couldn’t help but notice that Maggie did both. Maggie was profligate with her smiley faces and her hearts. Dustin never appeared in the photos. He must have been holding the phone.

“Hey!” said Dustin. “Joy. I decided to take a ferry ride back with Maggie. You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about, so I figured—why not in person?” He looked around the shop—was he angling for free food? Maybe Sandy didn’t feed him. Maggie said Tiki was more of an all-day snacker and that neither Sandy nor Dustin ever seemed to prepare or eat a regular meal. When Maggie offered to make them Dinner by Dad’s black bean tostadas they looked at her like she’d offered to sing an aria from The Marriage of Figaro—and then they’d declined.

“What a nice surprise, Dustin,” said Joy dishonestly. The truth was that even after all these years she didn’t like to see Dustin, because seeing Dustin forced her to remember a time when she’d been very unhappy. But she did need to talk to him about the money. “Where’s Maggie?”

“She took right off,” said Dustin. “She said she had to babysit?”

This was news to Joy, but she let it pass. When the line had dissolved, Joy put together a plate of whoopie pies and brought it over to a table, motioning with her free hand for Dustin to take a seat.

“Awesome!” he said. “Food!” Joy noted that Dustin’s admiration of free stuff hadn’t changed any.

“Listen,” said Joy. “I hate to bring up money.”

Dustin’s hand paused over the plate.

“But,” said Joy.

Dustin returned his hand, empty, to his lap.

“I’ve been thinking,” she continued, “about setting up a college account for Maggie. You know, one of those five-twenty-nines? And I thought if we both contributed, then in five years, when she’s ready to apply, we might at least be able to look at some decent state schools.” Her cheeks were flaming. She hated talking about money, hated being anything less than one hundred percent free of Dustin.

But she had to. She feared Maggie would end up attending the Community College of Rhode Island, Flanagan Campus, returning home every weekend to stay with Joy because the eighteen roommates with whom she was sharing a two-bedroom in Lincoln made it impossible to get any work done. And of course community college was a viable option and she could always transfer to a four-year college at some point, but Joy had always believed that Maggie was meant for a four-year private liberal arts education—the kind that Joy had been unable to afford for herself. She could see Maggie at Williams or Amherst or Mount Holyoke.