Peyton felt like a wave was coming at him, as if something he couldn’t dodge or prepare for was about to hit him. “Yes . . . Did something happen, Lisa?”

“No. But it could have if I’d stayed—if those sailors had seen me before I saw them. They all had beer bottles in their hands, and there were empty ones all over the yard. They were loud and rowdy, shoving each other around and staggering. Scared me to death. And I’ve just been wondering . . . was it like that for you—with your daddy, I mean? Was it scary for you when he drank? Have you been scared like I was all this time?”

“Yes and no,” he said, looking at her. “I was scared, but for him, not for me. I knew if Daddy ever hurt anybody it would be himself. Mostly I was just sad for him. And for Mama. It was like this person we didn’t know had kidnapped Daddy, and we couldn’t figure out where he was or how to get him out o’ there. It’s just hard for me to believe that neither one of us could help him. I keep thinking if I had done just one more thing . . . but I have no idea what that would’ve been.”

Lisa’s beautiful eyes were getting misty.

Peyton laid his hand against her face and kissed her. “I’m makin’ you sad. I don’t ever want to do that.” He put his arm around her as they looked out at the water. “Tell you what. Let’s ride by the marina and see if I can get a job—that’ll cover your boat ride—and then swing by crazy Luther’s house to look for my bike. After that, we’ll head down to Mallory Square for the sunset. Then, well . . . we’ll figure out how to get home.”

Peyton’s luck had definitely taken a turn for the better. Millie’s cousin Wally gave him a job ferrying a fishing boat to Fort Lauderdale. And now he and Lisa had found the bike. They parked the scooter at the corner and stood together, speechless, facing Luther’s yard.

“It’s—it’s just so—so beautiful,” Lisa finally said. “Why is it beautiful?”

Luther had completely cleared his little patch of front yard, removing all the other vision works Peyton had seen there before. In their place, in the center of the lawn, was a singular work of art, a giant abstract peacock with a red bicycle at the center—the body of the bird—and a fan of tail feathers. Each one was at least twelve feet tall and made of every conceivable scrap of metal, from pipes to skillets, all welded together. Luther had used fishing line to attach pieces of colored glass, which caught the light and glistened in the sun.

So stunned were they that Peyton barely noticed someone walking up the street. By the time he realized it was Luther himself, the artist was standing right next to them. “Finders keepers?” Luther said timidly to Peyton, who couldn’t stop staring at the incredible sculpture—scraps of metal and glass transformed into a breathtaking bird.