In the next three weeks he made ten trips. The boat began to shed its old paint, and heavy seas worked caulking out if its seams. The nail heads in the hull showed red daggers of rust, but he made money and everybody in town knew it. He took his father and Colette down to the Little Palace one night, drank six rounds with them, and felt damned good. His luck seemed to be turning; Colette’s hair was growing longer, and her skin was losing the sun, taking on soft tones they had both forgotten. The Caprice was running again, and she could visit friends, shop a bit. One morning, taking the newspaper on her walk, she read that Bucky Tyler had been sent up for nine years. When Paul untied the boat that night to move it down to the fish dock, Colette leaned out from the wharf and gave him a long, drifting kiss, which he drank down like ice water on a hot day.

She watched the current catch the Saxon and drift it south like a tainted cloud, then called out, “I have to take Matt to the pediatrician in Beewick for free shots and checkup real early. What time are you heading out with the boat?”

He stepped into the wheelhouse and started the engine. “Late,” he yelled. “I have to wait for Etienne. It’ll be eight-thirty maybe.”

“Can you stay with Daddy until then? Mrs. Fontenot is supposed to be there by eight. I hope to be back by nine—earlier than that if everything goes quick.”

“I’ll come over.”

She walked to her car and opened the door, but before she got in, she looked at his face in the open window of the wheelhouse. “Catch a ton of shrimp” is what she called. “When you figure it’s time to come in, make one more pass. Then we’ll get your car fixed.” He waved and turned the boat into the channel.

The next morning at seven he walked up onto the long porch of Colette’s father’s house and knocked. This was just a habit. Even if the old man was ten feet from the door, he wouldn’t answer. Paul walked in and called, but he heard only the buzz of a wasp trapped against a windowpane. One by one he looked through the high-ceilinged rooms downstairs—the echoing kitchen, the spare bedroom, the music room, where Colette’s old George Steck gleamed in the corner. He was tempted to press a key, but he pulled his hand back.