I hadn’t realised that their house backed onto the water, but as I followed his mother into the backyard I saw how the lawn dropped away to the brownish water of the river, and there among spindly trees and mangroves by the water’s edge was a little timber dock. A small sailboat was angling up beside it and a figure leaped off, carrying a length of rope which he looped around a metal hook on the dock. As we got closer I saw it was Jim, but he was shirtless and his skin was brown, his hair longer, his face unshaven. He moved like a cat, graceful and easy, between the deck of his small sailboat and the dock.

‘That boy just isn’t happy unless he’s on the water,’ his mother was saying, ‘and I tell him to wear a shirt but do you think he listens to me? You’ll have to forgive him, Sarah. If we’d known you were coming…’

Jim looked up then at the sound of his mother’s voice and squinted. I raised my hand in a half-wave.

‘Aren’t you going to come say hello? Sarah’s dropped by for a visit, honey. Do you remember her? She says y’all met on the Mariposa.’

‘Of course I do.’ Jim shook my hand as a stranger might. ‘Just hang on and I’ll get my shirt from the boatshed. Did you offer her a cold drink, Mama?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Jim—who taught you your manners in the first place? We’ll just wait for you down on the dock. I’ll show Sarah the river up close.’

We sat on the soft, warm wood of the dock, our feet dangling over the side. My shoes were off beside me and my feet felt cool in the brackish water. There was the sound of it slapping the sides of the dock, and the rigging of the boat clanked in the breeze. The temperature had dropped a few degrees down by the water, and we waved away mosquitoes while she talked about boats and the crabbing and fishing they did all summer, and how nice it was to have a person to show around.

‘How long can you stay for? At least till dinner, I hope. We can boil crabs for dinner.’

‘I’m afraid my bus leaves at five.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to come for crabs some other time.’

Jim came over and sat beside me, wearing a yellow cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. ‘Is she talking your ear off, Sarah? Mama, isn’t there something you need to do up in the house?’

His mother reached over and pinched his arm.

‘Ow!’

She stood, brushing her skirt and smiling at me. ‘You show Sarah round the place, now, won’t you? I’ll be up in the kitchen.’