Jake McCloud, though, has always intrigued him. When Mallory was dying, she asked Link to call Jake, and Jake and his daughter, Bess, had left the Ursula de Gournsey campaign so that Jake could come say goodbye to Mallory. He brought a guitar and sang to her.

Link and Bess McCloud had taken a walk on the beach and Link said, “I feel like something’s going on that I don’t understand.”

Bess said, “My dad told me Mallory is an old friend of his.”

“Oh,” Link said.

Bess had laughed. “Do they think we’re naïve? They’re more than friends.”

“Are they?” Link said. “I’ve never heard my mom mention his name before, and I would have remembered that. Your family is a very big deal.”

“My mother is a very big deal,” Bess said. “My dad and I are just…infantry soldiers.” She picked up a quahog shell. “Look!”

Link smiled. “You don’t get to the beach much?”

Bess examined the inside of the shell, the swirls of blue and purple—wampum, what used to be traded like money. “I’m taking this home.” They kept walking. “I like thinking that my dad had something of his own, a secret friendship or whatever. Or maybe they’re in love. Maybe they’ve been in love all these years.”

“Maybe?” Link said. The thought was, frankly, absurd.

Link won’t lie: He’s psyched to have his uncle’s place in Georgetown to himself for the weekend. It’s a bachelor’s paradise. The townhouse on Q Street is three stories tall with a finished media room in the basement, and it’s decorated like something out of a design magazine. The whole house is done in black and white with pops of color—in the living room, there’s a curvy flame-orange sofa and two electric-lime-green cup chairs. There’s a sweeping staircase with a curved black banister. Coop has huge abstract paintings and modern sculpture on pedestals—it’s real art, he goes to the galleries and gets into complicated negotiations with the owners. And then there are antiques scattered throughout—some of the pieces are from Link’s grandparents’ house in Baltimore and some are from the far-flung countries Coop has visited. There’s a chess set from India that resides permanently in the sunny breakfast nook with windows that overlook the back courtyard, and every morning when there’s time, Coop and Link play. Link has gotten pretty good.