They are including me in their conversation, expecting me to join them in their repartee, instead of sitting like a lump. I realize this might be the moment where I should stand up and get out of the boat, so I do, awkwardly.

“We watched your brother’s game last night,” Hugh says to me. “He’s quite the athlete.”

“And a handsome boy,” adds Sabine.

“And then after that, your sister took us out for blackberry ice cream. We looked for you, but I guess you were out in the Signal.”

“I’ve never had that flavor ice cream before,” says Sabine. “It was fabulous.”

“It’s my birthday today,” I blurt. “I’m sixteen.”

Hugh looks at Sabine, then he looks at me, then he looks at Sabine. “Happy birthday,” he says.

Sabine steps forward and once again kisses me on both cheeks. She wishes me happy birthday in French. Instead of coming up with something to say back, I just stand there staring at her with my mouth opening and closing like a guppy. And Hugh just keeps standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking out to sea.

“Do you know much about your father?” he asks me.

I shake my head. “No.”

“Come on,” he says. “I’ll show you where he hung out.” I follow them back up the steps of the cliff.

“Did he hang out in the barn?” I ask.

He stops and raises his hand. “Carriage house,” he corrects me with his finger in the air. “A subtle but important distinction.”

“Carriage house, then.”

We walk past the house to the carriage house. The door slides open heavily but easily. “There used to be bats that would roost behind this door,” Hugh says, “and they’d fly out every time you opened it. Bats were a big part of the excitement of summer.” He tells me and Sabine a couple of bat stories, chasing bats that had got inside around the house with tennis rackets and fishing poles, leaping over couches, and crashing into furniture. While he talks, I look around at a big dusty space full of large, mysterious objects covered with sheets. Iron implements, horseshoes, bits of brass, leather harnesses hang on the walls. I see horse stalls with iron dividers, and you can detect a smell of leather and hay in the air. The afternoon light slanting through the windows catches the dust that hangs in the air and fills the place with a soft golden light. Against the far wall is a car-shaped lump.

“Is that an old MG?” I ask.

“No,” Hugh says. “It’s called a Sunbeam Alpine. Same idea, though. A little car that goes fast when it goes, which is rare.”

I pick up a corner of the canvas that drapes it, and there is the cutest little red two-seater sports car you’ve ever seen, with a ripped convertible top. “You mean it doesn’t work?”