Hugh thinks this is a lot funnier than my mom did. “I like Irony Man,” he says. “I relate to him.” While we talk, Sabine stares out the window at the line of the sea, as if she is waiting for the ship that will rescue her from these books and this dust.

“Well.” Hugh checks his watch. “It’s time for cocktails. Your grandmother is hovering angrily near the bourbon at this very moment.” He grimaces at Sabine. “Like a yellow jacket,” he adds.

“She could come up here,” I suggest.

“She could,” Hugh agrees. “But she won’t.”

That night, my birthday is observed with lobsters on the beach, along with clams cooked in seaweed with potatoes and corn on the cob. Allegra is there with a new boyfriend, and Aaron makes an appearance, too, with some soccer players. Even my grandmother joins us. My mother has mailed me a birthday in a box: a cake, sixteen candles, cards from Nora and Zack, presents, money, and a long letter from her, which I read later. She says that she has officially been offered the principal’s job, so it’s going to be a challenging year for all of us, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a good one.

five

FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST, I transfer reading from the beach to the carriage house. After Sabine leaves, it takes Hugh most of the month to fix the Sunbeam, working under the car, while I’m upstairs reading, or I bring a book down and read from it while he falls asleep under the car. He’s not interested in ideas from the twentieth century. He doesn’t have any answers about my father, either: they were very far apart in age, and his way of dealing with painful subjects is not to think about them. “Cauterize the wound and move on” is his philosophy. He is sorry he’s been such a piss-poor uncle, though, and his plan is to fix the Sunbeam so he can drive me all the way to Colchis in it.

My mother agreed to the trip when she came to Maine two weeks ago, to take Allegra to college and get Aaron for sports practice. So on Labor Day, we leave Maine for the Minnechaug Valley, keeping to the back roads in case the radiator overheats, stopping at antique stores and old barns and roadside stands, so what would normally be an eight-hour drive takes closer to eighteen. We take turns driving through the night with the top down.

We pull into Colchis in the morning of the first day of school. Hugh pulls up on Main Street, in front of Al’s Superette, and gets out to stretch and look around.

“Wow,” he says, taking in the town. “This is it? This is your town?”