Eliot turned to port a little while Nathaniel went forward to ease sheets. When he returned aft, his brothers were deep into speculation about what Lockwood’s current trouble could be. Nathaniel did not join in. It was a waste of time, making suppositions about the enigma who shared half their blood, he of an age so much greater than theirs that they had called him “Uncle Lockwood” when they were small, though he had not seemed any more their uncle than their brother; had not and did not seem any kin at all, but like an old family friend who dropped by now and then to renew acquaintances. He never gave his half brothers any reason to feel otherwise. He was too distant, too close-mouthed, and his gestures of affection—the pats on the head and cheek he gave them when they were young, the handshakes or claps on the shoulder when they grew older—possessed, at times, the awkwardness of someone to whom such expressions did not come naturally, at other times the rote quality of the obligatory, like the kisses campaigning politicians planted on babies. The boys would have concluded that he did not like them very much, if it weren’t for the moments when they sensed, as children are apt to sense such things, a kind of bridled love in his restrained touches, a heart prohibited from showing all that it held.

Once, Drew asked him point-blank why he wasn’t fond of them. Drew could be like that—come right out with whatever was on his mind. Lockwood gave him a perplexed look, his face flushing as Dad’s did when Dad got mad, and said that he was fond of them, more than they would ever know. If he acted standoffish, it was because it was difficult for him to … And then he paused, and then he added, “Difficult to come here, but I think I should … every now and then.…” He broke off, looking sad at the same time that he looked angry.