Cosmetics came last. She was given a fresh coat of paint, her brass was polished, and Cyrus, who came by to inspect, wasn’t satisfied until he could see himself in the binnacle well enough to shave. They put her in the water the following day. After a winter on the alien land, she rumbled down the launching ramp as if rushing into the old familiar embrace of the everlasting sea. She sat at her berth for a day and a night, to give her planks time to swell and make her seams watertight. Next morning, the boys bent her sails and brought her home. The trip of some ten miles barely qualified as a day sail, much less as a voyage, but it was the first time they had been allowed to handle the vessel without their father’s supervision. He had put Nathaniel in command, which was only fitting, in Nathaniel’s opinion. The honor and the responsibility were in keeping with his nascent beard, his five feet, eleven inches, and one hundred and seventy pounds. He thought he proved himself worthy of his commission, bringing Double Eagle back without incident, making the mooring on the first try and with such style that even the sarcastic Eliot tipped his cap and said, “Handsomely done, Nat. Handsomely.”

Nathaniel heard a screen door slam. Turning, he watched his father and brothers come trooping down the long easy slope of the lawn, the great house behind them dormered and verandaed, the ostentation of its size softened by the rusticity of its plain cedar shake shingles and unembellished posts and balcony rails: altogether, it was a cottage blown up to the scale of a mansion.

Eliot led the way onto the dock, pushing the seabags, supplies, and his guitar in a cart; behind him was Drew, clutching Trajan to his chest, and behind Drew the old man, with two leather chart cases tucked under an arm, walking still with a burdened gait and shoulders slumped, but his gaze fixed straight ahead, grim and intransigent. He was carrying himself like a mourner at a funeral, thought Nathaniel, but that eye was the eye of a man going into a fight.