He should have returned Cash’s call from the Houston airport. Not setting up a ride was very shortsighted.

Floyd starts to cry. “It’s hot,” he says. “I want a snack and a juice. Where’s Grammy?”

Baker pulls Floyd along like a toy on a string. “You were asleep when they served the meal on the plane, honey, but I’ll get you something the second we get home. And you can swim in the pool for as long as you want. There are still three whole days until you start school, so we can do some exploring in the Jeep. We’ll take the top off and make it a convertible.”

Instead of placating Floyd, this agitates him further and a mini-tantrum follows. I want the pool now, I want a snack now…Baker swivels his head to check that Dunk Huntley has left and isn’t watching Baker. Dunk Huntley has no idea how difficult dealing with a four-year-old can be.

Sex app, artisanal weed edibles, real estate development. Wasps of Good Fortune. Baker wonders if it’s supposed to be WASPs, as in “white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.” That’s an obnoxious name for a band, and they probably stink despite the early–Men at Work sound, yet Baker can’t deny he finds Young Croc Dunk Samba WASPy Wunderkind Huntley fascinating.

Baker checks his phone. Nothing from his mother or Cash.

He calls Cash. Straight to voicemail.

He calls Irene. She answers on the fifth ring. Her “Hello” is little more than a whisper.

“Mom?” he says.

“Oh, Baker,” she says. Her voice is broken; something is wrong. Baker will ask once he’s off this dock and in one of the air-conditioned Jeeps.

“Is there any way you can pick us up?” Baker says. “We got a ride over from St. Thomas with this guy on his boat and so we’re on the National Park Service dock instead of the regular ferry dock.”

“What?” Irene says. “Where are you?”

“The National Park Service dock.”

“Here?” she says. “On St. John?”

“Yes, here on St. John,” he says. “It’s Thursday, Mom.” He tries not to sound so exasperated because if he’s learned one thing about the Virgin Islands, it’s that every day feels like Saturday.

“Didn’t Cash call you?”

“Yes, he called me—”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Baker says.

Huck

He doesn’t understand women—and how is that possible after so many years of loving them?

Huck grew up with a sister, Caroline, who was a scant two years younger than him and who learned to fish from their father right alongside Huck. But whereas Huck was all about sport-fishing—the hunt, the fight, the elation that came from landing a big one—Caroline liked the quiet elegance of fly-fishing. She showed an uncanny talent for it early on, which was unusual for a child that young. She preferred dancing her line over the flats of Islamorada to a trip out to blue water, and to his credit, their father, the original Captain Powers, nurtured her gift. By the time Caroline was thirteen, she had won every youth fly-fishing competition in the state of Florida, competitions in which she was always the only girl.