“I can’t do something before I’m ready, Daniel. I know that might not make sense to you, but it makes sense to me. This is the only way for me to handle things right now, by keeping parts of my life in different boxes.” Daniel in one box, Morgan and Alexa in another box, Gina in a third (smaller) box.

“If it is,” he said sadly, “I don’t think I can be a part of it right now. I’m sorry, Rebecca. I think I’m falling in love with you. I really do. But I don’t want to be in a box. I don’t think I can keep being your secret.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Their first fight! It was a quiet, civilized fight; they hadn’t even raised their voices, but something had cooled, the atmosphere had reordered itself around them, and everything felt different. A first fight was always momentous.

Daniel rose from the bench.

“Are we still walking tomorrow?” Rebecca asked, a little bit desperately. “In Maudslay?” Three days a week they met early, at six, before anyone was out, and walked Bernice.

Daniel fixed her with a sorrowful, troubled gaze, and her heart plummeted. “I don’t think I can do it tomorrow,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it once, then let it drop. “I’ll talk to you soon, Rebecca.”

The next day, instead of going to Maudslay on her own, she waited until midmorning and walked Bernice down to Cashman Park. She’d show Daniel. How dare he! Insisting that they do things the way he wanted. Claiming to be falling in love with her. How dare he.

She sat on one of the benches that faced the water. How dare he.

Bernice settled herself under the bench and Rebecca poured a little bit of the water she always brought with her into Bernice’s collapsible bowl and put the bowl where Bernice could reach it. She contemplated the river and the scrubby grass that grew between the water and her bench. There was a line of inflatable Zodiacs waiting to take boat owners out to their boats. Far to the right she could see the Route 1 bridge, which sometimes shifted into drawbridge mode to allow tall-masted sailboats through.

She leaned back and looked at the clear blue summer sky. She felt something against her back and twisted around to get a better look. It was a plate indicating that the bench had been dedicated in memory of Gilbert Lane, “The Chief.” The chief of what? she wondered. Should she dedicate a bench to Peter? That seemed like it might be a nice concrete way to solidify his memory. Maybe when she got home she’d talk to the girls and see what they thought. They could come sit on the bench when they were particularly missing him.