In spite of everything that was happening, there was something about this day that was drawing my mother and me closer together. I felt like I was starting to see her in a way I hadn’t before — in a way that felt clear, sharp-edged, for once.

I heard ice cubes clinking into glasses. Soon Trevor came out of the kitchen with a drink in either hand and bowed at the waist to hand me mine. We clinked.

“To starting over,” he said.

The doorbell rang midway through our first drink and the sound, for me, was like a jolt from a cattle prod. Trevor swung his head around. “You stay put,” he murmured, getting to his feet. “Keep Beaner entertained.”

He went down the stairs, disappearing step by step into the foyer. I heard the screen door wheeze open, a gruff accent, a hearty “How’s she goin?” to which Trevor gave a fulsome fellow-working-man’s response. The word buddy was exchanged a couple times, and the weather was acknowledged to have been beautiful these last few days. Eventually it dawned on me that it was my mother’s fish guy. He brought haddock and Atlantic shrimp up from the docks every couple of months and his stuff was ten times fresher than anything you could get at Superstore. The first time he showed up, I bought a bag of shrimp from him on a lark, having no idea what to do with it in terms of putting together a meal. But then I sampled a couple from the bag — they were sweet as berries — and ended up devouring half of them just sitting and surfing the internet.

“Fish for dinner!” Trevor called up to me. I used this as an excuse to move to the top of the stairs. The fish guy, whose name I had never caught (Jimmy? Hughie?) grinned up at me through his salt-and-pepper grizzle. “Fresh in today,” he said. As if he would be here selling it if it wasn’t. I looked him in the eye — his eyes were very blue, offset by a squinty, sunburned face, and I willed them to catch with mine and linger. But men like this weren’t the kind to seek out eye contact with a person like me, and Trevor hadn’t stopped bantering with him this entire time, keeping Jimmy or Hughie distracted. Something about the weather out there on the water, Trevor heard it had been rough this past week, and Jimmy or Hughie said yes, but he didn’t get out onto the water no more himself, hurt his back a few years ago, slipped on the goddamn deck, and that’s why he was “workin the front end” these days, hawking fish door to door. Worked out just dandy as he was a more social type anyway, loved having a yak with people, and now he didn’t have to be away overnight — so the wife was happy anyhow. For once! Jimmy or Hughie winked.

“Ah, it’s all about keepin them happy,” said Trevor.