Irene said, “Yes, yes, Elton, we gon’ fish.”

“We gon’ fish!” Elton announced to Huck.

Elton sat with his mother for the trip offshore. Huck was always worried about taking children offshore but Mr. Petrushki assured him that the kids had grown up on the water. The Petrushkis owned a vacation home on Wrightsville Beach on the North Carolina coast and they boated around Cape Fear.

When they slowed down to troll out at Tambo, the fertile spot where Huck and Irene had had such phenomenal luck just after the new year, Huck ran through the drill with Mr. Petrushki and the older kids. He was extra-kind and solicitous—maybe he was trying to show off for Irene—while she dealt with little Elton, who was dead set on catching a fish of his own.

“He gets a fish on, you hold his rod,” Huck said. “Wahoo gets a hold of that line, kid’s going in. Shark bait.”

“Understood, Captain,” Irene said. “Nothing is going to happen to this child in my care.”

The Petrushki family had, in fact, enjoyed a banner day. Mr. Petrushki got a fish on first—Huck was secretly relieved because plenty of time, he had seen grown men bitter about being shown up by their own children—then Huck tossed chum into the water and they got more hits. Mister brought in a wahoo, then one of the twins brought in a smaller wahoo, then a few minutes later, the other twin brought in a wahoo exactly the same size. It was almost eerie. With the appearance of each fish, Elton Petrushki would jump up and down and yell, “Got fish! Got fish!” He stood over the hold staring down with wide eyes as Huck tossed the fish in.

There was a little bit of a lull at one point but Huck saw birds diving and directed the boat over. Sure enough, the ten-year-old Woody caught a barracuda, and then Mr. Petrushki caught a barracuda.

Mrs. Petrushki was reading a book bigger than the Bible, the Collected Works of Jane Austen.

“I love Jane Austen,” Irene said.

“So do I!” Mrs. Petrushki said. “I’m a professor at UNC. I teach the Austen survey course.”

“Oh, I get it now,” Irene said. “The children’s names! Emma, Jane, Wood for Woodhouse, and Elton.”

“Yes, I did my thesis on Emma,” Mrs. Petrushki said. “I’m a bit obsessed, as my girls like to say.”

Huck was in awe at the same time that he felt like an illiterate dummy.

Mrs. Petrushki closed her book and beamed. “Looks like wahoo for dinner.”

Elton gazed up at Irene. “We gon’ fish?”

“We gon’ fish,” Irene said. She got a determined set to her mouth. “Elton is taking the next fish.”

A few minutes later, they had a bite. Irene steered Elton to the port rod. “We have a bite, Elton,” she said. “We are going to reel in your fish. But you have to do exactly what I say.”