“I’m sorry to hear that your dad has passed.” It comes out like some superficial sentiment from a summer person, but the feeling behind it actually threatens to choke me with emotion. “He always gave me and my sister mints when we came into town. And he’d never call us by the right name. He’d say, ‘How’s it going, September and October?’ or ‘December and January?’ ” I force a laugh at the memory.

Jim nods. “Yeah, that sounds like Dad. He was sure fond of your family. Especially your mother. Said she was the friendliest of all the summer people.”

I’m not surprised by this. My mother was skilled at charming people, especially the ones who had abilities that she relied on. She didn’t come from money, she just married it, so she had a way with “blue-collar folk,” as she called them.

“He was pretty upset when your father went missing,” Jim continues.

“Went missing?” I huff. “That’s a polite way of putting it. My mother always just referred to it as abandoning his family.”

“Never heard that version,” he says with an awkward laugh. “It was always said around here that he went missing. My dad actually helped with the search.”

I use the long handle of my suitcase to steady myself against this boulder of information. I didn’t know there was a search. It dawns on me that I actually don’t know much about when my father left. My mother’s explanation was that he’d run off. He was at the cottage one night, and then when I woke up the next morning he was gone, and my mother whisked me and May back home and we rarely spoke about it again.

“So how about that boat, Jim?” I move the conversation to safer ground, not able to admit that I know nothing about a search for my father or what might have actually happened back then.

“No need to rent a boat, Ms. Bennett,” he says, seeming relieved at the topic change as well.

“June. Please.”

“All right, June. No need for a rental. We’ve kept your mother’s boat in storage, maintained it, taken it out each year for a spin around the lake. It’s dated but should run just fine.”

I’m momentarily speechless. Nothing has even changed here; our boat is still our boat, but my mother just walked away from it all and never came back. “Have you been paid for the storage and maintenance?” I ask.

Jim waves his hand as though I’m offering him the cash right then and there. “Your mother told Jim Senior that he was free to sell the boat and keep the proceeds for his trouble. So no fees to worry about.”

“Then why didn’t he? Sell it, I mean?”