Jack was always known as an eccentric in the village. A painter who worked on huge canvases in oil, he rarely left his studio. He didn’t have many friends and seemed not to know how to talk to people civilly. Whenever I would show up looking for Caleb and find only Jack there, I got a strange feeling about him that was more than a little familiar. It wasn’t anything he said, really, or anything he did. Just a heat he gave off that sent me backward, toward closed-off moments I’d left behind, people I never talked about.

Now as I walk slowly up Kelly Street toward the house, I don’t know why I’ve come, exactly, or what I hope to feel. Maybe it’s what Will said about crazy times and keeping old friends close. Or maybe I’ve never fully made peace with Jenny’s death and need to stand at her door, one more time, even if she can’t answer.

I’ve barely reached the edge of the gate, still whirling through things I might say to explain myself, when the studio door opens and a man steps out. He’s tall and heavily built, wearing painter’s coveralls splotched over with white. Underneath, his gray T-shirt exposes a tan neck, broad chest and shoulders, big hands. Nothing about him looks like the thin, brainy boy I once knew.

“Caleb?” I call out.

His head jerks up, eyes unfocused for a moment.

“It’s Anna. Anna Hart.”

He comes to the fence looking puzzled and then he recognizes me. “Oh my God. Anna. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Just visiting.” I flush, feeling disoriented. The years between us seem to contract and expand. “I ran into Will Flood and he said you were back in town. You doing okay?”

“I am, yeah.” He bobs his head. “Wow. Anna Hart.”

“It’s been a long time.”

He shrugs, one ear dipping toward his shoulder. His hair slides boyishly over his forehead. “It has.”

“Listen, you have time to grab a drink or something?” I ask without knowing I’m going to say it.

“Sure,” he says hesitantly. “Let me wrap up here and meet you somewhere in a bit?”

“I could just grab a six-pack and wait for you on the bluff?”

“Sure,” he says again. “Why not?”

—

Fifteen minutes later, we’re sitting on the hard-packed ledge above Portuguese Beach, sipping cans of Coors. It’s midafternoon and the light has slipped sideways. Fifty feet below us at the water’s edge, sandpipers race back and forth on cartoon feet as the tide crashes forward and back. For some reason, I find it all reassuring, and somehow tender. When we were young, we sat here hundreds of times, sometimes with stolen beer. I miss those years. Those kids.