Jeff knew that was going to bite him in the ass. “Maybe. Partly.” He shrugged. “It’s not weird for you? Coming and going all the time, I mean, not the part about your uncle.” Best not give her any openings.
“It isn’t weird,” she said, but then she amended, “Itwasn’tweird until this time.” Because Fred was gone.
Yeah.
Plucking out a simple riff, Jeff searched for words. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I came back here. I think I sort of thought everything would be the same, which is ridiculous. People change, people move. I’m not staying in my parents’ old house or anything.” He thumbed the low E a few times.
Charlie pulled her knees up onto the stool and slung her arms around them. “The weird thing is that it’s, like,mostlythe same, but not everything. It’s not fair. If everything was different or everything was the same, it would be less weird.”
“Yes!” That was the exact feeling Jeff had been trying to put into words. He’d traveled back in space, but he’d also expected to go back in time. Part of him felt as though hehadgone back in time, which made the whole thing that much more confusing. “That’s it exactly. Except, I don’t know. I’m different too, I guess.”
“Wouldn’t know whatthat’slike,” Charlie muttered, tossing back her short hair.
Jeff barked a laugh and only grinned wider when he caught the pleased smile spreading across her face.
Then he looked down at the instrument in his lap—the battered secondhand well-loved thing, Jeff’s prized possession. The one Fred had bought for him.
He’d come out here to find himself, but maybe he wasn’t supposed to rediscover who he used to be. Maybe he should focus on the kind of person hewantedto be.
Jeff cleared his throat. “So, hey. Do you still want to learn to play guitar?”
BECAUSE THEuniverse could occasionally be merciful, it didn’t rain the next morning.
Jeff rose before the sun, showered and dressed, then hit the Tim Hortons drive-through on the way to the marina. He kept the radio off for the drive and pulled into the parking lot at five to six, bearing a box of coffee with a sleeve of cups and a dozen breakfast muffins.
Carter’s mother was in his dad’s old truck, backing the boat into the water, but Carter and his brothers were standing awkwardly at the nearby picnic table, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the morning chill.
They all looked up when Jeff pulled in, but Carter looked away again quickly and returned his attention to what had to be Dave—he was too tall to be Brady, even if he wasn’t as tall as Carter.
Jeff took a deep breath and let it out slowly. No pressure. Just a bunch of guys he knew half a lifetime ago and their mom.
He opened the door and swung himself out of the cab.
Brady greeted him first, with a handclasp-turned-backslap-hug—very straight bro. “Good to see you again. Shit circumstances, though.”
Jeff was already having flashbacks to his mom’s funeral. The awkward platitudes sounded just as terrible coming out of his own mouth as they had to his ears back then, but what else was there to say? The world didn’t have words big enough for this kind of truth. “I’m so fucking sorry, man. Your dad was one of the best.”
Dave was next. Jeff hadn’t known him that well, since he was four years Carter’s senior and had already been drafted into the NHL by the time Jeff graduated elementary school, but he shook Jeff’s hand. “Thanks for coming,” he said gruffly. “It means a lot to Carter.”
He could’ve just gutted Jeff with a fish knife. It would’ve been kinder.
That left Carter, who didn’t say anything. Jeff didn’t either. They met eyes, and then Jeff nodded and they hugged, and if they both held on a little too long, Carter’s brothers probably weren’t going to be shitheads about it today.
Eventually Jeff pulled back just as Ella got the boat trailer lined up perfectly. Dave and Brady went to help launch it, and Jeff said, “I could use a hand with a few things.”
He and Carter got the stuff loaded while Ella was parking, and then they were all aboard, making for open water.
“Where’s everyone else?” Jeff asked.
“Katie’s with the baby,” Brady said. “She’s not too sure yet about bringing a six-month-old on a pontoon.” He gave a tired half-smile. “Plus, when you have a six-month-old, you don’t wake them up if you don’t have to.”
Dave nodded his agreement over an enormous bite of muffin. “I remember those days. Couldn’t get Charlie out of bed either. And Brit gets motion sick. But they’ll be there this afternoon.”
Privately Jeff thought a smaller audience would make his task easier anyway. He held the guitar case between his knees. Pressed against his left side, Carter was a steady, solid line of warmth.
Finally they must have reached Fred’s favorite fishing spot, because Ella cut the motor.
It was a calm day, and the waves of the Sound lapped gently against the hull. Ella sat down between Dave and Brady, and they all avoided looking at the urn of ashes sitting on the console next to the boxes of coffee and muffins.
