“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say too fast. Then I soften it. “Yeah, sweetie. I’m okay.”
I hand her a napkin. She laughs like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened and licks at the runaway ice cream with total focus. We slow our pace, heading toward the marina, theboards warm under my sandals. Boats rock gently in their slips, lines creaking, masts clicking in the breeze.
She hops up onto a bench and swings her legs, humming, ice cream forgotten for the moment.
I stand there and stare at the water.
That’s when it hits me.
Not all at once. It never does.
It comes in layers. The slap of water against fiberglass becomes laughter. The smell of diesel turns into beer and sunscreen and charcoal smoke. I see bodies sprawled on a deck at dawn, empty bottles rolling, someone cooking eggs they don’t remember buying.
Those summers.
My summers.
The best years of my life.
And the worst.
Back then, I thought time was elastic. That you could stretch it, bend it, make more of it if you wanted badly enough. I didn’t know how quietly it slips away.
I love my daughter more than anything. I wouldn’t trade her for a second of my past.
But God.
If I had known how fast it all goes…
I turn—and stop.
My breath leaves me like a punch to the gut.
There it is.
The boat.
Same name painted on the stern.Artemis.Same home port beneath it—Plymouth, Massachusetts.Boats don’t change that. Ownership comes and goes, but the bones stay the same. It’s an unspoken rule. You leave her regal with her birth name- the one she gets when she’s first hoisted down into the water for the first time.
My hands start to shake.
I walk closer, slow, like it might disappear if I move too fast. I rest my palm against the hull. Solid. Real. Teak decks gleaming in the moonlight.
I close my eyes.
And it all rushes back.
The music. Last Night by the Stokes.
The late nights that blurred into morning.
Beth laughing in the galley.
Tony at the grill.
The boys shouting over each other.
