"Nash." Her voice breaks a little. "I'm going to cry, and it's going to freeze."
"Then don't."
She steps back and hauls her bag up from where she dropped it on the dock. Something inside shifts with a heavy clunk.
"What's in there?" I ask.
"Three pounds of premium beef jerky, a bag of coffee that doesn't taste like dirt, and a bottle of whiskey I had to walk past three times before I committed."
"That's an acceptable tribute."
"May's is open," I say, glancing up the boardwalk toward Main. "You've never eaten there. And you look starving."
"I am starving. May would love me for that alone."
"Then May's."
I sling her bag over my shoulder and take her free hand.
We walk up the pier ramp and onto the boardwalk, the wood creaking under our boots. The small town does what small towns do. The light over the Hollister General Store is warm gold, and the bell above the door rings as someone steps out with an armful of brown paper. The big window of theharbormaster's office is full of charts and a cat asleep on top of a barometer. Lights burn behind half the windows on Main. The other half are dark. Smoke writes a slow column out of every chimney.
"It's smaller than I expected," Aris says quietly. "And bigger."
"How does that work?"
"Smaller because I can see the whole of it. Bigger because I know everyone who lives behind every one of those windows is going to have an opinion about me by Sunday."
"They already do."
"Oh, great."
May's sits at the elbow of Main where the boardwalk turns toward the boat slips, the windows steamed white, the neon OPEN sign buzzing against the salt-sprayed glass. May Sweeney sees us through the glass and her face does the entire arc of surprise to delight to suspicious narrowing in about two seconds.
"You," May says, pulling the door open before we've reached it. The bell jangles like it's trying to alert the entire valley. "Inside. Both of you. I'm feeding you whether you want it or not."
Aris walks past her like she's coming home. "Coffee. And whatever pie you have."
"Rhubarb. Pecan. A piece of apple I'm sitting on for emergencies. This counts." May points a finger at me. "You. Sit. You look like you've been pacing."
"I have been pacing."
The diner is half-full in the easy way small-town diners are at the back end of an evening. And in the corner booth, a familiar dark head bent over a bottle of formula.
"Brace yourself," I murmur.
"For what?"
"Eliza." I lift my chin toward the booth. "And Matt. Tuesday supper. May saves them the corner booth."
Eliza looks up. She was mid-burp with the baby on her shoulder, and her face lights up the way our mother's used to. She waves us over with her free hand, hard, the way you'd flag a plane down.
We slide into the booth across from them. Matt Ryder shakes my hand across the table, then reaches over and shakes Aris's like she's family and always has been.
"You must be Aris." Eliza's got her arm around the baby's back, keeping his head steady against her collarbone. He's mostly asleep, the way babies get in warm rooms with adult voices around them. "The island's been talking for two weeks, so when Hank flew you out this morning, I called my brother for the real story. He gave me seven sentences. I counted."
"Seven sentences," Aris repeats, glancing at me.
"He is a very private man," Eliza tells her, dead serious.
