The Silver Boat (32 page)

“Listen,” Rory said. “We're going to have to get going soon. We couldn't leave before we cleared all this with you. But . . .”

“You have to get home. I understand.”

“If we get going, we can catch a late ferry. Let's just walk through one more time,” Rory said.

“Come on, Dar,” Delia said. “Please?”

Dar started to say no, but changed her mind. She and her sisters walked into the big house, and this time she knew it was really good-bye. Standing in the kitchen, she realized it still smelled like home and probably always would.

Moving into the living room, they looked out the seaward windows. A snowy egret flew overhead, yellow legs trailing behind, making its slow, elegant way to the salt pond. Reeds along the beach walkway rustled, and there were the four great hunters, their little tiger faces with amber eyes staring from the camouflage of tawny marsh grass.

Dar turned, took in the big room where her family had come for so long. She let her gaze take in the stone fireplace, granite mantel, window seats, burnished wide oak floorboards, brass sconces. She thought of all the music, conversations, celebrations, and sorrows this room had held. She touched the mantel, and then she was ready.

“We'll stop by as soon as we pack up the car,” Rory said.

Dar nodded. She kissed her sisters and walked out the door. The sun was setting; Harrison had made himself a cocktail; she saw him watching the clouds fill with pink light. Scup lay on the porch beside him, so Dar didn't disturb them and hurried past the old well, cellar hole, ancient apple trees, and lilac grove.

Andy was home from work, his truck parked in the drive. She walked inside, found him looking out the window.

“I wondered where you were,” he said.

“With my sisters. They held on to it. The Hideaway.”

“I know,” he said.

“That was the other secret?” she asked.

He gazed at her with sharp green eyes. “I should have told you right away. But I was afraid you'd say no to moving in with me. You still might, now that you know.”

“When will our house be ready?” she asked.

“I'm aiming for us to be in by October. Before it gets too cold.”

Dar stepped toward him, pulling him close. They held each other, not speaking for a long time. She could imagine her sisters coming here over the years. It would always be their connection to the beach, the sea, each other.

She'd been afraid everything would feel wrong, surreal, with Daggett's Way, the center of her childhood universe, sold. But instead she felt lighter. She felt deep certainty that her father had set off on his final voyage filled with love for his family. Dar's chin rested on Andy's shoulder, and she looked down at her desk. Sunlight hit the surface at an angle.

It bathed her pens, brushes, pencils, and drawings, everything on the desk, in luminous light. Her eyes caught the edge of her sisters' card,
Dar, we love you
, sticking out from beneath the tiny pewter dory.

Dar heard Rory and Delia coming to say good-bye, their cars pulling into her driveway, their voices happy as they climbed out. She stayed in Andy's arms, hearing laughter outside, transfixed by what she saw on her desk.

Just a corner of the white card, a fragment her sister's handwriting, jutting out from beneath the dory. The sunlight's alchemy had transformed the dull pewter into shining sterling—the single object her father had carried with him to America from his grandfather's workplace, a little silver boat keeping safe his daughters' words of love, and holding the memories of the long journey they'd made to bring him home.