What I Thought Was True(75)

“And changed again, and again, and again.”

“I’m not like that.” My voice thickens. Am I really some kind of confusing tease like the ditzy heiresses in Grandpa 258

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Ben’s movies? The ones you want to smack sense into? I’m not.

Right?

“Watch out, the lawn mower’s right there,” he says, haul-ing me expertly around it with a little arm swing, like a dance move. Then he’s opening the door. No key.

“You didn’t lock it.”

“Course not. What are they going to steal? I don’t see Old Mrs. Partridge sneaking in to grab my gym shorts and a can of tuna.”

“But the whole reason I’m walking you home is so you don’t have to fumble with the key!”

“I wasn’t the one who came up with that excuse,” he reminds me, “but I was damned if I wasn’t going to go with it.” He reaches in to flick on the switch and the light slants out into the night, casting him in shadow, glinting off his hair, blinding my eyes.

“G’night, Gwen.”

As I hit the bottom of the stairs, he calls, “The whole reason?”

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Chapter Twenty-five


Dad’s rapping at the screen door with his knuckles. “C’mon, Gwen. You too, Nico. You don’t get a choice this time. I need ya.”

Nic unfolds himself from the couch, dropping his Men’s Health fitness magazine with a decided plunk, looks at me, shrugs.

Both of us have done this for years. All the years since he left. Dad shows up, tells us he needs help, and we trail along, without knowing quite what we’ll end up doing—scraping barnacles off the bottom of his boat, picking up supplies for Castle’s at Walmart because the Sysco delivery is late . . . playing mini golf at Stony Bay Smacks and Snacks.

But we haven’t had a mystery trip once this summer, and I wonder now if it’s because of the standoff between Nic and Dad.

We slide into the front cab of Dad’s truck—me in the middle, Nic, huge feet propped on the glove compartment, slouched down. Dad frowns as the engine sputters for a second before kicking in. He swerves impatiently around a bunch of summer kids gathered in a cluster by the Seashell gates, then peels down the road.

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“Gonna give us a clue, destination-wise?” Nic asks after a while.

“Clamming,” Dad says. “Stuffed quahogs are the special this week, and you know they taste better when we dig ’em up than defrost ’em. Esquidero’s is running a quahog week too, bastards, and I’m damned if they’re going to screw me out of my special.”

“Nothing else?” Nic’s voice has an edge to it now.

“I need a reason to see you guys?” Dad asks, barely pausing at a stop sign. “Neither of you are working at Castle’s this summer. You skip out on dinner, Nico. Every time, lately.”

Nic begins drumming his thumb against his knee. Shifts the station on the radio from some angry talk show guy ranting to mellow rock.

Dad shifts it back.

I can’t help feeling like there’s more to this than clams. Am I here to be a buffer? An ally?

“What’s up with you and the Almeida girl these days?” Dad asks Nic abruptly as we pull off to the side of the road by the causeway. The clamming is better here, the water always shal-lower than at either of the island beaches.

Nic’s head jerks in surprise. Dad is always hands-off in the relationship-discussion area. That’s Mom’s turf. “What do you mean?”

“What I said. You two still—”

“Yeah,” Nic interrupts. “Why?”

“You being smart?” Smaht. Dad’s accent is always stronger when he’s angry or uncomfortable.

“About what, Uncle Mike?”

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Dad glowers at him. Nic glares back for a second. I want to knock their hard heads together.

Nic relents. “Yeah. Always. Both of us. Why?”

“My job to ask.”

“Since when?” Nic seems to know how belligerent that sounds. He clears his throat, and adds, “We’re good. You don’t need to worry about any grandnieces and -nephews any time soon.”

Dad grunts. He and Nic have identical flushes of color on the backs of their necks. “Good, then.”

“Can we do the group hug now?” I ask. “This is just so sweet. I know I feel a lot closer to both of you since you’ve poured your hearts out this way.”

Nic jabs me in the rib with an elbow, but he’s smiling slightly. Dad looks like he’s considering grinning, then decides against it. “Get the rakes.” He jerks his head toward the truck bed.

Rakes resting over our shoulders, buckets in hands, we wade out into the water.

Nic bumps his rake against my calf. “What was that?” he asks, voice low. “No glove, no love, from Uncle Mike?”

I shrug.

“He’s never said a word to me about it before, not ever, not once. Not when I actually could have used it,” Nic continues.

“Why now?”

“Maybe he thinks it’s time he did.”

But if Dad picked this as a family bonding moment, his technique needs work.