almost gone and the tree branches looked black. The wind had knocked a carpet of gold leaves onto the ground.
I knew it was time to say thank you for a lovely time, but the usual phrases seemed so small compared to the day. Putting words to it would cheapen it. I knew Jamie didn’t want to speak, either.
Billy got out of the car to open my door. I stepped out as Jamie opened the back door, and the three of us stood for a moment, not moving. Suddenly, Billy flung his arms around both of us. “Mark it on your calendar,” he said. “One perfect day.”
At that moment Da appeared out of the gloaming. His expression of greeting froze, then hardened.
“Good evening to you,” he said. “Is that Billy Benedict there?”
“Hello, Mr. Corrigan. I didn’t think you’d recognize me.”
“Sure I do. You’re the image of your father. Kit, Jamie, time to come in now. Muddie will have supper on the table.” I was startled by the coolness in his tone.
“Time for me to be getting home, too,” Billy said.
I wanted the good-bye to last longer, but that was it. The song was done. Magic was over. Time to turn the record over and listen to the B side — Doris singing “Put ‘Em in a Box, Tie ‘Em with a Ribbon.”
Da stood there as Jamie and I watched Billy’s taillights disappear up Hope Street. All the air went out of the day.
“I didn’t know you two were friends with Billy Benedict,” Da said. “Since when?”
“Since today,” Jamie said.
Da’s gaze turned to me. “And you, miss?”
“What’s wrong with Billy?”
“I don’t know Billy. I know his father.”
“We just went to the beach. It’s not like you ever took us anywhere unless there was a profit in it.” I flung out the words, not knowing that I meant them until they were out.
He took a breath and stared down at the sidewalk. Then he looked up. “I’ve seen enough of beaches. I’ve probably seen every pebble of sand in four hundred miles of coastline. Nate Benedict and I drove them together back in the twenties. We were both working for Danny Walsh. I learned how to drive a getaway car at sixteen.”
I suddenly remembered that night so long ago, after the hurricane, when Nate had sat at our table. “Delia, too?”
“Once or twice, even Delia. She drove the covering car a few times — that’s what we called the second car that would block the Feds or the police from following. Good to use a woman — she would pretend to break down and block the road. Listen, in those days, you tripped over bootleggers in Rhode Island. For me and Delia, it was a job, a way to get by so that they wouldn’t catch up to us, separate us, and send us to orphanages. It was Delia who saw I needed to stop or I’d wind up in one of the Irish gangs for good. She saw the way the wind was blowing, that we’d repeal Prohibition and then I’d only have one skill, how to outrun someone who’s chasing you. The crash had happened, and she couldn’t find me work. So she brought home a girl instead. I knew Maggie would never marry a man in the rackets, so I quit. But Nate didn’t, did he? Danny Walsh disappears in thirty-three, the Italians take over, and Nate gets himself an education. Then he has to pay back what he owes, and that means working for them. Now look at him. He’s just as bad as they are.”
“He’s not a gangster,” I said.
“He’s in it up to his neck, just the same,” Da said. He looked tired. “So why should I be happy to see Nate’s son with his arms around my children?”
“But Billy isn’t in it,” I said. “He’s not his father.”
“I know, he got into the university, I heard.” But Da said this as if it didn’t matter. “Just now, walking toward you like that… it was like seeing myself and Delia and Nate when we all met. Down at Buttonwoods Cove, it was.”
Jamie and I exchanged a surprised glance. Billy had taken us there today.
“She swam out to meet the boat in the pitch-black — we never went if there was a full moon. She was fearless back then. She hauled herself up the boat, her braid over her shoulder, and she wrung it out. And Nate looked at her like she was a selkie. A creature from