the stolen sunshine. It was a good life shaping up down there for us—I had two boats working, a solid and growing list of clients, and a tan that would have made me nervous if I were one to worry about such things—all of it just profitable enough that it didn’t feel like a vacation. Our condo, which I had bought for a song at a sheriff’s auction, was, like everything else on Big Pine, made of materials as light and phony as a child’s art supplies, but it did the job: two bedrooms, one of which I used as an office for bookings and paperwork, a little kitchenette, and a balcony off the living room with a view of the docks where I kept the boats, and beyond them, on the far side of the bay, the Key Highway, leapfrogging over the water to Marathon. We didn’t feel as if we belonged there, but we weren’t exactly homesick either, and evenings when we didn’t rent a movie or hover by the phone waiting to hear from Kate (who had survived twelve years of, let’s be honest, completely so-so public education courtesy of the Greater Sagonick Community School District to hit the dean’s list at Bowdoin six semesters running and had MCAT scores through the high heavens), Lucy and I would sit for hours on the balcony, drinking something and maybe talking a bit, but mostly watching the headlights soar like distant angels over the water and feeling amazed that such a place existed.
That night, I sat with Lucy and told her about Hal’s call. She cried at the news, as I knew she would, though she also did not want me to watch her: she averted her face and wept without making a sound, and when she turned again to face me I knew the crying was over.
“You should go,” she said to me.
“To New York?”
She sighed and wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “He wants to see you, Joe. Or Hal does. Honestly, what harm could it do now?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. Hal said I would need a lawyer, for starters.”
“That sounds like Hal, not Harry. He won’t even let his father go to the head without running it through legal.”
“Even so. It’s a reason to be cautious, don’t you think?”
On the causeway, headlights floated dreamily past; looking the other way, out toward the channel and the open sea, I could make out the twinkling bulk of a cruise ship, its boiler stacks strung with lights, pushing south from Miami like a floating Christmas tree turned sideways. This close in, she was probably headed for Key West, where the fun, I was told, never stopped.
“Luce—”
She stopped me with a hand. “Joe,” she said. “Joe. It was all a long time ago. Go see what’s on his mind.”
As we both knew I would, which is how things are when you’ve been married twenty years and spent most of this time as isolated as a couple of bears in the Yukon: a lot of what passes for discussion is really just taking in the scenery, and a recap of something you both already know. Hal’s cousin called the next morning, right on schedule, but I told him I was tied up and would call him back, having no intention whatsoever of actually doing so. I like lawyers fine—despite the jokes, most are just people with a job—but whatever Hal had to offer, he would have to offer me alone. I had one boat on the water for the day; Tyrell, my sole employee, had taken out the smaller of the two with a group sent over from the big resort on Hawk’s Cay. But the second, the Mako, which I used for deep sea, was in for engine maintenance, so I spent the afternoon doing various odds and ends to prep it for a weekend party and keeping an eye peeled for Tyrell’s return. My deal with Tyrell was a sweet one; unless somebody asked for me in particular, all the flats-guiding was his to do, with the two of us splitting the take, plus the tip, which he got to pocket free and clear. On any given day I’d have him out on the water for at least four hours, making money for both of us and generally scaring the whiskers off our white-bread clientele with his dreadlocks, Jamaican accent, and twelve-o’clock doobie (he thought I didn’t know about this; of course I did), though by