bunch of good boys, these lawyers, and so I waved back and continued on my way.
Cabin ten, where I’d put Hal and his little girl, was dark, January long since tucked in, but the porch light was on at number nine, where Harry and Frances were staying. As I came around the corner I saw Hal, sitting in an Adirondack chair in a cone of light and swirling insects, reading a magazine with his boots up on the railing. A cigar would have done something about those bugs, and I thought of asking the lawyers if they could spare one. But then Hal looked up with an expression of sudden alertness and put one hand over his brow to peer into the darkness beyond the lighted porch.
“Franny?”
I stepped up to the rail with my basket. “Evening, Hal.”
Hal unfolded his long limbs from the chair and came over to meet me, bending at the waist to kiss me quickly on the cheek. “Where you been keeping yourself, Luce?”
“Oh, you know.” I tried to smile. “Things to do. Sorry I couldn’t meet you when you arrived.” The cabin behind him was dark and silent, and I kept my voice low. “How’s your father doing?”
Hal took a breath and scratched his head. “Asleep, finally. Though to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure it’s really sleeping, what he’s doing. He just kind of goes away for a while. I’m taking the first shift while Franny gets a little shut-eye.”
I held up the basket for him to see. “I brought you something to tide you over.”
“That’s not the fried chicken, is it?”
I nodded. “Some pie, too.”
He leaned forward, smiling. “Good God, Lucy, you’re my hero. Pass that over here.”
He held out his hands to take it, and I lifted the basket over the rail. Hal raised the top and surveyed the contents before selecting a drumstick and a napkin, and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos. A wick of steam rose off it in the chilly air.
“You’re a regular mind reader, Luce. I was just sitting here wondering when Franny would relieve me so I could sneak over and raid the kitchen.”
“My pleasure.” I waited a moment and watched him eat. “I saw your little girl, Hal. She’s really something.”
He grinned proudly around a mouthful of chicken and took the napkin to his face. “Poor kid, got her mother’s looks. I told Sally, the day she turns sixteen is the day I start digging a moat.”
“I don’t know about that, Hal. I think I can see a little bit of you in there. Remember, I knew you when you were just a kid.”
He gave a little laugh. “Just a kid, my fanny.” He fished out another drumstick and held it up for emphasis as he talked. “Eleven is not just a kid, Luce. Eleven is a burning pyre of adolescent lust. You and the other waitresses had me so worked up, I could barely think straight.”
I felt a charge of pleasure; assuming he didn’t mean Daphne Markham—and I surely didn’t think he did—or one of the two older women who had tended the dining room with me, women my mother’s age if not a little older, I was the only waitress he could have been remembering.
“Those were good days,” I said.
“Better than this afternoon, anyway,” Hal said. He finished his second drumstick, wrapped up the bones in the napkin, and closed the basket. “Best I should save this for later. Franny might be hungry too. Who knows? Maybe my dad will surprise us all and actually eat something.”
“There’s enough there for an army. But if you need anything else, you know where the key to the kitchen is.”
“Back door, one step to the right, reach up, on the nail.” He nodded. “Piece of cake.” He raised his gaze past me then, casting his eyes over the lake, and gave a little nod to tell me to look where he was looking. I turned and saw, out on the dock a hundred yards distant, two figures sitting on the edge, their feet dangling over the water. It took me a moment for my eyes to discern what my brain had already guessed: Jordan and, sitting beside him in her gray sweatshirt, Kate.
“Those two getting along?”
“I think they’ve always liked each other.” I was surprised how guarded I sounded. “They’ve known each other for years.”
For a moment we said nothing. The silence of the lake and the late hour seemed to encircle