father's rowboat at dusk and watch the sky change
colors.
"It seemed magical," he said.
"It is."
There was real warmth in his eyes and I thought
the girls were right: he was good looking when he
wanted to be. Suddenly, though, he became selfconscious and quickly reverted to his serious, hard
look. However, after dinner when I helped him clean
up, he surprised me by suggesting we walk into town
with May for some frozen custard.
"And see what damage the outsiders are doing,"
he added.
"And what money they're leaving with the local
merchants," I added. He hid his smile, but I caught it. For the first time, when we walked with May,
he allowed her to hold both our hands. Cary led us a
different way that took us past high grass, bushes, and
scrub oak trees. I heard the peepers in the marsh. "Theresa and her brother and sisters and her
father live down there," he pointed when we turned a
corner.
I gazed at a street that wound east. The houses
were small and the grass in their yards was spotty and
rough. Closer to the town, the houses were nicer, with
real lawns and flowers, like yellow tea roses in a bed
of Queen Anne's lace, dark purple iris, and
hydrangeas.
The Cape was truly amazing. Toward the
ocean, there were rolls and rolls of sand that looked as
dry and sparse as any desert, but a short distance away
were oak trees, blueberry bushes, red maple trees, and
houses with lawns full of crocus clusters, emperor