'About a hundred forty permanent residents, average age fifty-five. The economy is lobsters. Period. At the turn of the century Kincairn was a lively summer community, but most of the old saltbox cottages are gone; the rest belong to locals.'
'And you own the island?'
'The original deed was recorded in 1794. You doing okay, Mary Catherine?'
The ledge they were crossing was only about fifty feet above the breakers and a snaggle of rocks close to shore.
'I get a little nervous . . . this close.'
'Don't you swim?'
'Only in pools. The ocean—I nearly drowned on a beach in New Jersey. I was five. The waves that morning were nothing, a couple of feet high. I had my back to the water, playing with my pail and shovel.
All of a sudden there was a huge wave, out of nowhere, that caught everybody by surprise.'
'Rogue wave. We get them too. My parents were sailing off the light, just beyond that nav buoy out there, when a big one capsized their boat. They never had a chance.'
'Good Lord. When was this?'
'Twenty-eight years ago.' The path took a turn uphill, and the lighthouse loomed in front of them. 'I'm a strong swimmer. Very cold water doesn't seem to get to me as quickly as other people. When I was nineteen —and heavily under the influence of Lord Byron—I swam the Hellespont. So I've often wondered—' He paused and looked out to sea. 'If I had been with my mother and father that day, could I have saved them?'
'You must miss them very much.'
'No. I don't.'
After a few moments he looked around at her, as if her gaze had made him uncomfortable.
'Is that a terrible thing to say?'
'I guess I— I don't understand it. Did you love your parents?'
'No. Is that unusual?'
'I don't think so. Were they abusive?'
'Physically? No. They just left me alone most of the time, as if I didn't exist. I don't know if there's a name for that kind of pain.'
His smile, a little dreary, suggested that they leave the topic alone. They walked on to the lighthouse, brilliantly white on the highest point of the headland. Ransome had remodeled it, to considerable outrage from purists, he'd said, installing a modern, airport-style beacon atop what was now his studio.
'I saw what it cost you,' Ransome said, 'to leave your mother—your life. I'd like to think that it wasn't only for the money.'
'Least of all. I'm a painter. I came to learn from you.'
He nodded, gratified, and touched her shoulder.
'Well. Shall we have a look at where we'll both be working, Mary Catherine?'
Peter didn't waste a lot of time taking on a load at the reception following his sister Siobhan's wedding to the software salesman from Valley Stream. Too much drinking gave him the mopes, followed by a tendency to take almost anything said to him the wrong way.
'What've you heard from Echo?' a first cousin named Fitz said to him.
Peter looked at Fitz and had another swallow of his Irish in lieu of making conversation. Fitz glanced at Peter's cousin Rob Flaherty, who said, 'Six tickets to the Rangers tonight, Petey. Good seats.'
Fitz said, 'That's two for Rob and his girl, two for me and Colleen, and I was thinkin'— you remember Mary Mahan, don't you?'
Peter said ungraciously, 'I don't feel like goin' to the Rangers, and you don't need to be fixin' me up, Fitz.' His bow tie was hanging limp and there was fire on his forehead and cheekbones. A drop of sweat fell unnoticed from his chin into his glass. He raised the glass again.
Rob Flaherty said with a grin, 'You remind me of a lovesick camel, Petey. What you're needin' is a mercy hump.'
Peter grimaced hostilely. 'What I need is another drink.'
'Mary's had a thing for you, how long?'
'She's my mom's godchild, asshole.'
Fitz let the belligerence slide. 'Well, you know. It don't exactly count as a mortal sin.''
'Leave it, Fitz.'
'Sure. Okay. But that is exceptional pussy you're givin' your back to. I can testify.'
Rob said impatiently, 'Ah, let him sit here and get squashed. Echo must've tied a knot in his dick before she left town with her artist friend.'
Peter was out of his chair with a cocked fist before Fitz could step between them. Rob had reach on Peter and jabbed him just hard enough in the mouth to send him backwards, falling against another of the tables ringing the dance floor, scarcely disturbing a mute couple like goggle-eyed blowfish, drunk on senescence.
Pete's mom saw the altercation taking shape and left her partner on the dance floor. She took Peter gently by
