The waitress took our orders
“Any news from Ethan?” I asked.
“Who’s Ethan?” Shannon asked.
“Ethan Chapman,” Julie said. “Remember I told you about the visit I had from his daughter? How she—”
“That letter?” Shannon interrupted her.
“Yes,” Julie said. “Ethan took it to the police. They searched Ned’s—Ethan’s brother’s—house, but didn’t find anything. Or at least, they didn’t tell Ethan that they found anything.” Although what she’d said was not particularly good news, Julie was smiling. Something was going on. I swore I saw a little spark in her eyes when she said the name “Ethan.” I was sure now that she had a thing for him.
“He reminded me of the time Mom and Izzy and I floated to the bay on inner tubes,” Julie said to me. “Do you remember that?”
“To the bay from where?” I asked.
“From the bungalow,” Julie said. “You were there when we jumped into the canal and there with Grandpop when he came to the bay to pick us up.”
I shook my head. I must have been a space cadet when I was eight. I remembered so little.
“Yep,” Julie said. She leaned back as the waitress set our ice cream in front of us.
“I totally cannot picture you doing that,” Shannon said, lifting her spoon. “You’re scared to death of the water.”
“I wasn’t then,” Julie said with a shrug.
“Your mother did everything,” I said. “She was adventure girl. I was the chickenshit.”
“That would be cool,” Shannon said. “Floating down a canal on a tube.”
Shannon had never seen the canal and had only been down the shore a couple of times with friends, as far as I knew. Certainly Julie had never taken her.
“It’s probably not legal to do that now,” Julie said.
“It probably wasn’t even legal then,” I added.
We finished our ice cream, then drove to Glen’s town house. He waved from the front door when Shannon got out of the car, and I waved back. I didn’t know if Julie acknowledged him at all. I didn’t think they talked anymore. They’d been able to communicate about Shannon, though. They’d coordinated trips to colleges and actually went together to parent-teacher conferences, but I thought their relationship was truly over now. Most—although not all—of the pain and animosity seemed to have shifted to indifference, and I was glad of that. I knew from my own broken relationships just how comforting indifference could be.
“I bet she’s getting zero supervision over here,” Julie said as she pulled away from the curb.
The horse was long out of the barn as far as supervision was concerned, and I ignored her comment. “So,” I said, instead. “Do I detect some real interest in Ethan Chapman now?”
She might have blushed. I wasn’t sure. “It was good to talk with him,” she said. “He has the nicest voice.”
“So, he looks great,” I said. “He has an amazing body. Nice voice. Is good to talk with. What more do you want?”
“I don’t
“I remembered something when you were talking about floating on the canal,” I said.
“What?”
“I remembered Dad going over to the other side of the canal to get you when you were fishing with the Lewis family.”
“Oh,” she said, letting her breath out. “He was not pleased with me.”
“He was hard on you sometimes, you know?” I said. “I learned from watching you. I learned not to make waves around him.”
“He was never hard on Izzy, though,” Julie said. It was not the first time she’d said something like that.
“Did that bother you?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said. “I think I just had a way of doing things he couldn’t tolerate. Like hanging out with the Lewises.” She suddenly grew very quiet as she pulled up to the curb in front of my apartment house.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. I’m tired.” She smiled at me. “It was a great concert. I love watching you. You have so much fun up there.”
“Thanks,” I said, but I felt worried about her. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She looked at her hands where they rested on the steering wheel. “You just got me thinking about George,” she said.
I touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry I brought it up,” I said.
She shrugged. “It’s just that…if I’d never gone over there to begin with, George would never have gone to
