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old houses, condos with clay courts and pools by the beach, tide flats and salt ponds and sunsets at sea.
    The first Pilgrims crossed an ocean in misery. Their successors came from every corner of the continent in every kind of conveyance and convenience. And Geoff Hilyard often wondered if they hadn’t all been seeking the same thing. But on summer holidays, sitting in traffic a mile north of the Cape Cod Canal, watching through the heat waves as the cars crossed the Sagamore Bridge like ants on a distant log, he couldn’t quite remember what the “same thing” was, because these latter-day pilgrims created a steaming, smoking, vapor-locked misery all their own.
    “We could have come yesterday and missed this.” Janice did not look up from her book.
    “I had blueprints to finish.”
    The Winnebago ahead of them rolled forward. Geoff inched up to close the space so that none of the smart guys sneaking along the breakdown lane could cut in front of him.
    “You could’ve finished down here. Boston’s only a two-hour drive… unless you go on the weekend.”
    “From now on I want to be like the old Cape shipmasters. They knew the sea route to Hong Kong better than the land route to Boston.” He shut off the air conditioner to keep the engine from overheating. He rolled down the window and was hit by a blast of rock and roll and exhaust from the Ford pickup idling beside him.
    “The shipmasters had to go to Boston to get their ships.” Janice turned a page.
    “They went by boat. Open your window.”
    A car zoomed by in the breakdown lane.
    “Look at that bastard,” said Geoff.
    “In a hurry to get to the promised land,” said Janice, so calmly that the sarcasm seemed to float on the surface of her voice like duckweed.
    He glanced at her book. “Joan Didion or P. D. James?”
    “Improving Your Sales Approach . To keep us eating.”
    In the backseat, eight-year-old Sarah told six-year-old Keith to cut it out. Keith told Sarah to cut it out herownself. Geoff told them both to cut it out, whatever it was.
    “They’ll be happier on the Cape,” said Janice.
    In the bed of the pickup beside them, a kid in a B.C. baseball cap was sitting on a lounge chair. A girl in a Body Glove bathing suit was sitting on his lap. They were, as the college students said, swapping spit. Later they’d be swapping a lot more, which made Geoff a little envious. Of what? he wondered. Their freedom? Their youth? After riding out a traffic jam in a flatbed, they’d be too sunburned to swap much of anything. The way they were going at it, even their tongues would be sunburned. And Geoff was about to remake his life, or so he told himself.
    “Our kids will be happier,” he said, “and if things get bad, I can always sell my piece of Jack’s Island to your father.”
    “Which would kill your uncle Rake.”
    “Nothing could kill him.” Geoff tuned the radio to the same station playing in the pickup. The group was U-2, and they still hadn’t found what they were looking for.
    “Neither have you,” muttered Janice.
    Sarah told Keith that eight-year-olds knew everything and six-year-olds were dumb.
    “Last summer,” said Janice, “it was seven-year-olds who knew everything and five-year-olds who were dumb.”
    “I thought we were finished with this,” said Geoff.
    “You mean dumbness?”
    He tightened his grip on the wheel. Her calm voice and serene expression reminded him of a martyr. And her short blond hair made a good halo. It always had. The first time she smiled at him, he thought she looked like an angel. But she hadn’t been smiling much lately.
    In the rear window of the Winnebago, an old woman tied a ribbon on the head of her miniature poodle.
    “Now, that’s dumb,” said Janice.
    “What, Mummy?” said Sarah. “What’s dumb?”
    “That lady is kissing her dog on the mouth.”
    “Yech!” shouted Keith. “That’s worse than kissin’ Sarah.” And he began to laugh.
    “I wouldn’t let you”—Sarah