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the flat water. The cove was U-shaped, about a mile deep with a half-circle of small forested islands protecting the entrance.
    Gigantic hemlock and spruce trees dotted the spit we were paddling along, the tips of their lowest branches in the water at the tide line. We beached the kayak, got out and stretched.
    â€œYour mom loved this spot,” Dad said. “The farthest from civilization she’d ever been. Let’s walk around before we unload. We’ve got a little time.”
    â€œThe trees,” I said. “They’re huge.”
    â€œYour mom, she said the trees were like Sentinels.”
    â€œSentinels?” I asked.
    â€œA Sentinel is a guard. A protector. Something that ensures safety.”
    â€œCool,” I said, thinking of my mom and the way she saw the world. “It kind of feels like they’re watching over the place.”
    These trees, over a dozen of them, and twice as wide as my arm-span, towered above us, growing right out of the beach gravel and all on thisnarrow spit of land at the back of the cove. And there was almost nothing growing under them. Maybe I’d write a song about this place. For Mom.
    â€œI’m glad we made it here together. Not just for your mom, but for us.”
    I nodded. Mom. Sometimes at home it felt like she was in the next room or out in the garden. And here, I almost believed she’d appear under the trees. I could feel her. I wished she would ’cause I knew she really loved me, really wanted me.
    â€œWe were gonna tell you together. Really, your mom was, but since she’s gone…”
    â€œWhat, Dad?” I said. “What is it?” I mean, he was springing back to life but was still quiet, and soft-spoken and there was no telling when he’d just shut back down again and it’d be like I didn’t exist. If he had more to tell me about Mom I wanted to hear it. I had some of her song lyrics memorized, and I’d started playing her guitar, and I’d read her stories over and over, but I wanted every scrap of information to help keep her alive in my mind.
    Dad looked at me, then put his eyes on the ground. “This is the place where we first talked about building a family.”
    I took a breath. “Did you even want to have a kid?”
    Dad turned toward me. “I’m not the kind of guy that would just go out and adopt on my own. But with your mother there was nothing I wanted more than to be a parent with her, to have our own. To have you. I know I haven’t been acting like much of a father, but that’s gonna change. I promise.”
    Then he gave me a big hug, the kind of hug my mom used to give me. And yeah, he was acting more like he used to before Mom died, but only since we’d been out here. The real test would be when we got home and I wanted rides into town to go to the movies, or to guitar lessons if he let me start them, or over to Billy’s house, or maybe to meet a girl if I was that lucky. And to teach me how to drive. Could my dad drag himself out of bed or off the couch for me instead of just driving into town once every two weeks to buy groceries, ’cause I’d go nuts if all I did was spend time at home outside of school with someone who’d barely speak to me.
    After we unloaded the boat and set up camp, Dad was taking me to our water source, this trickle of a stream spilling down a steep bank, when I saw something and said, “Dad, what’s that, back in the trees?” I pointed with one hand and walked toward it.
    Dad fell into step beside me. “Used to be a sauna way back when—”
    â€œA sauna? It’s just a pile of junk.” I pointed to the pile of rotting, moss-covered boards and a few plastic five-gallon buckets that lay in a heap.
    â€œThe Forest Service was supposed to haul the rest of that junk out of here, but then gas prices shot up and they cut way back on travel, just like the rest of us. Must be a pretty