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face as well. He’d kept in reasonably good shape by jogging and playing tennis, and he didn’t weigh much more than he had when they married, but the weight had subtly begun redistributing itself, his torso becoming noticeably concave (again like his father’s), as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. With the exception of the small mole that bisected her left eyebrow and had appeared on his own in his thirties, his mother’s genetic gifts were more temperamental, if no less disturbing for that, and Joy had conceded long ago that there was no chance he’d been adopted. “That’s your mother talking,” she was fond of observing whenever he was unkind or snobbish, especially about someone in her own family.
    “She wants me to visit,” Griffin told her now.
    “Of course she does.”
    “She doesn’t like her new place.”
    “Of course she doesn’t.”
    “She’s going to live forever.”
    “No, but she’ll make it seem like forever.”
    The first thing he’d done when arriving at the restaurant was to wash his shirtsleeve in the men’s room. Though he thoughthe’d done a good, thorough job, he could smell it again. “When she called, I pulled over onto the shoulder, and a gull took a shit on me.”
    But Joy had lost interest in the subject, just as she often did with stories at what he considered their most vivid and interesting point. “Have you called your daughter yet?”
    Your
daughter, rather than
our
, usually meant that in Joy’s opinion he was shirking some important parental duty. “She doesn’t get here until this afternoon, right?”
    “She’s been on the Cape since yesterday. She’s in the wedding party, remember?”
    Well, now that he thought about it, he did. “I’ll call her when I get to the B and B,” he promised.
    “Good. She could use some reassuring.”
    “About what?”
    “She can’t understand why we’re arriving in separate cars. Explain that to her, will you? Then she can explain it to me.”
    Griffin sighed. He’d succeeded in deflecting Joy from her purpose by complaining about his mother, but now they’d circled back. Best to get it over with and apologize. “I should’ve waited for you,” he admitted, pausing a beat before adding, “Boston wasn’t much fun without you.” And, when she still didn’t say anything, “I meant to spite you and ended up spiting myself… Are you still there?”
    “I’m here.”
    “I hope you aren’t waiting for me to humble myself further, because that’s all I’ve got for you.”
    “No,” she said. “That should do it.”
    By the time Griffin drove back down the Cape and checked into the B and B, it was nearly noon. He brought his travel bag and satchelup to the room, leaving the trunk empty except for his father’s ashes. He’d passed a couple of peaceful, secluded spots, but there’d been a brisk breeze, and he feared that when he opened the urn a strong gust might come up and he’d be wearing his father. Also, he’d feel less self-conscious saying a few words in his memory if there was someone besides himself to hear them, so he decided to wait for Joy.
    His father had died of a massive embolism the previous September, and the circumstances were nothing if not peculiar. He’d been found in his car in a plaza on the Mass Pike. Like most rest stops, this one had a huge parking lot, and his father’s car was on the very perimeter, far from other vehicles. It was unclear how long it had been there before someone noticed him slumped over in the passenger seat, his head resting against the window. Except for the trickle of blood, dried and crusty, below his left nostril, he might have been taking a nap. But why wasn’t he behind the wheel? The glove box was open. Had he been rummaging around in it, looking for something? On the backseat the road atlas was open to Massachusetts, with Griffin’s phone number scrawled on the top of the page. The key was in the ignition in the ON position. The car had