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Then I heard Phelps shriek.
    By the time I looked his way, he was already tripping backward onto compact sand. That part wasn’t unusual. Phelps rarely went a day without hurting himself. Who else broke his collarbone bowling or sprained his neck sneezing? But this time he was reeling and screeching, as if chased. “It snapped at me!”
    I knew what he’d seen before I got to the rock he’d flipped.
    Midshipmen rank among the Sound’s creepiest bottom fish. Their bodies are mostly heads, and their heads are mostly eyes and teeth. And for whatever reason, the females rise up from the dark canyons to drop their eggs beneath rocks in the shallows. The males then guard the eggs until they hatch, and if you startle them they’ll show you their piranha like teeth. After this daddy showed me his, I saw tiny eggs adhered to the underside of the upturned rock and the baby midshipmen spinning inside them, their metallic stripes creating a sparkling light show. I waved Phelps over.
    He stood hesitantly behind me as the flashing babies popped from their eggs and splashed into two inches of water where they huddled against their father’s belly. Then the tumult passed and they all became so still, the babies seemingly disappearing, the father blending into the rocks.
    “Now that ,” Phelps whispered, “is amazing.”
    “Look around.” I held out my hands, as if catching rain.

CHAPTER 6
    W HEN WE GOT back to my house with one geoduck, thirty-two manila and eight butter clams, we heard voices, laughter and music echoing from the Stegner house.
    The Stegners technically lived next door, but their house loomed on a knoll a quarter mile away and was unlike any other home on the bay. Nothing about its design hinted that it began as a Methodist church, but something about its posture, the way it faced sunrise and occupied the highest bump of lowlands ringing the west flank of the bay, made it easy to see how some people might pick it as a place to chat with God. Yet it was hard to imagine that it had ever belonged to anyone but the Stegners. It fit their stature and high expectations, at least it had when the judge was still married and Angie’s three older Eagle Scout brothers were still around. Still, both times my mother stepped inside she swore she heard a Methodist choir.
    We found Angie beneath the willow near our property line sharing a cigarette with Frankie Marx. Frankie was always friendly to me, but I hated him anyway. He was obnoxiously handsome, and I didn’t trust anyone who made looking cool seem that easy. So, of course, I was determined to save Angie from him, but I couldn’t resist Lizzy, his hyper chocolate Lab, who got up, tongue dangling, to greet us.
    Angie whistled Lizzy back into the grass, then stroked her belly. I’d never seen her touch phony Frankie, but I saw her cuddle with that dog often enough to envy it. I asked her about the party.
    “It’s the big old oyster feed for Dad’s richest contributors,” she said, without looking up. Her eyelids were so heavy it looked as if she were hiding.
    I nodded, but I didn’t know what she meant other than that being a state supreme court judge was something like being a mayor or a governor. After an awkward lull, it occurred to Phelps that she was the same Angie his brother raved about. “I hear you play an awesome bass,” he said.
    “Yeah?” She grinned.
    “Cool,” Phelps told her.
    “You think so?” She blew a cone of smoke at the sky. “Wouldn’t it be cooler if I played lead guitar?”
    “Yeah, but bass is cool too.”
    She looked to see if I was enjoying this. She’d definitely been crying. I glared at Frankie, and he smiled warmly back. He was such an effortless Marlboro man he made me feel like a circus midget.
    “You play?” she asked politely.
    “A little,” Phelps said.
    “Air guitar,” I clarified, mimicking his lip scowl and frantic fingering.
    “Fuck yourself, Miles. My brother has a Gibson,” he bragged. “An