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tank when they arrived. Felt the familiar wooden tremor that told me someone had mounted the walkway that connects my house to the mainland.
    Looked up to see a woman wearing pleated white shorts and baggy gray-blue T-shirt striding toward me, the female variation of the Generation X look. It was a style that implied limited body-piercing, maybe a small tattoo or two, an affection for MTV. The anachronism, Tucker Gatrell, walked behind, western hat in hand … clomping along in cowboy boots, for God’s sake. A man who was always on stage, always in costume.
    Saw that the woman was a rust-blonde redhead with one of those boxy haircuts so that her large brown eyes looked out at me from beneath a shield of bangs, hair squared heavily over hunched bookworm shoulders.
    The way she walked, the way she carried herself, she reminded me of that: the type who escaped into books. Athletic-looking; she had a rangy, cattish quality, but also bookish. Or maybe it was computers these days. The studious variety of loner, isolated by self, maybe a little self-conscious, judging from the way she moved, knowing I was watching her; aware of it and not comfortable being the center of attention.
    It tightened her movements. Added a mechanical stiffness. She had the gauntness, that hollowed quality, of the ultra-long-distance runner.
    But no glasses. Not like the little girl I’d seen in the photograph. And … as she drew closer, I could see that the wandering eye had been straightened.
    The disappointment I felt was surprising. I’d liked the face on that child from long ago.
    Had Bobby’s eyes been brown? I couldn’t remember … more likely, I’d never paid enough attention to know. But there was something familiar in her eyes … could see it as we shook hands—“It’s nice of you to meet with me, Dr. Ford”—as she held my face with her gaze, then allowed it to wander.
    Got a glimpse of something tougher than suggested by her averted eyes. A little bit of Bobby in there peering out. Then could hear that toughness in her voice when she said, “You’re the man in my father’s letters, right? You knew my father.”
    I thought,
Letters
? but answered her by saying, “Years ago, I knew a man named Bobby Richardson. If he was your father, then you have a lot to be proud of. He was a fine man.”
    Her expression softened momentarily. “Then I’m glad I found you. I don’t know if you can … can help me. But I know it’s what my father would have wanted. My real father. Talking to you, I mean. It’s what he told me to do in his letters, so that’s why I’m here.”
    Letters again.
    Turning to Tucker, she added, “So, if it’s okay with you, Mr. Gatrell, I won’t waste any more of your time. I can talk to your nephew alone.”
    Not asking permission, but telling both of us where she stood, just what she wanted.
    But she obviously didn’t know Tuck very well. Not if she expected to get rid of him so easily. He touched his hand to her back, steering her onto the deck and then up the stairs toward my house, saying, “Miz Richardson, I come this far with you, I kinda hate to let you sail solo now. Besides, Duke here’s not the quickest on the draw, if you know what I mean. I’m not talking ’bout brain power, understand. Let’s just say he’s not the type to let sympathy get in the way.” Maybe joking but maybe not; hard to tell from his tone. Then he replied to the look Igave him as he brushed past me, saying, “Excuse me. I meant Marion.”
    Wearing Levi’s and a rodeo shirt, he smelled of rank hay and whiskey and chewing tobacco. Like horse, too. An old horse.
    The man did not change.
    I watched Amanda watching Tuck as he rambled on and on, dominating space and conversation as he always did, Tuck and the woman sitting with glasses of iced tea at the galley booth, me leaning against the door frame in the small room, taking it in.
    The night before, on the phone, Tuck had tried to tell me what her problem was, but he