Summer Island

A swift breeze rose suddenly, filling the canvas sail with a tharumping noise. The boat keeled over and cut through the sun lit, glistening water.

Dean looked down at his brother. “Do you want to take the wheel?”

Erics face lit up. “Oh, yeah. ”

Dean slipped an arm around his brothers frail body and helped him hobble toward the big, silver wheel. Eric took hold; Dean stood behind and beside him, resting a hand on his brothers shoulder, to keep her steady.

Wind-tears streaked across Erics temples, his thinning hair flapped against the sides of his face, his T-shirt billowed against his sunken chest.

“Orcas

!” Ruby said suddenly, pointing starboard.

At first, Nora didnt see anything. She stood up and tented a hand across her eyes.

She saw the first black fin rise slowly, slowly from the water. Then there were six of them moving through the sea like the upended teeth of comb, impossibly close together

“Im the queen of the world. ” Eric yelled, throwing his arms out. He laughed out loud, and for the first time in weeks, it was his laughter, not the weak, down version that cancer had left him with.

Nora knew that when she looked back on and the ugliness of the past few weeks an seemed overwhelming, she would picture him standing tall, squinting into the sun, laughing.

And she would remember her boy. Her Eric,

Chapter Twenty-three

It was early evening by the time they got back to the house. Lottie served them a delicious dinner of Dungeness crabs, Caesar salad, and French bread. Shed laughed as she set the meal on the table, saying that she hadnt figured too much had changed over the years the Sloans and the Bridges loved crab, but too soft hearted to boil one.

Even though theyd eaten a big lunch on the boat, theyd descended on dinner like Survivor contestants.

Eric had even managed to eat a few tender; buttery bites.

While the girls washed and dried the dishes, Dean had carried Eric up to bed. Finally, Nora and Ruby went upstairs, and they all stood around Erics bed, talking softly until he fell asleep.

Now the three of them were back on the Wind Lass, headed for Summer Island. The trip, being undertaken at night, without radar; took twice the usual amount of time. And still Ruby hadnt found the courage to hand Dean her heart.

All day shed waited for The Moment, the one when she could turn to him and touch his arm and say she wasnt afraid anymore. But every time shed started for him, shed seized up. The shale of old habits collected beneath her feet and made it dangerous to move.

There had always been a roadblock between them, something Ruby couldnt climb over-a crowd of people (okay, so Eric and Mom werent really a crowd, but when you were eating crow, one extraneous witness was too many), a set of chores, a whooshing wind.

So Ruby had waited. And waited.

She was still waiting when the Wind Lass glided up to the Bridges" dock.

“Get the lines, Ruby,” Dean yelled.

She grabbed the lines and jumped onto the dock, tying the boat down. She was still figure-eighting the line around the midship cleat when she saw her mother step down onto the dock.

“Thanks, Dean,” she heard her mother say. She felt, rather than saw, Mom turn toward her. “Ruby? Honey, Ill need some help up to the house. The bank is slippery. ”

Ruby shot a glance to the boat; it was all shadows up close, strips of white and gray that bobbed up and down. She couldnt see a flash of Deans blond hair. He was probably down below. What if he left before she could get back?

“Ruby?”

She dropped the excess coil of line and headed toward her mother. Mom turned and waved. “Bye, Dean. Thanks for a great day. ”

And there he was, standing beside the wheel. She could make out his golden hair and yellow sweater, even a flash of white teeth as he smiled, but that was all. “Bye,” he said in a subdued voice.

“Uh . . . If you need help leaving-you know, uh, or something-I could come right back down," Ruby said.