Page 84 of Just One More Thing

He never has to.

“Yeah,” I answer. “She did.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees, studying the crushed shell path in front of me. It’s worn smooth down the middle from decades of footsteps. Mine among them. My dad’s. My granddad’s.

“Different than you expected?” Willard asks.

I think about the night Maddy fell. How the news traveled through town before the ambulance finished turning the corner. I knew what it meant.

I told myself I was ready.

I wasn’t.

“She’s braver than she thinks,” I say.

Willard makes a low sound. Agreement. Or just acknowledgment. “She always was,” he says. “She just never had to be before.”

That’s true. Blue Crab Bay summers didn’t require bravery when we were kids. They required sunscreen, a working bike, and the ability to stay out past dark. Everything else was easy. Everything else was us.

I don’t know when easy became complicated.

“She hooked her pinky with mine tonight,” I say. “During the movie.”

Willard doesn’t look at me.

“I don’t know if she realized she did it.”

“She realized.”

I glance at him. He’s watching the channel marker blink out in the dark.

One.

Pause.

One.

I look back at the water.

Willard doesn’t hand out answers. He gives you space to find them yourself and the occasional nudge when you’re looking in the wrong direction.

His wife Ida was mayor for twelve years. You don’t stand beside a woman like that without learning when to speak and when to keep your mouth shut.

He talks about her sometimes. Not often. But when he does, he talks about her like she’s still in the room. Like time didn’t take her so much as relocate her somewhere slightly out of reach.

I used to think this bench with her name on it was grief.

I understand now it’s just love that outlasted the person.

“Your dad used to do that,” Willard says.

“Do what?”

“Sit here after something good happened. Like he didn’t trust himself to just let it be good. He’d come by after a strong day on the water,” Willard continues. “After you made a big playhe’d listened to on the radio or watched on television because he couldn’t get to the game.” He pauses. “He’d sit right where you’re sitting and stare at the water like he was waiting for it to tell him how long it would last.”

I don’t answer. Because I do the same thing. I always have.

“He was proud of you,” Willard says. “I know you know that. But he was scared for you too.” He looks out toward the ocean.

“The way you love, Jake. It’s not small.”