Chapter 23: First Saturday of June

At six o'clock on the first Saturday of June, somebody knocked on the right side of my door.

I opened it.

Winslow stood on the landing in a dark jacket with no coat over it, and he had shaved off the beard.

I had not seen his whole jaw in four years.

"You shaved," I said.

"You said to come like a stranger."

"Strangers don't shave for me."

"This one did."

He held out a paper bag.

"I didn't know what you'd want, so I brought lemon cookies."

I took the bag, and I laughed until I had to lean on the frame.

He took me to a small place on the water with eight tables and a cook who shouted.

He held my chair for me, and then he looked stricken, and he asked if I wanted him to hold it.

"Yes," I said. "Today I do."

"Today."

"I'll tell you when I don't."

We ate mussels and bread, and he asked me questions.

He asked what the lighthouse cat did when the storm came, and what I was drawing next, and which of my sister's boyfriends I had liked best.

He listened to every answer.

When I said something funny, he laughed a beat late, and then a beat early, as he tried to find the right place.

I told him about the surgery.

I told him the surgeon had said yes, the surgery was set for July, and it would take a few months to learn what the new ear heard.

"I want to be there," he said. "If you let me."

"You can drive me."

"And sit in the waiting room."

"On the right."

He smiled across the candle.

"I'll sit wherever you tell me."

"That's not true."

"No," he said. "But I'm working on it."

He paid the check, and I let him, because I had said I would.

On the sidewalk the evening was warm, and the harbour smelled of salt and diesel.

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