Chapter 23: The Ferry Back

The Cutler Island ferry left at six forty-five, and in July it was bright all the way across.

I stood at the rail with a paper bag and my hair whipping across my face.

Elias stood beside me, in the same canvas jacket he'd worn on the lawn, with no camera for once.

"You brought sandwiches," he said, looking into the bag.

"Teagan made them."

"What kind?"

"Egg salad."

He started to laugh, and he laughed so hard he had to hold the rail.

"She did that on purpose."

"She's a bartender," I said. "She knows exactly what she's doing."

I unwrapped one and tore it in half, and held out the bigger piece.

He took it like it was something that could break.

"Tell me something you never told me about that crossing," I said.

"You were the only person who talked to me for the whole crossing."

He looked at the water.

"I'd been awake two days, because my grandfather had just died."

"You never told me that."

"I never told you a lot of things." He bit into the sandwich. "You still don't know about the scar."

"I asked you in the studio, and you said later."

"It's later."

"Then tell me."

"I was on a roof in Lisbon, photographing a church bell tower for a magazine."

"And?"

"I leaned back to get the angle."

"And the roof wasn't as far back as I thought it was."

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