Chapter 5: The Sea Restaurant

Regina booked the restaurant boat on the lake for Maisie's fifth birthday.

It was moored at the harbor wall, with strings of lights along its deck and round windows facing the water.

Maisie had told her mother in the spring that she wanted to see the sea.

Regina had remembered.

I gave her that much.

Maisie wore her yellow raincoat over her party dress, though the sky was clear.

She pressed her nose to the window of our table before we had even sat down.

"Daddy, that's the sea!"

"It's a very big lake, sweetheart."

"It looks like the sea."

"It does," I said. "Almost."

She watched the lights on the water.

Mom and Dad sat at the end of the table, as promised.

Colby and Jasper were not there. The paper Dad had signed was folded in my wallet, and nobody mentioned it.

Regina had put away her work phone.

She sat next to Maisie and cut her fish into tiny squares, and for twenty minutes it was almost a good dinner.

Mom gave Maisie a boxed necklace with a silver shell on it.

Dad gave her a card with a twenty-dollar bill inside.

"Thank you, Grandpa," Maisie said, and held the shell up to the window so it caught the light.

I let myself breathe out.

Then the waiter wheeled over the cake.

It was a small round one with five candles and strawberries on top.

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