Chapter 11: The Launch

He told me in the Volvo, with the engine off, after the last envelope had gone into the last hand.

"On the twelfth of September I told her I loved her."

I looked straight ahead through the windshield, at the broken fence and my mother's flaking sign.

"Word for word?"

"Yes."

"Did she say it back?"

"In four seconds."

I nodded.

I didn't trust my voice for a minute, and neither of us pretended otherwise.

"I'm not angry," I said finally. "I should be. I keep looking for the part where I am."

"Be angry."

"I'm trying. It's hard to be angry at a man for saying the best thing he's ever said to the wrong ear."

He turned in the seat.

"I apologize," Anders said, "to the right one."

"For what?"

"For three months of putting my heart in a mailbox and letting somebody else open it."

"For telling your stepsister about my father instead of waiting for you to ask me."

"For assuming, on Monday, that a woman in a work jacket was the lie."

"You apologized to me without being asked."

"Yes."

"Nobody's ever done that."

"Then I'd like to be the first."

I looked at his hands on the wheel.

They were large and capable and perfectly still.

"Take me out on the launch tonight," I said.

His face closed.

Then it opened again, slowly.

"I haven't driven her in eighteen years."

"I know," I said. "That's why I'm asking."

At dusk the lake was the color of pewter, with a single thin line of pink along the west.

The launch sat at the end of the Engdahl dock, a long varnished mahogany hull with a brass rail and a white canvas top.

I'd gone over the engine myself that afternoon.

Anders stood on the dock with his hands in his pockets.

He looked at the boat.

"You're not by yourself," I said.

I stepped down into the cockpit and held out my hand.

He took it.

He got in, put both hands on the wheel, and stood there for a very long time without turning the key.

I sat on the bench behind him and said nothing.

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