Everything looked different from the air. There, below him, was Nantucket Island, the only home he’d ever known. There were Long Pond and the Miacomet Golf Course and the patchwork acres of Bartlett’s Farm. There was the bowed white stretch of the South Shore. Already cars were lining up on the beach. Jake had spent every summer Sunday of his entire life on that very beach with his parents and the Alistairs and the Castles. They had body-surfed and played touch football; they had hidden in the dunes. They had constructed forts out of boogie boards and beach towels in the back of Mr. Castle’s pickup truck. Jake recalled the smell of charcoal, the marinated steak, the ears of corn dripping with herbed butter. There was always a bonfire with marshmallows, and fireworks that Mr. Castle bought when he was away on business.
Jake felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, a cupping, a squeeze. This happened four or five times an hour now, his father’s touching him for no reason other than to reassure himself that his son was still there.
Jake picked out Hummock Pond Road, like a fortune teller reading a palm. It was a life line without life, a love line without love. The road ran due south from town. Seen from the air, it was just a path cut through the pine forest. The cars traveling it looked like toys.
Jake pressed his forehead against the vibrating window. The plane floated over Madaket and Eel Point. Nantucket was receding. No! Jake thought. He felt tears sting his eyes. He was losing Nantucket. Tuckernuck was below them now, then Muskegut, its shores crowded with seals. Then the Yankee-blue water of Nantucket Sound. If only he could jump out, land safely, swim back. So many terrible things had happened in the past four weeks, and one of those things was what his parents had deemed to be the solution: they were running away from home.