A person dies, a person you know, and you should think about them. All week I tried to think about Brent Miller. But my mind kept going back to Melissa—what did she want to say to me? What did she want to show me?
Then on Thursday afternoon, my dad called out to me from down below the moment I stepped on the boat. "That you, Chance?"
"Yeah," I said. "It's me."
He came topside. "Sit down," he said.
"I was going to go running now."
"Sit down, Chance. This won't take long."
I sat down, and he sat across from me. The boat rocked back and forth. I tried to act calm, but inside I was in knots. First Melissa, then my dad. Were things coming apart all around me, and was I the only one who didn't know it?
Finally he spoke. "This morning the port police went up and down every single pier in the marina. They had their dogs with them."
"Oh yeah," I said, trying to act unconcerned.
"Yeah," he said. "They asked me if they could board."
My heart was pounding so loudly I was afraid he'd hear it. "What did you say?"
"I told them that this was America and that they could go to hell. So did most of the owners on the pier."
"What did they do then?"
"They laughed, but they wrote down the name of our sailboat."
"Do you think they'll come back?"
"No. If they were coming back, they'd have been here hours ago." He tilted his head back and took a long drink of the beer he was holding, finishing it off. "Would it matter?" he asked.
"Would what matter?"
"If they came back."
"Not to me," I said. "I've got nothing to hide."
He stared at me, and I forced myself not to look away.
"Well, neither do I. So we've got nothing to worry about, do we?"