They crossed a bridge into Gananoque on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence. Mack parked the truck, and they sat on a bench near the water. The bag with Onji's lunch lay between them as they waited for a ferry to take them to the castle.
Sam glanced out at the pier, at the wisps of mist that rose above the river, and watched a small boat slapped by the waves as Mack began to talk. “We lived on the American side, and I kept the sailboat there,” he said. “But we always came to this town, to Gan, Lydia and Onji and I.” He talked slowly, looking out at the water. “There was a bulletin board every summer, telling who'd caught the largest muskie.” He put his large hand on Sam's shoulder. “That's not important.”
The muskie was more important than Mack knew, the word muskie. Hadn't it brought them here?
The picture of the sailboat was in Sam's pocket, and he pulled it out, seeing it tremble slightly in his fingers.
Mack ran his hand over it, almost the way Anima had run hers over the sweater. “My boat.” He turned to face Sam. “How did you find it?”
Sam hesitated. “I climbed up into the attic.”
“You went up the pipe?”
“I lied about it afterward—” He stopped and began again. “I'm sorry about that, about the lying.”
“The pipe,” Mack repeated. “And you found everything that was there? The little boat? I'd meant to give it back to you someday. But as time went on, it got harder. And you never asked.”
“No one else could have built that boat.”
Mack put his arm around Sam. “There's so much more to tell.” He stopped and pointed. In the distance, a gleaming white ferry had appeared on the river, its horn sounding. A familiar sound.
Mack sighed. “When I was young I was always angry. Angry over foolish things. Angry until I brought you home to Anima and Onji. And then the anger seeped out of me like sap from a tree. But it was too late to mend things with my daughter; it's my worst regret.”
The ferry had angled its way to the pier; the blast of the horn was all that could be heard.
Aboard the ferry, they climbed to the top deck. The mist was stronger, sheets of it spread across the water as the ship pulled out slowly, almost lumbering.
Mack was talking about the castle now. “Boldt was the name of a man who changed the shape of the island into a heart for his wife, and you'll see the stone deer called harts.”
They passed islands and then went under a bridge that curved upward like a steel cobweb. It must have been the bridge that Onji had described. And there, suddenly, was the castle Sam had dreamed about.
“Three hundred men worked there every day,” Mack said. “But the day George Boldt's young wife died, everything stopped. He never went back.”
They left the ferry and climbed a gravel path. “Years later, I was one of the workers who began to restore it,” Mack said.
Sam glanced up at the towers, the roofs like cones, the narrow windows cut into the stone. If only Caroline could have seen it. Mack, smiling down at him, nodded. “Yes, it's like yours.”
They wandered through the rooms. It was cold inside, but there was a fire in the massive fireplace. They sat on a bench watching the flames, and Mack took a breath. “You came here often. Your mother brought you. You'd follow me, the sound of your footsteps so loud, going up the stairs and down. You watched everything, squeezing in to see me hammer …”
If only he could remember.
“Everything was my fault,” Mack said. “We argued over something, my daughter and I, and I left and went to Florida. I lost my daughter, lost you, lost everything.”
Wait. Sam felt his teeth going into his lip. Mack's words echoed in his head: “Your mother brought you. … I lost my daughter, lost you.”
Sam's clenched hands went up to his face.
He knew. He didn't have to wait to be told. He tried to speak, but the sound wouldn't come. “My mother,” he began at last, “was your daughter? Was really your daughter.”
Mack turned, shock in his eyes. “Julia, of course. How could you not have known? I built the little boat for you in her kitchen.”
Something was filling Sam's chest, growing, coming up into his throat. He opened his mouth, and a sound came.
Mack's arms were tight around him again, the heat from the fireplace warming him. “Oh, Sam,” Mack said.
Sam was crying now, but whatever had filled his chest began to melt, to seep away with the tears. “Like sap from a tree.” “It was your voice shouting.”
“When?”
“At the Children's Home. Banging doors, one after the other.”
“I was so angry,” Mack said. “In a rage. That woman. How can I ever tell you? How can I explain? When your mother died, no one knew where I was, so a neighbor took you to the home. But then they found me.” He ran his hand over his face. “Shocking, the packet that came in the mail: a loving note from Julia written just before she died, and legal papers giving me the right to take care of you, to raise you.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I'd missed you, thought about you both all the time.”
Sam wiped his face with his sleeve. It was all right, it was going to be all right.
“I came up on the boat to get you. I never stopped, never slept. You'd been in the home for almost a month, and that night, the woman wouldn't let me have you. ‘I'm tired,’ she said. ‘Come back tomorrow.’
“I waved the court papers in front of her. I said you weren't going to stay there one more night, one more hour.
“ ‘Legal or not, you'll wait until tomorrow. He's in bed, and that's where I'm going soon. I'm not getting any child ready now. I've done my work for the day.’ ”
Sam pictured her face: she had lines across her forehead, and her hair was flat against her head.
“That terrible place.” Mack raised his hand to his chest. “I can't tell you how angry I felt.”
That something inside.
“I took the stairs two at a time. I opened one door after another—”
“You called, shouted.”
“I wrapped you in a sweater and scooped you up in my arms, you and the boat, and went down the stairs. ‘Night Cat,’ you said.”
Sam nodded, remembering the stairs tilting, his arm out, wanting the cat.
“The woman blocked the way into the kitchen, where Julia's cat was cowering under the table. Blocked the way until she saw my face.”
They sat back, the flames crackling in the great room of the castle. Mack's eyes were closed. He seemed out of breath.
“I took you to the boat,” Mack said.
“I remember the sound of foghorns,” Sam said.
“I was too angry to think straight, or I wouldn't have taken you out in the storm. We went onto the rocks, the hull split, and the boat went under, all of it. We were in the water, and I reached out for you and the cat. Somehow you'd held on to the little boat I'd made.” Mack's mouth was unsteady. “I nearly lost you the second time.”
They went outside then, Sam feeling the wonder of it. They watched the moat below them, the boathouse across the way, swirls of mist.
“We took a train then to Onji and Anima,” Mack said. “Both of us were soaked, the cat shivering. There was a nurse who sat nearby and bandaged my leg. I never thought what people would think. And then I carried you the last mile and they were waiting. And you were safe.”
“Safe.”
“I told myself I'd never go near the water again,” Mack said. “I'd never have a boat again.”
He smiled at Sam. “The next day we heard about the newspaper report.” He shook his head. “Onji and I went back to let them know we were alive.”
What Sam was feeling inside was a burst of happiness. He and Mack belonged together. Julia was his mother, Lydia his grandmother.
He realized what Mack had said. “Never have a boat again.” He put his hand on Mack's sleeve. “Don't say that. Let's build a boat. The two of us, together.”