The Inn at Old Harbor, like many of the buildings on Block Island, is from the Victorian era and looks like an old-fashioned gingerbread house. One side of it faces Water Street and the other side faces the Old Harbor, where the ferries come in. A set of steps leads from the ground level to the second level of the hotel, and it is behind those steps that Maggie thinks she sees a flash of red. She draws closer to investigate. The red is part of a shirt, and inside the shirt is a little dark-haired boy with his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin tucked into his knees. He seems to be employing the principle (of which Pickles is also fond) that if he can’t see anybody, nobody can see him. He’s very close to where Maggie and the woman had been standing; he must have heard his name being called. Therefore, Maggie surmises, the little boy is not lost. He is hiding.
“Are you hiding?” she asks. The boy looks up at her. He nods slowly.
Before this summer Maggie hadn’t known anything about little boys. Now, after so much time with Chase and Sebastian, they are familiar to her: their little-boy smells, their quirks, their morning bedhead. She’s pretty sure she could tell this boy a fart joke that would land. She crouches down. “What are you hiding from?” she asks.
He shakes his head, not bending.
“Wait, let me guess. You’re hiding from a giant green monster with furry teeth. From a purple shark that can walk on land. From a super-evil puppy?” The last one brings a tentative giggle. He shakes his head. “No?” says Maggie. “I’m not on the right track? Hmmm.” She cups her chin in her hand and acts like she’s thinking.
That’s when the boy blurts out, “From Mommy!”
“From Mommy!” Maggie pretends to be very shocked. “Well, my goodness, what did Mommy do to deserve being hidden from?”
“She made Daddy mad.”
It occurs to Maggie that she has no way to let the blond woman know her son is safe. She should have taken her cell phone number—but, since she didn’t, she will wait with Max until she returns. She figures they should come out from behind the steps and sit on the porch of the hotel, where they will be in plain sight of Max’s mother.
“Are you all done hiding now, Max? Are you ready to come out?”
He nods somberly.
“Why don’t we sit over here,” Maggie says. “And wait for Mommy. She went to look for you. But she’ll come back!”
They were sheltered from the wind when they were behind the steps, but once they emerge they can feel how much it is picking up. Maggie glances at the sky—it has taken on a yellowish tinge—and shivers. She’s seen the skies over Block Island a lot of different ways, but never yellow.
She settles Max on the top of the short set of steps leading to the sandal store and sits beside him. She knows from Chase and Sebastian that it’s best to keep talking. “You don’t live here, do you?” she asks. “Because I know everyone on this island and I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You must be a very important visitor. Are you a very important visitor, Max?”
He looks uncertain. “We’re visiting Daddy. I think he lives here now.” He sighs, world-weary. “But I don’t know.”
“What are the names of your parents?” Maybe she can call the police station and submit a report; that way, if the mother calls the police, they’ll have Maggie’s phone number.
“Mommy is named Cassie. And Daddy’s name is Anthony.”
“Ohhh!” says Maggie. Could it be? She has known, of course, that Anthony has a son he never told her mother about, and that the not-telling was the cause of the breakup. Grown-ups are both confusing and exhausting. “Is there any chance,” she says, “that your last name is Puckett, Max?”
He nods. He seems unsurprised that Maggie knows this.
“Max,” she says, “is your dad an author? Does he write books?”
Max nods. “Only some. But my grandpa writes lots and lots and lots of books.” He holds his arms out as if he is holding the books. Maggie’s mom told her all about the other secret part of Anthony’s life too—the ultra-famous thriller-writer father. “Daddy doesn’t live with us anymore,” says Max.
Maggie supposes it’s not out of the question that Anthony’s wife and son would come to the island at some point during the summer. Maybe they have come to woo Anthony back. She hopes not. She doesn’t want Anthony to get wooed away.
“I’m sorry,” says Maggie. “Does that make you sad?”
Max nods again. “But before there was lots of fighting,” he says. “I didn’t like that.”
Maggie was so young when her parents split up that she doesn’t remember any fighting. “No,” says Maggie softly. “Of course you didn’t.” She thinks about how badly she wants her mother to be the kind of happy she was with Anthony. For her mother to be that happy, this kid will see less of his father. For Sandy to be happy, Tiki will grow up hardly knowing Maggie. It suddenly hits Maggie that there’s only a certain amount of happiness in the universe, and if you take what you think is your fair share, somebody else might have to give up theirs.
From far down Water Street she can see a figure on a bike. Driving next to the bike is a police car, and, as the car draws closer, Maggie can see that behind the wheel is Bret Holyman, one of the island’s four full-time police officers.
“It’s going to be okay, Max, you know that?” She suddenly feels very old and wise. “I promise you that everything is going to be okay, even though sometimes it seems like it isn’t.”
He nods solemnly. He has a cowlick—adorable. She’s not sure how this kid would react to a hug: some kids are huggers, some aren’t. (Sebastian is and Chase isn’t, for example.) She settles for a friendly shoulder rub, which is what Chase prefers. Max leans into her, the way Pickles does when you hit the perfect spot on her back, the one that makes her left hind leg twitch.
“Do you mind if I pick you up, Max, just for a sec?” Max shakes his head. He seems firm and sure of himself, like a survivor.
She raises Max into the air. It’s hard with the cast, but not impossible. He is heavy and solid in her arms, like three Tikis put together, or one Sebastian plus half a Chase. “He’s here!” she calls, as the bike comes closer. She’d wave an arm if she could, but she needs both to hang on to Max, so she instructs him to wave, which he does. “I got him!” Maggie cries. The wind picks up; the sky turns, almost instantly, from yellow to black. A bunch of trash funnels down Water Street. Then the rain comes.