glass, which grew more infrequent as the afternoon wore on. At night, they slept in the loft of the cabin their great-grandfather had built, the musty air rank with the smell of mothballs radiating from their wool blankets. Jim always fell right asleep, snoring, but Bryan stayed awake, trying to listen for sounds from the lake; the call of a loon or, if the night was really quiet, waves lapping on the shore. No, Bryan could not imagine Jim living there. What were the winters like? Wasn’t he lonely? After their grandmother died, Jim had been eager to move out to the lake. Bryan hadn’t asked at the time, wasn’t sure what Jim was running from in Far Harbor or what he thought he was going to get at the lake. At the time, he hadn’t really cared; he’d wanted to settle matters quickly, cleanly. If Jim wanted the rotten old cabin by the lake, then he could take it. Bryan had work to do down in Boston; he’d driven back from the funeral in a rush, intent on some upcoming case. Jim’s life was unimaginable but also uninteresting, of no consequence. At last, Bryan saw the big green exit sign looming ahead. He steered up the ramp, drove past the few stores that serviced the highway travelers, and then turned on to a twisting, narrow back road. “East Bumblefuck,” he murmured happily. An hour or so later, his car bounced down the last dirt road to the lake. The log cabin was still there, its front porch sagging near the shore, and it looked like Jim had built a new garage. Bryan stepped out and had a sudden urge to kick off his shoes and plunge into the lake, submerge himself, float for hours on its sparkly surface. But then he saw Jim coming out of the garage towards him, Jim with a tangly head of hair and reddish beard, Jim with a sawdust covered sweaty T-shirt, wiping his hands on a rag. “Bry-bry. Glad you could make it,” Jim said, clasping him in a brief embrace that overwhelmed Bryan: the smell of Jim unchanged since childhood, the scent of fresh-cut wood, gasoline, the sound of his long-unused nickname. “C’mon in,” said Jim, leading the way to the cabin porch. Inside, the cabin no longer smelled musty, which startled Bryan—he had thought the smell was permanent, almost structural. Jim had left the same Adirondack chairs on the porch, and Bryan could see the old wood-fired cook stove in the kitchen, but otherwise it was entirely Jim’s house. In the living room, two La-Z-
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