had been progressing at a welcome pace, as he spooned Cheerios into his mouth — you had to time that just right; once they stopped floating determinedly and became small, rubbery, flavorless masses, all was lost — while focused on the instructions of the model Packard he had planned to build that day. A steady rattling on the roof heralded a day of gray skies and, perhaps, solitude. The two seemed to belong together.

He was just reaching his ideal state of focus — mechanically spooning cereal while envisioning small plastic parts coming together, his surroundings irrelevant — when his aunt entered the room.

“Can I sit down?”

I don’t know if you CAN, but you MAY, briefly and idiotically flashed through his brain. His concentration knocked abruptly askew, looked up. She was standing by the chair nearest him. He knew his aunt’s many expressions, the subtle variations of set of eye and of jaw that could mean a hug, or an explosion, forthcoming, and today he wasn’t sure if the next hour held something in between, or both.

“Sure.”

The chair creaked. She put down the bright yellow coffee cup she had been holding. “Another model? You and Justin…it’s like you’re addicted to those things.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I think we are.”

“You know, your grandpa — Frank — loved building.  Hobbies. Not models, not like that one; this was way back when wood and metal were the thing, but he’d be constantly hammering, sawing, gluing…I remember this one shelf in his office, growing up, with these beautiful ships on it…”

He waited. Sometimes A Story was just a story; other times, especially when those other times followed an event high in volume or intensity, it was the overture to A Talking-To. Which often made him nervous — most interactions, with adults or others, did — but his aunt had a way of approaching her kids, and him, without the inevitable whiff of condescension that most adults seemed incapable of avoiding with kids. She had always spoken to them — even when they had been much younger; single-digit younger — as equals; as beings capable of rationality.  It was much of what he loved about her, and much of what sent a lump into his stomach in that moment. Was she about to admonish him? Express sadness at his behavior? His mind generally leapt to either of these potentialities; guilt, unnamed and all-enveloping, followed him like a cloud of some overwhelming scent. It was ironic, this; he who took such exacting pains not to offend, not to anger, not to color outside any lines, existed in a perpetual cower.

But this is different, isn’t it? What happened yesterday. You’ve started something now. You’ve crossed a line, and there’s no backtracking…

She was looking at him, and he could tell that he was choosing words carefully.

“So. I think you know I’m not only interested in your latest glue-fumed activity…”

He laughed, nervously. “Yes. I mean…no.  No, you’re not. I–”

“We love you, Brandon.”

He felt a small tear form, and felt the lump in his stomach slowly migrate upward. “I know. I love you too. A lot.”

“You want to talk about yesterday, don’t you?”

A pause. “I do…about yesterday, about tomorrow, about the weeks after that — about you.  About what you’re feeling.”

He didn’t know what to say.  He didn’t know what he in fact was feeling, in that moment. Or yesterday, for that matter. Anger, yes, but — what kind? How deep?

“Well…I guess…I know what I said was a big deal. And I’m really sorry that Llewelyn fell…I didn’t think he would…”

“I know. I’m sorry I was so…loud that day. I heard yelling, walked to the rocks and saw him right then land on his ass…”

He laughed again. “I’m sorry…I know it’s not funny…”

“Oh, come on…it is.  Now, anyway.” She sipped her coffee. “But listen — it wasn’t your fault. Okay? Not at all.” She took his hand. “You know that, right?”

He felt more tears form. “Mostly.”

Her gaze shifted to the “I know you better than you are willing to admit you know yourself, but will let you have space” expression that so often comforted him, talking to her. “Sometimes I think that you don’t know what is or isn’t your fault…do you know what I mean? Sometimes, I think that…I don’t know…you think you deserve to be scolded, or punished, all the time.”

More tears, lining up for a march downward his cheeks. Shit.

“I know. I think that, too.”

“Well…stop it!” She smiled at him. “See, being a person is easy…”

His tension abated. They laughed.

“Seriously — you are a wonderful person. So kind, so gentle — you and Justin both share that. It’s why I love seeing you playing together, you’re so much like brothers…”

“…and that’s why I want to talk about yesterday. About what you’re feeling now — I mean, about what you said, of course, but it’s more important to know what’s behind it.”

She stood up, and hugged him, in an awkward half-hug suited to a tall woman hugging her seated nephew. She left. Somewhere outside, he heard one of his cousins shouting, and then, in cadence, hers in response.

He sat, looking at the chipped green paint of the window frames; looking at the gouges and stains and occasional, faint residual drops of paint on the long table. He felt, for a moment, at peace. Outside, opposite the scene of familial duress that was unfolding in front of the house, there was only the soothing, rhythmic SHUUUSHHHH of waves moving closer and closer up the incline of The Cove, which would soon be waist-deep, the seaweed that now lay in clumps on the gravel dancing ghost-like as the water tossed it. He smelled the smells that he would soon miss, that he cherished, even, in the year that would elapse before he and his family would — might — once again return to that place. He closed his eyes, and repeated all this — sucking the salty, brine-touched air deep into his lungs.

For that moment, he did indeed feel at peace.

It would be the last such moment for a long time.