Margaret was on the top deck in a white linen shirt with a glass of iced tea. She watched them climb the stairs. When Eli reached the top, holding his duffel bag in front of him like a shield, she set down the glass.
"Hello, Eli," she said.
"Hello, Grandma." He fumbled in the outside pocket of the duffel and pulled out an envelope, creased and a little grubby, with GRANDMA WHITAKER written on it in heavy black letters. He held it out at arm's length. "This is for you. It's from April. It's about the cake plate. You don't have to read it right now."
Margaret took the envelope. She looked at it, and then at him, and Laura saw her mother's hand tremble very slightly.
"Thank you," Margaret said. "I'll read it tonight."
Dinner that first night was loud. It was always going to be loud: fourteen people, two tables pushed together on the deck, Tom grilling burgers and Caleb and Ava fighting over the ketchup and the ocean roaring below them in the dark. Laura watched Eli's shoulders. She could not help it. She watched them creep upward, a little at a time, as the noise built. She watched him look at his plate, where the corn on the cob was touching the burger, and saw his jaw tighten.
Then he looked up, straight at her, and said quietly, the way he had practiced, "I need a break."
"Okay," Laura said.
He set the timer on his watch and went to the far end of the deck, where the light from the house didn't reach, and stood at the railing with his new binoculars looking out over the black water.
Caleb snickered. "What's he even looking at? It's dark."
"Caleb," said Margaret.
Everyone turned. It was the tone she had used on Laura and Rachel when they were children, and both of them sat up straighter without meaning to.
"Your cousin," Margaret said, "has figured out something it took me seventy years to learn, which is how to leave a table before you say something you'll regret. I'd suggest you take notes." She picked up her iced tea. "And stop clicking that pen."
Caleb put the pen down.
Ten minutes later, exactly, Eli came back and sat down and ate his burger, and then, slowly, with an expression of deep suspicion, half an ear of corn. Nobody said a word about it. Under the table, Mark found Laura's hand and held it.
Later that night, when the children were in bed and the men were cleaning up the grill, Laura found her mother alone on the dark deck, sitting in a wooden chair with Eli's letter open in her lap. She had been crying. Laura had seen her mother cry exactly twice in her life, once at her father's funeral and once at Rachel's wedding. This was the third time.