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sweating and frustrated, in the house that as caretaker and marine boss he got rent free. His eyes felt like they were filled with glass, and yet when he closed them, he didn’t like the pictures he saw. And he couldn’t seem to get past those pictures into a blissful unconsciousness.
    The tide was in on the river, but there wasn’t enough breeze to blow the lingering stench of the mudflats away. He was tired of being in town, of eating at Mike’s three or four times a week.
    He could be living with his family on the farm—what was left of the farm—wake up still to the sweet-smelling grass until rush hour when the commuters would leave their condos and drive past on their way to the office, leaving their exhaust fumes over the fields.
    These days when you walked out to the front porch, you could see their windows light up as they moved from bathroom to kitchen, the rooms growing dark as they went to bed. No evidence there had ever been acres of green grass there. The ink hadn’t even dried on the bill of sale before the bulldozers arrived. At least they’d been able to keep the barn, and the building that housed milking stations for two hundred cows. They would adapt well for what he had planned.
    He’d been at college when most of the land had been sold. Joe laughed bitterly and turned over, trying to find a cool place among the sheets. He’d been taking a full course load as well as working part-time to finish his farm management degree and go home to turn the dairy around.
    He’d had some great ideas. But like most great ideas, they came too late.
    Over a hundred years of Enthorpe blood, sweat, and, yeah, there were tears, and yeah, some of them had been his own. While he was away, the herd was auctioned off, the land parceled, and much of it sold.
    They managed to keep twenty acres, but his brother Drew had gone off to the air force, and Brett opened a hardware store in the next township. His sister Maddy married and moved to Ohio of all places; Elizabeth was at college. Which left his mother, father, granddad, and two younger brothers, Matt and David, to manage.
    They’d made money on the deal, but when they gave up the farm, they lost the Enthorpe spirit.
    So Joe had decided to do something about that, too. It had been hard fought and barely won; his granddad resisted, his dad was cautious. It had taken Joe, Drew, and Brett to convince the older two Joes into going for it. Joe’s plan would hopefully givethem something to look forward to, be easier on them physically, make them more competitive in the market, and give them a real reason to get up each morning.
    They couldn’t get their land back, but maybe they could start over. The last three years had seen more blood, sweat, and tears, more than a few anxious moments. Finally, this would be the first year they would have a large enough crop to actually harvest.
    They’d started over, and it looked like they might actually succeed.
    His eyes closed. Start over. Maybe now that the farm was operating again, he could start over. Maybe that’s what he’d been waiting for all along.

    V AN SLOWED THE car down, looking for a parking place near Dorie’s house, not that she expected to find one. In a few days there would be a mass exodus away from the beach and to the malls for school clothes and supplies. Back to work. Back to normal life. A few stragglers would hang around until they too would wander away. Then the streets would be empty and you’d have your choice of parking spaces.
    But these last few days would be hell on parking, on waiters and waitresses, who would have to work overtime to fill in for the departing college and high school students who had been the bulk of the summer staff.
    Van slowed as she reached Dorie and Harold’s driveway.
    Suze, who practically had her nose pressed to the window, exclaimed, “Wow, they still have that old Cadillac.”
    Van stopped the car.