Page 21 of Love Always

Finn smiles and slips an arm around her waist. Chloe, however, is clearly in her element. She’s already taking the bands off the claws. “Well come on guys, get the seaweed in there.”

I watch as Finn and Bryce lean over and throw down a good six inches of seaweed on top of the coals. Steam and smoke instantly rise. We all take a step back.

Chloe starts tossing in some of the lobsters. “Help me out here,” she says.

I follow her lead, pick one up from the tail, take off both of the little pink rubber bands, drop the bands back in the bucket, and toss the lobster on the pile of smoking seaweed. Soon all the lobsters have found their way into the pit. Bryce and I throw on a little bit more seaweed. This time it’s Devon and Cory coming down with giant paper bags full of end of the season corn.

“You guys have done this before haven’t you,” I say.

“Yep,” says Cory. “This is my,” he pauses and looks off to the left for a moment. “This is my seventh time. One, two, three, four, five, six ….” He looks a little lost and glances around for his mom.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You meant it was your sixth one.”

“No. I said it was seventh,” says Cory and his face flushes.

I realize I need to stick to the truth and not try to make him feel better. He did say the seventh, but he meant the sixth, and now he doesn’t know what to do. So, I offer another truth. “You just made a mistake.”

He blinks and looks up at me. “A mistake?”

This seems to let him off some hook and he smiles, his head nodding up and down. “I made a mistake. Big Bird says everybody makes mistakes.” He puts his little arms around my left leg and I brace myself in case he lets go suddenly. It feels good to have this little boy suddenly cling to me because I told him the truth. He will grow up and never knowingly lie. I hope one day he’ll realize what a gift that is. He might need someone to remind him of this gift.

I swallow and try hard not to ruffle the top of his head. I saw Bryce try that the first day I met everyone on the back porch and it was met with a tantrum.

He wipes his face on my denims and cocks his head to one side, alert. Then he suddenly releases my leg and starts running up the slight embankment toward The Inn.

It’s Travis.

Cory struggles in the sand and through scrubby beach grass, arms out to Travis, who pretends to feign to the right and then collapses and rolls to the ground on his back. Cory jumps on his stomach and though my lip reading is good, I can’t make out what they are saying to each other.

Devon leans into me and says, “Travis is the only person he does that with. Cory pretends he’s Andre the seal, which is a big deal. He doesn’t really understand pretending. But with Travis, he’s Andre.”

I must have looked blank.

“Andre was a famous harbor seal who lived up in Rockport and was beloved. There’s a statue of him at the marina there.”

Travis struggles to his feet and takes the little boy with one arm and throws him over his shoulder.

“Who’s Travis supposed to be?”

“Toni, the little girl who saves him.”

“Oh my God, that’s too much. Is the story true?”

She shakes her head. “It’s from a movie, but Cory is fixated on it. He used to watch it twice a day. It was the only live action film he’d watch. He usually only watches cartoons.”

The boy’s laughter is muffled, his head buried in Travis’s chest.

I can’t help but notice one Russo sibling is missing.

And then, as if to answer some need, there she is, standing for a moment up on the little hill in front of The Inn, the wind in her hair, and then running barefoot down to the beach where we’re all standing.

I can’t catch my breath and I have to look away at the sea. How can she elicit this response from me every single time?

“Cory, who has you upside down?” she asks, her hands on her hips.

His “Toni!” comes muffled in his uncle’s chest.

I glance at her. “Toni?”