“After Ma died, it was a while before I was able to come back here,” Scooter said. Andy had been listening attentively, hands clasped behind his back to keep from interrupting. “After she passed, everything just…fell apart. Dad fell apart. He was never the same after she was gone. By the end of that first summer after she was gone, I was pretty much running the place on my own. Came up here a year after she died. I…don’t know. I feel closer to Ma here than anywhere else. Even Dockside. At Dockside, she belonged to everyone. Here…here she was just mine.”
Scooter tugged gently, leading them off the gravel-strewn path they’d been walking on, and across the grass toward an enormous tree. Andy looked up at it, and simultaneously saw why a child would feel a deep and urgent need to climb this t
