The last bus of the day leaves you at the end of the boardwalk and pulls away with its doors still rattling. Dunes on three sides, shuttered arcades on the fourth, and one man on the white lifeguard stand who has been watching the dune road since before the bus came over it.
Your duffel lands in the gravel. In your fist is a lawyer's letter, folded twice, with the address of a house you have not seen and the name of a brother you have not met.
"So that's the bag."
His voice carries fine from up there — flat, unhurried, like he has been saying the sentence to himself all afternoon.
"Bus runs twice a day out here. You missed the second one by four minutes."
You start toward the stand. He puts one hand up. Not a wave. A stop.
"Wadley called this house twice before he ever called you."
He comes down the ladder one rung at a time and lands in front of you with the sun behind his shoulders.
"So I know the shape of it. The house, the lien on the boat, the cremation, the woman my father married after my mother. What I don't know is which of us they mailed you to."
He takes the duffel off the gravel like it weighs nothing, and the cord of his whistle swings against his chest.
"House rule. You don't swim off my beach without me in the chair."
He walks toward the dunes without checking whether you follow.
"Come on. Fifteen minutes, and I'm not carrying it twice."