On our summer island, my father was often away. He strove in the world, I played, mindless. He lived a rhythm I could not hear. Long after he retired from Fortune, and spent longer on our island, I, full-grown, visited, and still wondered about how his mind turned. On the porch, reading his sophisticated journals, 79 years old, wincing (from a rib cracked by many martinis and a misplaced staircase) he swore at his patient spouse, blaming the place. "Don't know about you. But I am not coming back here!".

I remembered when we buried him that fall, crying.