Forty minutes later, they were fishing the cross rip off the tip of Great Point. The lighthouse was rosy in the soft morning light. Great Point marked the far north of Nantucket; it was pristine in its natural beauty, and yet Eddie hadn’t driven up the beach in years and years, since the girls were small. The water was the bluest Eddie had ever seen. It was amazing, this water, and there weren’t any other boats fishing the rip that morning. In the very far distance, Eddie could make out the faint smudge of Monomoy Point on Cape Cod. Seagulls sang out, circling overhead.

Eric and the Chief checked the fish finder and decided to anchor and cast some lines. They had been trolling since they left the harbor, but they hadn’t had any bites. The Chief dropped the anchor, and Eddie headed into the galley for a second beer, despite his vow to himself.

Eric said, “Eddie, you ready to throw a line?”

Eddie took a deep breath. Was he ready to throw a line? He stepped out onto the deck, set his beer bottle in one of the holders, and accepted the rod, which had a neon-orange lure shimmying like a showgirl on the end, from Eric.

“I’m ready,” Eddie said.

He held the rod over the side of the boat so that the lure dangled a few feet from the surface of the water. The sea was calm; gentle waves slapped the bow.

Eric said, “Would you like me to cast that for you?”

Eddie was just about to say, Yes, please! with a sigh of massive relief, when the Chief barked out, “Eddie can cast his own line, can’t you, Eddie?”

“Oh,” Eddie said. “Sure thing.” He looked at the reel and tried to play the video again in his mind. Something had to be moved one way or the other while he held the line. It was the bale, he remembered, and he flipped it over. He was to bring the rod gently back over his right shoulder and then fling the line way out into the water. At the arc, he was to let his finger go. There would be a satisfying whizzing noise, the sound of a skilled angler who had cast lines thousands of times and not merely looked it up online twelve hours earlier. Eddie was not a skilled angler, but he had always been good at faking it—faking it had been his surest strategy for success—and so he brought the rod back over his shoulder and flung the line. Out it went in a beautiful arc with the exact fluid motion he had dreamed he was capable of.

“Good cast!” the Chief called out.

Eddie beamed. He had never been prone to sentimentality, but he wished his father could have seen him. Edward Pancik from Purchase Street in New Bedford could cast a deep-sea fishing line with the best of them.

“Now, reel it in!” Eric said.

Yes, yes, Eddie had forgotten that part. He wasn’t sure how he expected to catch anything without reeling the line in.

The day only got better when Eddie caught his first fish. An insistent tug when he started to reel in his line told him there was definitely a FISH ON. He was on light tackle, which worked to Eddie’s advantage, as Eddie was left handed and his forearms proved to be stronger than he thought. Still, he had to fight the bugger, bending toward the water when he reeled in and easing up when the fish wanted to run; then, when the fish got tired, Eddie would reel in again. Eddie wanted to say he had the natural instincts for this, but, in fact, Eric was standing at his side, coaching him when to reel in and when to relax. Once Eddie got the fish close enough to the boat—when he could see the iridescent scales shining from just beneath the surface, Eric instructed Eddie to pull up gently while Eric leaned down with the gaff, speared the fish, and brought it aboard.

It was a striped bass, a beauty of a fish, shining and muscular as it twisted in the sun.

The Chief was delighted. “That’s good eating,” he said. “Grace will be happy with you tonight, bringing home dinner.”

Grace would be happy, Eddie thought. She loved freshly caught fish. But then he thought she might not even believe he had caught it.

“Would you take a picture of me and this beast?” Eddie said. He handed his phone to the Chief and grabbed the tail of the fish, which was still struggling for its life. But at that second, his phone started to ring.

“Call for you,” the Chief said. “Should I…?” He was staring at the screen with an inscrutable expression.

“I can’t believe you get reception out here,” Eric said. “That’s the thing I like best about fishing. No phones.”

Eddie did his best not to snatch the phone out of the Chief’s hand. It might be Nadia, or possibly one of the other girls. He should have shut off his phone before he got on the boat.

Eddie accepted the phone, then saw that the caller was Madeline.

“Jesus,” he said. He declined the call and closed his eyes for a second, trying to maintain his peace of mind. If he started thinking about business and money and his loan to Madeline and Trevor, his day would be ruined.

I caught a thirty-seven-inch striped bass, he thought. I caught dinner.

He gave the Chief a weak smile. “I should have left my phone on shore.”

“Maybe,” the Chief said.

The phone call from Madeline did not affect Eddie’s fishing karma—he immediately caught two bluefish. Then the Chief caught a striped bass a little smaller than Eddie’s, then Eric caught a false albacore, which was exciting because they were elusive. They pulled anchor and motored for the six-can buoy, where they stayed for nearly an hour without a bite.

“This is beat,” Eric said. His voice was impatient, and Eddie was surprised. Weren’t all anglers blessed with an infinite capacity for waiting it out? Eddie feared that Eric would want to give up and go home, and that was the last thing Eddie wanted. He could stay out on this boat forever.