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bay. The dark blue of the canal below was pockmarked with white waves. The boats were toy-sized, and the bicycle path was a dark ribbon, stretched along the shore. Clare thought of the boy on the bike.
    â€œWait for me!” he had cried. “Wait for me!” Had they waited? Surely they had waited.
    â€œWe’re taking route 6A, not the highway,” said Richard, after they had gotten off the bridge. “Any time I go off Cape, I always take the scenic route back, because then I feel I’m really here. On the highway, you could be anywhere.” He concentrated on his driving for a moment, then, when they came to a stop at an intersection he turned to her again.
    â€œIt’s about an hour to the house from here. Would you like to stop somewhere before then?”
    Clare wondered if he meant to ask if she needed to use a bathroom, but was actually embarrassed to say so. “I’m fine,” she said.
    â€œDid you want to get some dinner?”
    â€œOh no, I had a late lunch. I’ve had a lot.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Richard. “I imagine you would have.”
    They rode most of the rest of the way in silence. Clare kept thinking he would start talking again, but he didn’t. Some people didn’t like to talk while they drove, Clare knew, but that certainly wasn’t the case with her mother, who used car trips as an opportunity to lecture her. And it wasn’t the case with Eva, who had talked the whole way. Clare fingered her iPod onher lap, but she felt shy, somehow, putting her earbuds in. She had the feeling that her father might think it rude. Now and then she stole a glance at him. He was handsomer in profile than full face. She had thought his hair was grey, but it wasn’t entirely. It was bleached out, dull blond, and real grey only in places. Wispy hair, like hers. His face and arms were tanned, and there was a white mark on his wrist, the ghost of where he had worn a watch. Clare wished now that she had asked Eva more about him. She wished she had asked her mother more about him, too.
    What did she know about him? Very little. On her birthdays he sent her cards that said, “Now you are ___” for whatever age she was, and inside he’d Scotch-tape some money. When she was younger it was a ten-dollar bill, later a twenty. Last year it had been a fifty. He taped it carefully so that most of the tape was on the card, and only a little of it on the money, and so she could peel it away easily. She looked at his hands on the steering wheel now. His fingers were callused, the nails cracked. It was hard to imagine those rough hands selecting a birthday card, taping the money inside it.
    What else did she know? At one time, he’d started a collection of first edition books, which he’d left behind with Vera when he moved to California. The books weren’t those nice leather volumes—the kind that look expensive—they were just plain books with their paper jackets in plastic sleeves, but when Vera had sold them, they’d been worth a lot.
    She knew that when Vera had wanted him to give up his rights to her and let her be adopted by Peter, he hadn’t let that happen. Vera had wanted her to have Peter’s last name, Giancelli, “a name that sings,” Vera had said, but he hadn’t let that happen, either. Vera had taken on Giancelli herself, but when she’d gone back to law school she’d gone back to her maiden name. Now, in an act of uncharacteristic docility, she’d submitted herself to Ian’s last name, Ruderman, a name that did not sing. A name, Clare thought, that anyone would have changed to something pleasanter a long time ago.
    If she’d been allowed to take Peter’s last name, Clare felt, she’d be able to be connected to him always. She’d be his real daughter, instead of the daughter of this man, whom she was sitting next to in this old station wagon. This station