The letter was dated the spring before Gordon’s heart procedure. He wrote that he had noticed his son’s long silences and sleepless nights, and that the boat was never really about fishing. He asked Kyle to take it out at dawn, just once, sit still, and let himself be a son for one morning. The compass had been Gordon’s own father’s, given so that he would always find his way home.

Helen wept until Mr. Calloway pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand. He told her he would not take a dime for Saturday. Then he explained that he had bought the boat for five hundred twenty dollars because it reminded him of his wife, and that after finding the tackle box, he knew it belonged with Kyle. He would sell it back for the very same price, on a handshake, whenever the boy was ready. He had spent six years hunting for a lost Buick, and he did not want Kyle searching for his father’s boat.

That Saturday at dawn, Helen carried the tackle box to Kyle’s pickup, where he sat with the engine off. He read the letter in the cab while she waited, and then he put his head against the steering wheel and cried for the first time since the funeral. He followed her to the lake without a word. Mr. Calloway sat on the dock with a thermos of coffee, and Kyle stepped aboard, and the old hull echoed under his boots.

He caught nothing, and he did not seem to mind. Somewhere past nine, he fell asleep in the bow with his father’s cap over his eyes, the first real sleep he had had in weeks. In September, Kyle paid Mr. Calloway the five hundred twenty dollars from his first overtime check and towed the boat home. The compass hangs from his rearview mirror, and every summer, Mr. Calloway drives over with a tackle box of his own.