As the Holder of the Vacation Orb, an honor I take more seriously than I ought to, my parents tasked me with planning a trip to Maine. This represented a digression from our usual five days in Lake George. The parameters likewise and inevitably changed. Despite the initial assurances from Dan that his family would not miss a family vacation -- something I never believed -- they would not be in attendance. It is easier to plan for five people than thirteen, so I cannot begrudge this much. I do not recall the last time I had a purely adult vacation with my family, but it had to have occurred before my eldest nieces joined us, so in the late 1990s or the early 2000s. We were children ourselves then.

My mother throws in the not-insignificant hitch that she would bring her three elderly dogs. One is diabetic and surly enough to have torn holes in my family members despite being a blind Pekinese poodle who one could punt across the room without much effort.

As practice, my mother drove her dogs around for increasingly longer trips. Two of them accepted or even enjoyed these. One, Maggie, reacted as though being thrown into the dryer for a tumble.

The dogs narrowed the options, but who wants to be burdened by choice? I selected a house, paid the deposit, and waited for complications.

My mother's dog Honey passed -- not the toothed, diabetic football. My mother grieved and, typical of her grief, bought a new dog despite saying she wouldn't. A spritely chihuahua joined her menagerie, the sort of tiny beast often kept in handbags--the puppy who became my mother's shadow at once.

My mother asked Amber several times what vaccines the dogs would need for traveling. She then did not manage to get any of them, even when Amber narrowed the field to a couple of necessities and the remainder recommended.

With a week to go, my mother decided she ought to skip vacation entirely to tend to her unvaccinated dogs. "I wouldn't want to drive these with two old dogs and a young one. Plus, Maggie is always nipping at Harlow."

I recognize this self-sacrifice (martyring) and the regret in her voice that she will miss a whale watch. "What else will you do there?" she asks as though this doesn't hurt her enough.

My plans, though I sent possibilities to them on a spreadsheet (I did say I took my Orb duty too seriously), had become looser. I grasp for one that would be fun, but not overwhelmingly so.

Never have I heard a woman sound despondent while saying, "You're going on the Duckboat?"

I text my father to confirm she wants to go and be convinced to relent. He agrees with my assessment. He also states it won't do any good.

I send her a text, telling her there was no reason she should not go but that I will only say it once. She thanks me, does not change her mind, and I keep my word by not mentioning it twice.

Amber drives my car to Portland -- her electric car wouldn't make it, and I find driving for more than an hour and a half exhausting. The drive did not feel as long with Amber doing it. After lunch, I offered to take over, but she said she liked driving. I nobly choose to allow her to keep enjoying it on this trip.

She assures me that the temperature in Portland is in the seventies, which seems improbable given that it is an easy one hundred through three states (two of which have massive electronic billboards advertising cannabis dispensaries, so the people are as high as the mercury). Approaching Portland, we watch the temperature lose a degree per minute until it is seventy under the gathered clouds. Not eager to sweat on vacation, I am not bothered.

The house is big enough for the five we could have been, with private rooms and queen beds for Amber and me, Bryan, and my father. Another person would be taxing. The dogs would have been a chore, especially given arthritic hips. The reclaimed pumpkin pine floors are warped, which escalates the authentic New England atmosphere coupled with the narrow staircase containing one conspicuously new step.

After briefly trying to exert control over the evening, I eat a brownie and give up. I want to have to think the least amount as I can on this trip, having done all planning I could in advance.

As we unpack my car, we hear the rumble of a plane punching through the cloud cover too close above our heads. Amber points out how near the airport is. I am glad to have packed earplugs.

After we settle in our rooms, I toss a fake velvet bag at Bryan as he sorts out his electronics on his bed.

"Happy late birthday!"

He opens it, dropping a silver circle smaller than a half dollar into his hand.

"It's going to help you out with your issues. The amulet is over twenty years old. I bought it from a witch at a shop in town." I do not see sense in telling him that the witch refused to sell me anything to do with love when I explained why I was in the market for a gift. She begrudgingly agreed to let me buy this one, though. I told her that what Bryan thinks about the pendant will count more than what she had taped on the back.

She did not love this philosophy.

As we are already hungry, my father's phone leads us to the nearest restaurant, one of the few that understands the necessity of eating on a Monday. The blonde maitre d', with practiced smugness, informs us they have just opened and are only giving tables to those who have the grace to have made reservations. If one is a tourist scumbag from New York, one can sit at the bar or kindly fuck off back to Hell where one belongs. She may have only implied some of that. It is not a swanky enough place to require reservations, and we opted not to be subjects of further contempt.

We endeavor to find another place -- it is a city, so some must exist. A man walks by in rainbow sandals. He has the demeanor of one apologizing for having gotten in the way of your fist. He halts and asks if he knows Bryan. As my father attempts to find a suitable second choice for dinner, I cast wry glances at Amber. Bryan and this man engage in a needlessly evasive conversation as they establish how they know one another. I have no doubt Bryan recognized him on sight, and he desperately wants this man not to say the wrong things in front of the normies.

"Have you been to Rhode Island?" asks Rainbow Sandals.

"No," says Bryan. "Not Rhode Island. Have you been to Chicago?"

"No, I've never gone to Chicago, but I go to New Hampshire every few weeks."

The man almost lets the truth slip through the subterfuge but manages to read enough of Bryan's body language not to say it -- Rainbow Sandals is oblivious to Amber and me communicating via smirk and rolled eyes. Bryan and Rainbow Sandals would make miserable spies.

"They are serial killers," I say to Amber. Having observed this unlikely encounter the same as me, she agrees.

I am not sorry when my father chooses a destination, so Bryan must wrap it up. My brother pulls something up on his phone and shows it to the man. They enjoy some giggling confidence, and the man leaves, though not before asking how he may contact Bryan later and exclaiming he just moved to this city.

"What was on the phone?" I ask with a Cheshire grin.

"Nothing," Bryan says, nervous at the inevitable question.

"Hm. It seemed like an interesting nothing."

We follow my father's directions through Portland for a few blocks. I struggle to put my finger on the character of this section of the city. Pride flags and BLM banners are legion, but there is a miasma I don't trust. It is as though someone might mug me but assure me that they don't mean it as a hate crime. People move without fear or discomfort. They will briefly meet my eyes, stranger though I am. Portland is not a scary place to be for the anxious.

It could be the weather influencing my perceptions. Tomorrow will give up more of the day -- not that I invest much trust in any forecast -- and will allow a fairer assessment of Portland.

We end up at LFK. As I have opted to let go and allow the night to do what it must, I had done no research beyond seeing these initials when I googled "Best places to eat near me." It is an unforgivably hipster bar, the patrons looking fashionably expatriate and rebellious from social norms.

Throughout the bar, antique typewriters sit under colored spotlights, all of which beg for my fingers. Only the one closest to the table feels my surreptitious taps.

There is a sticker in the bathroom decrying how Airbnb has driven friends out of Portland. Thank heavens, I got my rental through VRBO. I would hate to be morally culpable for gentrification here.

The server is attentive to a point but loses interest in us before she gets around to serving our meals. We do not fit with the aesthetic.

"Is this easier or harder," I ask my father, "not having Mom here?"

"She would not have put with Bryan's talk," he says, granting this is less stressful. My mother being here would mean the dogs would be present, and her priorities would be more than divided. When the first restaurant denied us, she would have wanted to return to the house and then at least drive to a restaurant. She might have been done for the day at that point and would have, with small misery, told us to leave her there and bring her something as takeout. Fewer people can mean lower conflict, though I doubt any of us preferred this restaurant (I have no complaints about my falafel gyro, dubbed the Anti-gyro.)

As the three of them are, to varying degrees, playing with their phones, I get out a notebook and start scribbling notes with one of my fountain pens.

"Why are you writing in that?" my father asks me.

I explain that it was leftover when I had my classroom over a year ago, but he clarifies that he assumed I would be writing on a tablet at this point in technology.

"Oh, I do."

"But you aren't going to transcribe this?"

"I am. I like handwriting. It activates different parts of my brain."

I wait until Bryan has taken a bite of his overgenerous burger before asking how he truly knows Rainbow Sandals. He flusters and then says, "He is a transman I met at an LGBTQ gaming night at a BDSM club. Satisfied?"

"You could just have recited the alphabet. I would have understood."

He's lying, of course, but the lie amuses me, which is why I bother him.

We do not see anything else in Portland for us this night, so we return to our rental to rest before our whale watch in the morning. We all turn to our activities. I write in the living room (though my father is again confused that I am spending my vacation writing rather than doing something fun). Amber dumps a 500-piece puzzle on the dining room table and talks to her mom. My father sets up his Switch and plays a few minutes of a game on this TV to test it out. Bryan is in his bedroom with his computer, and it is best I do not know more. When I get something from my room, he is asleep over the sheets with all his clothes on.

When I wake before 6 AM, it is to notifications on my phone and in my email that my whale watch is canceled owing to a foreboding forecast, and it is incumbent on me to do something about it. They do not offer to reschedule or give any preference to me if I do.

Before waking anyone, so I do not have to negotiate their preferences, I book us for a whale watch on Thursday afternoon with worse seats. There is no other option.

"Maybe they fear the whales being struck by lightning?" I wonder aloud when they wake up. We decide this would only happen when they breached -- becoming the tallest objects in the area -- and that their being wet meant it could do them no severe harm.

We go instead to LL Bean. As I detailed in Holidays with Bigfoot, Republican candidate Linda Bean, heir to the Bean holdings, controls Freeport. The town is effectively her property, anchored by the flagship store.

I can appreciate shopping as something to do when one's intended activity has been canceled. I am less forgiving when this weather is overcast at worst, and the shopping is within an overpriced catalog of objects I do not want.

Aside from a lackluster lunch and Amber buying a tight shirt at Fjallraven that looks fantastic with her binder (which she wore explicitly for this task), we do not leave LL Bean. We visit three buildings, but they are all LL Bean.

Returning to our rental, Bryan collapses on his bed, again asleep atop his sheets, fully dressed. My father has me narrow down dinner options, then retires as well.

Amber wants to walk into the city, hoping to find something to buy that will not directly line the pockets of the Bean empire. She has her hair in a ponytail, her new tight shirt, and dark plaid leggings. I find her ravishing and only hold off on witty sexual harassment because it will more irritate than amuse her. She then puts on a thick gray jacket against the chilly wind from the sea, dampening the effect.

My phone has us cut through a park beneath an underpass where an unhoused person has spread out his possessions. I do not love that I grip my thermos in case he takes the opportunity of the privacy to do more than ask for a dollar.

He asks for a dollar. I tell him I have none to give -- I have been to New York City enough to say that and nothing more, so there is no point on which he can argue. He grumbles, but I leave the interaction no worse physically or financially, though morally weaker.

Portland has a disproportionate contingent of unhoused people on the street. It is temperate enough here in the summer. I assume they migrate before fall thickens into winter. Several of them have professional bicycles, and they must use them well.

Amber ducks into shops, few amounting to anything, though I am charmed by one whose wares are made of repurposed ship sails.

We end up in a shop selling handmade metal goods. I prod at things that differ from objects I could buy anywhere. The clerk notices my usual pendant -- a bit of silver shaped like an open spade. I stammer my rehearsed spiel about having bought it at an antique store decades ago, usually wearing it. A friend had found similar ones behind Plexiglas at a museum display of indigenous amulets. "I think it was some sort of Polynesian?"

She confirms that it is, that she lived in Samoa, and the residents kept her from their mystical artifacts. She recognizes mine as one she was not permitted to touch. "The colonizers -- the white man -- came into their cultures and forcibly converted them to Christianity, so they hid their religion."

I absently slip my pendant under my shirt, having gathered keywords enough to sense she feels a man of our complexion should not possess this.

She then appends, "It was probably good they converted them given, you know, the kind of stuff they were doing." She leans closer. "Cannibalism. But that necklace protects you. It's powerful."

That's what I like to hear. (Protection, not cannibalism or imperialism.)

Into the inevitable tenth minute of discussing Bigfoot, aliens, ghosts, and fairies -- she is loopy from having worked alone since opening, and, as Amber points out later, we have this conversation an hour past when the door says they close -- my wife rescues me and moves us to a new shop.

Several businesses in this district are dispensaries.

"That one looks like an Apple Store," Amber notes. "That one looks like it should sell jewelry."

I weakly suggest she try weed for the first time -- I never have, but it might be funny if she did. She has looked up the legality of cannabis by the time we have hit the next block and quotes that it is a crime to transport it across state lines and that one mustn't have plants visible with anything less than binoculars. I did not mean for her to bring it back to New York as a keepsake,

We do not buy her weed gummies.

This night's walk to our dinner is via a windy bridge over the murky bay surrounded by machinery and shipping containers. It is a struggle to imagine any part of this is the same crystal water that surrounds the islands where my pendant might stave off imagined cannibals (if the locals did not merely look askance at my having it).

Dinner is unremarkable. Portland has not overwhelmed us yet. When the server asks whether we want dessert, we perk up with the possibility of something delicious to cap off a meal that was a firm okay. When she says, hope in her voice, that all they have is Grape-Nuts Pudding, I laugh, saying, "Well, no then."

This is perhaps impolite, though I mean well. It is simply so comical a concept I cannot help myself from keeping my culinary distance from a pudding made of a cereal I better associate with aquarium gravel. (I research later, regretting my flippancy, and announce to my companions that it is mostly just vanilla custard on a bed of Grape-Nuts -- not overtly unpleasant -- and it is a delicacy in this area of the world. Still, it wouldn't cripple the restaurant to have a second option.)

We return in the dark. In a group of more than Amber, I am less paranoid about people who lack stable housing.

Wednesday is our adventure park day. As has been well-covered here, these tend not to be my favorite part of any vacation, but people who savor fun inevitably overrule me.

In its defense, when researching Funtown Splashtown in Saco (a park so nice, they named it almost twice), I had conflated it with a zoomusement park that contained a decent zoo and an amusement park so austere and sparsely run that any traveling carnival would be its better.

I go on a few Funtown rides and regret fewer. Bryan becomes lost when I go to get us lunch (the best thing about Funtown is how little they care what one brings in if it is not glass). Otherwise, once we accept it as being inferior to our precious corporate-run Great Escape and acknowledging that fewer rides mean more onerous lines, it is nice enough.

We leave, but my father mentions Ocean Beach Boardwalk. I am fatigued and hungry by this point, so my animal urge is to hide in our rental for a few hours before dinner. I might otherwise wish I had not been so dull, so I do not even mention this.

As we circle for parking, I lean forward and see Bryan texting one of his con friends that the worst day in Chicago is better than the best day on vacation with us.

This is what I had been looking for all vacation: sand, surf, coconut-scented tourists exposing callops of sun-deprived skin, kitschy shops. The ocean draws Amber toward it before the boardwalk or rides -- who could blame her? -- and I am delighted to follow. Natural water -- lakes, rivers, and sea -- always sap my fatigue on contact with the soles of my feet.

The wind is insistent so close to the retreating tide, blowing Amber's hair in her face. There is calm relief by this ocean.

When I looked for places to stay that would accommodate dogs, one was in Saco, but most guides to the area maintained that the only thing to do in Saco was to go to downtown Portland. Why wouldn't I choose there for a landing pad?

Beyond the small, elevated boardwalk where a wizened figure waited outside a bathroom with a handwritten sign demanding $.75 for its use (I am unsure whether this was official or an unhoused person with a hustle), there isn't much to it after our stomping in the low tide. Per Amber's request, we get ice cream, which elevates the experience. While this may not be my favorite part of vacation -- though it may; I haven't decided -- I am glad to have touched a part of the ocean that seems less industrial, kissed by blue skies.

We return to the rental for the respite of a few minutes before dinner.

"I want to go to the vintage shop," Amber says. "It's on the way to the restaurant. It closes at 7."

It is 6:15 and a fifteen-minute walk. I postpone dinner for 15 minutes, change, and we dart there.

Had I saved every item I could from the 1980s, ignoring eras before and after, I could have opened this shop. Two children whose parents might have been born in the eighties puzzle at Super Mario 3 on a Nintendo set up between racks of Bart Simpsons t-shirts.

Amber is happy trying on clothes that went out of fashion when she was a fetus.

The shop closes at 8, so Amber does not feel too bad. Boda, the Thai place where we will eat, is across the street.

The restaurant is intimate and dimly lit. I realize once I have dumped all the provided spices in my chicken pad thai -- the best I've ever had, served in a thin omelet shell -- that being around other people can make me faintly hypomanic. I am more animated and (as far as I -- and possibly no one else -- am concerned) charming to anyone within grinning distance.

I harass Bryan repeatedly for picking up his phone during dinner to text women. (These are not dating prospects, he says, just "con" women -- who are okay to consult every minute and better company than the three of us even in absentia, but not the sort one brings home).

I consider this action boorish but admit that I tease him because "it is hilarious."

Boda redeems a little more of Portland for me.

Over dinner, my father says the whale watch was for my mother. Much like seeing moose, something my father and she did with my niece Alyssah a year ago in preparation for my brother's family moving, whale watching was on her bucket list. I extrapolate that my father does not much care to see whales, something I wish I had known before rebooking. I might as happily have ridden the Duckboat.

Amber wishes to spend the following morning at the Portland Museum of Art. I tell her we went before and liked it, but she is dubious. I no longer trust my memory with it comes to these things. Is this the one we rushed through because we wanted to get-- where? An ocean cruise, I think, because we missed an earlier one? But one similar experience bleeds into another.

We offer to bring my father to the museum with us, my treat, but he demurs. His lawyer wants to speak to him about something to do with his will, which is the sort of thing I would put off until after vacation. I imagine he sees more fun in relaxing before the whale watch than walking to an art museum and then walking around an art museum.

Bryan comes. It would be rude to exclude him. Some culture could only do him good, especially culture that is not related to what happens in Chicago or frequently in Rhone Island.

He remains on the hunt for a wife. As far as I can tell, this is mainly via a dating app. None of the women there incessantly text him when he should be enjoying his vacation. I had given Bryan the tired advice that one should join clubs or do favorite activities that put one into contact with likewise interested people. The only social activities in which he participates are his conventions -- for which he spends many thousands of dollars each for travel and lodging. The women there are not what he wants in a wife. I cannot claim to be ungrateful that I will not have to call one of the con women my sister-in-law.

I can conjure a meet-cute in a museum, though ideally not one that is five hours away. I'm not sure Bryan would recognize one if he stepped before him or how he would interact within it. He appreciates the museum and being here with us, which is something. He does not remove his phone from his pocket every five minutes and scrutinizes pieces that compel him.

Having brought my DSLR camera in preparation for hunting whales, I decide to abuse it by taking pictures of odd animals and bizarre faces in the art.

I have never claimed I am immune to needing culture myself.

Portland Museum of Art does contain some heavy hitters -- your Picassos and Rembrandts, a Renoir, and (as is obligatory in Maine) a few Wyeths -- though they are not always what draw my eyes.

A docent has been paying too careful attention to the three of us -- we are the only patrons on the floor, but I find his gaze pointed -- so I ask him which is his favorite piece. His sterner demeanor drops, and he is happy to have someone to talk to. He indicates a mountain scene conveniently in front of him.

"On hot days, I stand in front of it. Cools me right off."

I make some comments about the artist's use of light. If it is a nature scene, this is a safe gambit.

He then talks to me about the harsh German linocuts in the other room. I refrain from replying, "Well, they are definitely German."

I am later resting while Amber and Bryan pick over the gift shop. A man asks me, "So, what is your art?"

I look around, confused that he would assume I had created anything in this museum, particularly anything in this room. The dominant piece is a seven-foot digital panel displaying pinpoints assembled in waves. I begin to say I am not an artist before revising. "I write. I'm an author."

This thrills the man, who interrogates me about my writing, then where I live, improbably in the same town as his son.

In parting, I give him my business card, as this is the thing to do, and he promises to check me out.

The whale watch has built a nacre from being postponed and made the centerpiece of this day. I feel that none of us want to go, but we've come this far, and my tickets are nonrefundable (cancellable at a whim, yes, but not refundable).

As we wait, Bryan retreats into his phone, furiously texting people. I do not nag him this time, but I resent his remark about his worst day with the phone people being better than his best with us.

As the ship floats slowly from the dock, a hefty man cleaning his boat lifts his shirt and slaps his pale belly. "Now you've seen a whale!"

It is an hour into the ocean before the captain suspects we might begin to see whales. I do not know on what he is judging this. It may only be something he says to keep his passengers placated on the unbroken sea. Around the ship are crew members with binoculars, all searching for some interruption of the surface to which they can direct our eyes.

With our original reservation, made a month ago, we were on the top floor of the boat, able to see both sides at once. In the Poor People Seats, there is a cabin between the sides. One must either be quick-footed or trust the gamble of their side of the ship.

The minutes accumulate to an hour. I escalate what I need to justify this expenditure. It begins with one whale, then two. Soon, I demand to see a blue whale breaking the water, then breaching to snag a seagull from the sky.

When the captain tries to enliven us by telling us how exciting a tern is -- which surely means he has given up on showing us anything in the water -- I tell Amber, "No, what I need is a mosasaur. You know? Like from the Cretaceous? Just jumping up, and--"

The captain shouts, "One o'clock!" and we rush to that side in such uniformity I am concerned we will capsize the boat.

The deep gray back of this minke whale is not thrilling, but we act as though we've caught Nessie.

The captain assures us that there may be another where there is one minke. It is sound logic, and none of us are marine biologists enough to contradict it, though he softens our expectations by noting that they evolved to hold their breath.

We sit in the eager quiet, the slosh of the water against the bow, as though we might be able to sneak up on the animals.

I exclaim. Not even a word, only a grunt toward eleven o'clock. It is not the glossy dorsal side of a whale but some trash.

We return to our waiting. I whisper a promise to a man straight from a tanning bed on the Jersey Shore that I will be more circumspect in pointing.

None of us came on this journey to see a lump that could easily be mistaken for a small wave. We wanted to touch the belly of a whale, to at least look one in the eye. It may have been only that we've been out so long, but we temper our expectations to wanting more of the lumps, which come slowly but come all the same.

When we head back, the captain assures us that this was the most whales anyone had seen in a week. He is so enthusiastic that I believe him.

As we are speeding toward the shore, a pod of dolphins races us. Where were they for the last two hours?

We eat in a seafood place a short distance from the dock rather than going to the pretentious restaurant from the first night. Since the latter genuinely charges $15 for bread and butter and the former gives a pile of food on a porch overlooking the ocean, the choice was obvious.

My father and brother are startled that there is so much to do in Portland at night, whole streets brightly lit for shopping and carousing. Had they known on the first night this was here, it would have reoriented the rest of the vacation for them. Maybe next year.

I have detailed that the end of a vacation fills me with melancholy. The only exception to my annual sorrow was the year that began with our wedding weekend, followed by our honeymoon, then vending at Otakon, then a vacation with my family in Lake George. At that point, I was exhausted at the idea of being anywhere but home.

I will not detail this pathology further now for fear of likewise exhausting the topic.

Amber does all she can to prolong our Friday before the long drive home. She leads us to an observatory, which seemed neither worth the price nor the time for the guided tour to climb to its top. From there, we visit a crunchy grocery store, buying a cinnamon scone to split. We see a tour bus for an acrobatic cat show as we walk. Amber fervently googles to see if we can watch. It is sold out and too late in the day to justify sticking around, though she does look for future tour dates and says she would have stayed another night had she known this was here.

By then, we are at the tip of Portland, another facet of the sea before us. It is not tropical beauty but the water that washed over our feet in Saco.

We sit on a bench overlooking the park as Amber spins a quick fantasy of us, inexplicably wealthy. We come to this bench above the sea every morning, splitting a scone. Presumably, winter never comes to Maine, which seems as likely as my retiring here in my early forties. We wander a path beside the ocean. Amber had wanted to stop for a hike on our drive home, but rules this would suffice. It is not the Maine wilderness, but it brings us to the shops she had only seen closed. None are spectacular in daylight, but we will spend a disproportionate chunk of the day in the car. It is a lovely day, lovelier than last days ought to be, and I can be glad of the walk beside the person I adore. If this had been the day that greeted us Monday, I would have had less doubt of the city's character -- though the crossdressing, strung-out club kid (with fifteen years' experience) begging change outside an Asian grocery could have served as a poster child for Portland.

I indulge Amber's idle bench fantasy too long on our walk back. Judging by the people we pass as we push further east -- clashing yet fashionable clothes, relaxed and friendly -- I can imagine our happiness here in another life. We would make friends. I'm not sure what jobs we would hold, but I do not dream of labor. Until the first snow, we would be happy, perhaps only because it would be different and accommodating.

Amber puzzles over what rocks to buy in a boutique. The clerk sees my Gef the Talking Mongoose shirt, and asks what the cat is. I pause, look at Amber, and ask if I am about to bore this woman. Amber is more concerned with her rocks, so I launch into an abbreviated speech about this unique Fortean phenomenon, trying to take it easy on dates and court cases.

She stares agog when I pause. "Is that real?"

"Well, 'real' is a subjective word here, Nandor Fodor of the Society for Psychical Research said--"

"So, there are really mongooses?"

I freeze, confused. "I mean, mongooses exist. They don't talk, obviously, but--"

"What's a mongoose?"

I search her expression, unable to find a note in it that she is messing with me. "It's a sort of weasel."

"Wow! There are really mongooses."

Amber and I end our time in Portland sitting on the sidewalk in front of the rental we relinquished three hours ago, eating cold Thai leftovers out of takeout containers, which does feel like a Portland thing to do.

last watched: Little Demon
reading: Nona the Ninth