"I'm okay. I've been taking pictures again. I do beach portraits. I make enough for now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, it's plenty."

He looks up at Anthony again. "I bet you're good at it."

She smiles. "No one's demanded a refund yet."

He looks around the room, again with his Realtor eyes, but maybe also to avoid looking at Olivia next to him and Anthony on the wall. "I thought you would've done more with the place."

"Hey."

"No, it's nice. I mean, it doesn't look like you yet."

In Hingham, she painted every room as soon as they moved in. Golden yellow, bird's-egg blue, sea-foam green. Warm and cozy walls embracing every room. Here, all the walls remain unpainted, white. And the furnishings, artwork, and knick-knacks are spa.r.s.e and neutral, the same items they hastily filled the place with right after they bought it, in time for the first tenants.

"I like this," he says, referring to the gla.s.s bowl on the coffee table, filled to heaping capacity with white, round rocks. She finds them everywhere.

"Thanks."

"I like it here. I always thought we'd end up here. Together. Someday."

"Me, too."

"We had all kinds of great dreams, before . . ."

Before. The word hangs in the air alone, refusing further company.

He leans over the table and picks up one of the rocks from the top of the pile. He holds it in his fist and closes his eyes, as if he's making a wish. He then opens his eyes and his hand and returns the rock to the bowl.

"It's getting late," he says, checking his watch. "I've got to go if I'm going to catch the last ferry."

"You can stay, if you want."

He tips his head and studies her, not quite understanding the invitation.

"The guest-room bed is already made. It's no problem."

He looks relieved. And disappointed. "You sure?"

"Yeah, we can go to The Bean in the morning before you go, like old times."

He smiles. "I'd like that. And more wine if you have it."

IT'S LATE. OLIVIA'S been in bed for a couple of hours now, and she's still awake. She hears the guest-bedroom door open and David walking in the living room. Then she hears the creak of the back door opening. She hears the screen door thwap shut. She waits and listens. She waits and hears nothing. She gets up, walks through the living room, opens the back screen door, and steps outside. David is lying on his back on a blanket on the gra.s.s, staring up at the sky.

"David?"

"Hey."

"What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep."

She walks over to him and lies down on the blanket next to him. It's a small blanket, and she finds it difficult to lie next to him without touching him. She pins her elbows to her sides.

"The stars here are awesome," he says.

"Yeah. I love the sky here."

"I've never seen them like this. And that moon. It's incredible."

The moon is just shy of fully round, bright yellow-white and glowing, the man-in-the-moon face on its surface clearly visible, the sky immediately around it lit daytime blue. The rest of the sky is ink black, dotted all over with brilliant white stars. She finds the Big Dipper first, then the Little Dipper, and Venus. That's all she knows. She should really learn more about the constellations.

They continue to stare at the sky. Her eyes adjust, and more stars appear. And then, unbelievably, more. Stars behind stars, dusty hazes of light, layered galaxies of energy existing, burning, shining, unfathomable distances away from them. She pictures David and herself in her mind's eye as if viewed from above-two tiny, breathing bodies lying on a blanket on the gra.s.s on a tiny island thirty miles out to sea. Two tiny bodies who once dreamed of a life together, who had a beautiful boy together, now lying side by side on a blanket on the gra.s.s, observing infinity.

"See that?" He points, drawing the letter W with his finger on the sky. "That's Ca.s.siopeia."

"Amazing."

A clear night sky on Nantucket truly does amaze. If it's even noticeable enough to draw attention upward, the sky at night doesn't amaze in Hingham. It won't amaze in Chicago either. She thinks about David living there, surrounded by skysc.r.a.pers and city lights, walking along the edge of Lake Michigan and looking up at the sky on a clear night and seeing only darkness when Olivia can see all of this.

It's a cool night with no mosquitoes thanks to a steady wind. Olivia shivers, needing more than her sleeveless, cotton nightgown. David moves closer to her so that their shoulders, hips, and legs touch. He laces his ringless fingers through hers; her hand accepts his. The touch of his body, the heat from his hand, familiar and comforting, warms her.

"I miss you," he says, still staring up at the sky.

"I miss you, too."

"I signed the papers."

As she has witnessed before, it takes David longer to arrive at acceptance, but he eventually gets there. And here he is.

She squeezes his hand.

"I needed to see you, to be sure you're okay before I go," he says.

"I am."

"You are."

"You will be, too."

They hold hands and watch the night sky. The moon, the stars, the heavens, the universe. It's a sky that could almost make her believe in G.o.d again, that the incomprehensible is actually divine order, that everything is as it should be.

If only.

CHAPTER 14.

Startled awake, Beth sits straight up in bed, holding her breath, eyes wide, listening. What was that? She looks at her alarm clock: 3:23 a.m. There it is again. Her nerves jump. She sits straighter, eyes wider.

Someone is walking around downstairs, someone heavy-footed, someone big, not one of the girls. She hasn't locked anything, not the house or the car, since she moved here. No one she knows does. Only summer people lock their houses and cars on Nantucket. Anyone could walk right in. There it is again. Someone is here. A thief? A rapist?

Jimmy?

She leaves her bedroom, her heart pounding, wishing she weren't the only adult in the house, that she could send someone else to investigate the sound. She stops at the top of the stairs and listens. She doesn't hear anything. Maybe she imagined it. She's been having such vivid dreams lately. Maybe she dreamed the sound. As she turns to go back to bed, she hears the floorboards creak. Not imagined. Not a dream.

Before braving the stairs, she notices Jessica's tennis bag in the hallway. She unzips the bag, pulls out her daughter's tennis racket, and holds it in front of her as if it were a sword. She's not sure what good a tennis racket will do her if she finds an actual thief or a rapist in the house (she's never had a strong serve), but it feels at least mildly rea.s.suring to hold on to something.

Aiming her racket-sword in front of her, she tiptoes down the stairs, through the dark living room, and into the kitchen. At the count of three, she flips on the light, and there he is, smiling, looking caught. And really drunk.

"Jimmy, what the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

He blinks and squints and cups his hand over his eyes like a visor, trying to adjust his vision to the bright kitchen lights after fumbling around in total darkness. His face is sweaty, his Red Sox hat is on backward and crooked, and he reeks of cigars and booze.

"I came to give you this." He holds out a white, greeting-card-size envelope.

"Oh, no. You can go tell your girlfriend that my birthday is in October, and I don't want any more cards from her, ever."

"It's from me, and she's not my girlfriend."

Beth's heart stops. If he says, She's my fiancee, she'll beat him to death with this tennis racket. She swears to G.o.d she will.

"We broke up. I moved out."

Blood returns to her head. She loosens her grip. "Well, I'm sorry it didn't work out for the two of you, but you can't just come back here."

"I'm not. I just wanted to give you this." He thrusts the card toward her.

Apprehensive of touching whatever is in that envelope, she cautiously holds out her racket-sword, and Jimmy drops the card onto the head. Extending the racket well out in front of her as if she were carrying a dead mouse or something gross and potentially poisonous, she walks the card across the kitchen and flips it onto the table.

"There, I have it. You can leave now." She points her racket-sword at the door.

"Can we talk first?"

"No, you're in no condition to talk about anything."

"I'm fine."

"You don't smell fine."

"Please."

"It's the middle of the night."

"I need to talk to you."

"You've had months to talk to me. You only want to talk now because your girlfriend kicked you out."

"She's not my girlfriend, and she didn't kick me out. I left. I ended it."

"You have to leave," Beth says as forcefully as she can without raising her voice. She doesn't want to wake up the girls.

"Will you open the card before I go?"

"No." She turns to walk out of the kitchen. If he won't leave, she will. It's the middle of the night. She's going back to bed.

"Beth." He grabs her free hand, stopping her. "Look at me."

She does.

"I miss you."

"Good."

"I really do."

"You only miss me now because you're alone."

"I've missed you the whole time."

"You have to go."

Still holding her hand, he pulls her into him and kisses her.

He tastes like sweat and beer and cigars. She should be repulsed and offended. She should kick him out on his sorry, drunk a.s.s. She should whack him over the head with her racket-sword. But for some illogical reason, she drops her weapon and melts into his kiss.

Now he's pulling her nightshirt off, and she's letting him. He's still kissing her, scratching her face with his beard, and she's kissing him back, and somewhere in her head, an outraged part of her is screaming, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! But another part of her is quite calmly replying, Shhh. We'll talk about it later. Now be quiet and unzip his pants.

The next thing she knows, they're on the kitchen floor. She's naked, and his pants are down below his knees, his shoes and shirt still on. In the fifteen years that they've known each other, they've never done it on the kitchen floor. In fact, Beth's never been naked anywhere in the house but in her bedroom and bathroom.

The whole shebang is urgent and hungry and straight to the point and, despite the pain of the hardwood floor against the bones of her spine and its being over in about a minute, surprisingly good. Completely foolish and probably regrettable, but surprisingly, undeniably good.

Her ears p.r.i.c.kle. Did she just hear one of the girls upstairs? Oh my G.o.d, she and Jimmy made too much noise, and now one of the girls is probably on her way downstairs to see what's going on. Beth pushes Jimmy off her and scrambles back into her underwear and nightshirt.

"Quick, I think the girls heard us," she whispers. "Pull your pants up."

He listens and doesn't move. "I don't hear anything."

He's right. Everything's quiet.