Father Doyle has a full head of silver hair and a bright pink face, flushed from within rather than from a sunburn. He's wearing a short-sleeve, black T-shirt, black pants, black sneakers, and no collar.

"I'm not exactly sure why I'm here."

Father Doyle waits.

"I left the Church five years ago, but I've been praying."

"You haven't left the Church if you're communing with G.o.d."

"Well, I wouldn't call it communing. There's no conversation. I'm asking questions and not getting any answers. It's just me talking to myself, I think."

"What are your questions?"

She squeezes her hands together and takes a deep breath. "My son had autism. He was nonverbal and couldn't make eye contact and didn't like to be touched. And then he died from a subdural hematoma following a seizure when he was eight. So what I want to know is why? Why did G.o.d do this to my son? Why was he here and then gone so soon? Why did I have him? What was the purpose of his life?"

"These are hard questions."

She nods.

"But they're good questions. They're important questions. I'm glad you haven't given up on asking them."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know a lot about autism, but I know that every human being is made as an expression of G.o.d's love."

She's received this kind of pat, Catholic-textbook response before from the priests in Hingham, and it was always the end of the conversation. A vague reference to G.o.d's universal love isn't helpful. If anything, it used to intensify the violent storm that was already raging inside her. She would normally be up and heading for the door after "expression of G.o.d's love." But for some reason, maybe because she doesn't feel affronted by Father Doyle's soothing voice, maybe because today she possesses more patience than rage, maybe because she likes the blue chair she's sitting in, she stays in her seat.

"Every night of his life, I always tucked him into bed and said, 'Good night, Anthony. I love you.' And I don't know if he ever understood what that meant. I mean, it's not that he didn't understand us. He understood a lot, but love, I don't know. He was good at concrete things, black-and-white rules and routines. He liked order. But social things, people, shared emotions, he didn't seem to notice or care much about these. So I don't know."

She knows that he loved his rocks and Barney and swings, but loving things is different from loving another person. Reciprocal love is different. He wouldn't let her hug or kiss him. They couldn't stare into each other's eyes. He couldn't tell her what he felt. He couldn't say the words Good night, Mom. I love you, too.

"But you loved him anyway."

"Of course. I loved him desperately."

She grinds her teeth together and swallows, trying to hold back her tears, but it's no use. There's no stopping them. Father Doyle pa.s.ses her a box of tissues.

"I don't know if he felt loved."

"Children who are deaf and can never hear or say the words I love you feel love. Children who are born with no limbs or who lose their arms and can't hug still feel love. Love is felt beyond words and touch. Love is energy. Love is G.o.d."

"I know. And I know other parents have children born with disabilities or who have cancer or a tragic accident, and I know I'm not special or deserve anything better, but I still don't understand. I feel like those other parents at least get to say that they love their child and it's mutual, it matters. And there's comfort in that.

"At least those other mothers get to hug their children and cradle them in their arms and say, 'It's okay. I'm here. I love you.' And those kids can see their mother's love in her eyes and feel it. I never had that with Anthony. If Anthony was suffering, he'd scream and cry and we couldn't know what was wrong or how to fix it. We wouldn't know if he had a stomachache or a toothache or if he wanted to go on the swings or if I'd accidentally moved one of his rocks out of place. I felt like I could never reach him close enough to comfort him."

"And what about you? You needed love and comfort, too," Father Doyle says.

She nods and wipes the tears from her face. "And now Anthony is gone, and his father and I are getting divorced, and there's nothing left. There's nothing."

"There is you, and there is G.o.d."

"So where is He then? Where has He been for the past ten years?"

"I know it can be difficult to keep faith. These kinds of hardships can either strengthen our faith or destroy it. Even Jesus on the cross said, 'My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why have you abandoned me?' As difficult as it can be for us human beings to comprehend, He is always present."

"I feel completely alone."

"You're not alone. G.o.d is with you."

"I don't hear any answers to my questions."

"You won't hear Him with your ears. You have to listen with your heart, with your spirit. His answers are there, within you."

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head.

"Keep asking your questions. Keep communing with G.o.d and try listening with your spirit."

She nods, but she's skeptical and unsure of what exactly she's agreeing to. She thanks Father Doyle for his time and tells him that she has to leave. He puts his hand on her shoulder and tells her to come and see him anytime.

She walks past the altar, past her three lit candles, and back outside. The bright sunlit day a.s.saults her vision, forcing her to squint her eyes shut and wait. And in those few seconds with her eyes closed, she pictures Anthony-his uncut brown hair, his deep brown eyes, the joy in his smile. She smiles, loving him.

Then, before she descends the church steps, she thinks. If she can see Anthony without her eyes, maybe she can hear G.o.d without her ears.

G.o.d, why was Anthony here? Why did he have autism?

She opens her eyes and tries to listen with her spirit as she walks onto the crowded sidewalk below her.

CHAPTER 17.

Beth showers and dresses and makes pancakes for breakfast. She packs three lunches, washes the table and the dishes, and waters the plants. She drops the girls off at the community center, drives downtown, and finds a parking s.p.a.ce on India Street without a problem, grateful as she always is that tourists sleep late. Everything about this morning is typical until she enters the library. And then everything is different.

Someone is sitting in her seat.

The offender is an older woman, at least seventy, with short, brilliant white hair and thick gla.s.ses attached to a beaded chain looped around her neck. Pencil in hand, she's working on what appears to be a Sudoku puzzle. b.a.l.l.s of yarn, knitting needles, and a paperback peek out from the top of a quilted bag on the floor next to her. Good G.o.d, this woman could be parked here all day. Here in Beth's seat.

Of course, Beth understands that the chair doesn't belong to her. It's not "her seat." But she's sat in this chair every morning since she began coming here to write at the beginning of the summer. She likes sitting with her back against the stacks of books, facing the window, able to see the clock. She likes the left corner of the table, with plenty of room to her right to spread out her notebooks and papers and laptop. And if she's being honest, she believes in the magical powers of that seat. In that particular seat she's been writing page after page without second-guessing her prose, without ridiculing her dialogue, without becoming seized with fear, without stopping. As long as she sits in that wooden chair at that wooden table facing east, the boy's story keeps coming, and she keeps writing it down.

And now some elderly woman with bad vision is using up its magical powers for solving Sudoku puzzles.

She considers her options. She could sit in the chair next to the woman, slide it too close, blow her nose, clear her throat, chew gum, and tap her pen on her teeth until the woman is annoyed into finding a new location. She could ask the woman in a polite and nonthreatening voice if she would kindly move to another chair. She could go home and clean. Or she could be a mature adult and find another place to sit.

She picks a chair on the other side of the table, a respectful distance but close enough that she could gather her things in a heartbeat and regain her rightful spot should the woman decide to leave. She opens Sophie's laptop, which Sophie is now begrudgingly sharing with her mother, and stares at the screen. She's facing west, and her chair wobbles. She taps her teeth with her fingernail and sighs, resigned to the obvious truth. There's nothing magical about this seat.

After a while, she twists around and looks up at the clock. She's now been here for an hour and has done nothing but read what she's already written. And as she feared, the woman is now knitting. Maybe Beth should go home. She stares at the cursor, willing it to produce something as if it were a planchette on a Ouija board. No words appear, but a reflection of a woman emerges within the screen. She spins around in her ordinary chair. Courtney is standing behind her, smiling.

"Hey, have a seat," says Beth, relieved to have a distraction. "What are you doing here?"

"Had to come into Town for something. Thought I'd stop by and see how you're doing. How's it coming?" Courtney points to the blank, white nothing on Beth's computer screen.

"Good, good, I think. We'll see when it's done."

"Do you have a t.i.tle yet?"

"Not yet."

"We should all read it for book club when you're done. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Beth smiles and nods, loving the idea if her book actually turns out to be "good," imagining her unbearable humiliation if it sucks.

"This is for you." Courtney hands Beth a book.

Mending Your Marriage by Johanna Hamill. As Beth flips through the pages, she notices pa.s.sages underlined in pen, handwriting in the margins. Courtney's handwriting. She looks over at her friend, confused, wondering.

"It's my copy. I thought it was pretty good, better than most of the c.r.a.p out there on how to save your marriage."

"But, so, you read this? Why?"

"Steve cheated on me."

"He did?"

The old woman looks up from her knitting.

"When?" asks Beth, lowering her voice.

"Four years ago."

"What? My G.o.d, I thought you were going to say 'last week.'"

Beth stares without focus down at the cover of the book and shakes her head, unable to decide whether she's more stunned by Steve's infidelity or that Courtney has kept it a secret for four years.

"Who?"

"Some rich-b.i.t.c.h divorcee. He was working with Mickey's crew over in Madaket, remodeling her bedroom and master bath. He said she came on to him, which I believe. You know how some of those wealthy summer biddies act like they're ent.i.tled to everything. He said they only did it once."

"So you're okay? You've forgiven him?"

"Well, not at first. I wanted to kill him. That lasted awhile. Then I stopped wanting him dead, but I couldn't forgive him. I read all these books, and that one might help you, but none of them helped me. I couldn't forgive him. I couldn't trust him. The power balance was all wrong. He had all of it, and I had none."

Beth nods, following her, empathizing.

"So I cheated on him."

"You did?"

The old woman looks up from her knitting again, this time really meaning it, down her nose, disapproving. Good. Maybe either the subject or the volume of their conversation will drive her out of here. Courtney nods and smiles.

"With who?"

"Some twentysomething, young thing. His name was Henry. I picked him up at 21 Federal. It was just a one-nighter." Courtney grins, knowing she's blowing Beth's mind. "The next day, I told Steve. And I said, 'Now we're even. No more.' And we promised that was the end of it, and we moved on."

"That's crazy."

"I know. It was, but it was the only way I could stay with him, and I wanted to stay with him. I love Steve and our life here. I didn't want to lose him. So I'm just saying, if you want to take Jimmy back, read the book, and if that doesn't do it for you, I say, go have your own Henry."

"But Jimmy cheated on me for a whole year, I don't think-"

"You only have to do it once. Once makes it even."

"Is that in the book?"

"I'm just saying. Marriage isn't only about whether you love each other. You have to have mutual power, mutual trust. Do you trust Jimmy?"

"No. But sleeping with someone else is going to help?"

"It worked for me."

Beth shakes her head, struggling with the math of this adultery equation, to imagine that cheating on Jimmy would accomplish anything but giving them both reputations for being unfaithful scoundrels who should never be trusted. "I keep thinking, 'Once a cheater, always a cheater.' Who said that, Oprah? Dr. Phil?"

"I don't know. Not the case with me and Steve."

"So you guys were just a onetime thing."

"Yeah."

"And you're happy."

"Yeah, we really are."

"And you trust each other."

"Enough. You're always at the mercy of the people you're in a relationship with, right? Anything can happen. But I trust him enough."

"What if he cheats again?" asks Beth.

"I'd kill him."

"No, really."

"I don't know, maybe another Henry."