"I don't know, Courtney. I don't think I could."

"Do you want it to work out for you and Jimmy?"

Beth used to think that Jimmy and she were soul mates. They had so much in common when they first met. They're both only children, raised by single parents. His father died of lung cancer the year after her mother's death. Independent and somewhat fearless, they both held a fierce determination to follow their dreams, to do something they loved for a living. For Beth, that was writing. For Jimmy, it was scalloping.

Jimmy grew up in Maine. His father was a lobsterman who saved every penny so Jimmy might go to college, hoping for his son to discover a more reliable, less backbreaking way to earn a living. Jimmy attended the University of Maine and after graduating got the desk job of his father's dreams at a small software company. But Jimmy hated his desk and his cubicle, and he hated being trapped indoors, and he admired his father's life as a fisherman.

He went to Nantucket the following summer, after he'd been at his "soulless" job for a year. It was supposed to be a long weekend, a vacation with friends. Like Beth, he fell in love with the place. He decided to stay, but instead of lobstering, which he knew, he learned how to scallop, which was where the big money was at the time.

They loved the same music, the same food, Nantucket. They loved each other. And now, here they are. Jimmy gave up scalloping, and until recently she forgot about writing, and Jimmy's been sleeping with another woman, and she doesn't know what they both love anymore.

She looks over at the old woman. Beth's still young. She could start over, and not necessarily with another man. She could regroup, redefine her life as a single mother. She could finish this book, maybe move off-island, get a job at a newspaper or a magazine, maybe somewhere with mountains or a city, maybe back to Portland. Somewhere with no sand or fog or tourists. Somewhere with no Angela Melo.

The possibilities, even contemplating the words I could, feel exhilarating. She could do anything she wants. But what does she want? She's happy that Jimmy wants her back, but she doesn't entirely trust her own motivation for feeling good about this. He picked her. She wins. She beat Angela. So maybe she feels more victorious than happy.

And who's to say that he won't change his mind in a week, in a month, next year, that he won't someday show up in Angela's kitchen at three in the morning with a card in his hands and his pants around his knees? No, she has no desire to be strung to that yo-yo.

Maybe there are no soul mates. Maybe husbands are simply men women eventually put up with so someone is there to haul air conditioners in and out of the attic, to love their children, to keep them company. But Beth can haul the air conditioners herself, her friends provide her with plenty of company, and he can still love their kids even if she doesn't love him. But there's the thing. She might still love him.

"I don't know."

"Look, Jimmy's got all the power now. It's not just about whether you can love each other again or trust each other again, it's about evening out the power."

As Beth thinks about these ingredients of marriage, about love and trust and power, her mind wanders over to truth and takes an east-facing seat. A marriage should have truth.

"I had s.e.x with Jimmy the other night."

"I know, Petra told me. That's why I brought you the book."

For a second, Beth feels indignant at Petra for betraying her confidence, but she shrugs it off. "That didn't even out anything, did it?"

"Right idea, wrong guy."

"He wants to talk."

"That's impressive for Jimmy."

"I know."

"You could try counseling."

Beth wonders if Jimmy would agree to go.

"If you do, go to Dr. Campbell."

"The guy with the falcon?"

"I know, but the only other option is Nancy Gardener."

Nancy Gardener is a twice-divorced marriage counselor whose sister is Gracie's fourth-grade teacher.

"I don't know," says Beth.

"He's good. Jill and Mickey go to him."

"They do?"

Courtney nods, eyebrows raised knowingly.

"Why? What's going on with them?"

Courtney shrugs. "Everyone has stuff, Beth."

Courtney looks over at the clock on the wall and gets up. "I've got to run. Read the book, go see Dr. Campbell, go find your own Henry. Or be done with him. That's a fine choice, too."

Courtney leaves, and Beth is alone again in her wobbly chair staring at her blank computer screen. She looks over at the old woman whose knitting is fast taking the shape of a mitten. Magic seat.

She sighs and shuts off Sophie's laptop. She packs her notebooks and pens into her bag, holding on to Courtney's book for an extra second, considering it, before she tosses it into her bag, too. As she's leaving the library, feeling defeated, she thinks about love and trust and power. And truth. As she walks down the front steps, she thinks about what is true in her life, and four simple, honest thoughts jump up and raise their hands.

1. She's not going to read Mending Your Marriage.

2. She's not going to go have her own Henry and call things even.

3. She'll make an appointment with Dr. Campbell if Jimmy is willing to go, and she hopes he is.

4. That old woman had better not be in her seat tomorrow, or she's going to lose it.

CHAPTER 18.

Beth didn't write anything yesterday, and the words she didn't write have been gathering and growing louder inside her, building to a crescendo, feeling full and urgent, like floodwaters pressing against a failing dam. She woke up this morning at dawn with this boy's words already in motion, rushing at her, through her, insistent, d.o.g.g.i.ng her everyday, routine thoughts until each and every one of them surrendered. She can now think of nothing else.

She arrives at the library only seconds after it opens, hurries upstairs, and is relieved to see no one there. No one sitting in her seat. She sits down, opens her notebook, uncaps her pen, and writes.

I wake up, and it is daytime. I get out of bed and say Good Morning to the tree outside the window, to my box of rocks, and to the calendar on the wall. Yesterday was Sunday, and today is Monday. Danyel comes after lunch on Tuesdays.

I stand on every step with both feet until I do all twelve, and I'm downstairs. I walk into the kitchen and sit down on my seat at the kitchen table. My Barney cup is filled with purple juice, and my fork and white napkin are on the table, but there are only two French Toast sticks with maple syrup on my blue plate, and there are always three.

I can't eat two French Toast sticks because breakfast is three French Toast sticks. I can't eat two because three is finished, and two is stopping in the middle, and stopping in the middle hurts too much. I can't eat two French Toast sticks because then I won't ever be done with breakfast. And if I don't finish breakfast, then I can't brush my teeth in the bathroom and play with water in the sink. And then I can't get dressed in dry clothes on the bottom step. And then I can't go outside and swing. And I can't have lunch if I haven't finished breakfast. And Danyel won't come because she comes after lunch.

If I don't have two plus one equals three French Toast sticks for breakfast, I'm going to be stuck at this table forever.

I NEED ANOTHER FRENCH TOAST STICK!.

I run over to the freezer and open it. The French Toast sticks box is gone. There is always a yellow box of French Toast sticks in the freezer. And now there isn't. Something terrible has happened. I'm getting tingly shivers in my hands, and I'm racing around in my head trying to think about how to make the French Toast sticks box come back into the freezer, but I'm breathing too fast, and my hands are too tingly, and I can't think.

My mother is now standing between me and the freezer, showing me an empty French Toast box. Empty is zero, and zero French Toast sticks is a disaster. I flap my tingly hands and moan.

My mother walks me back over to the table and says something in a loud and pretend happy voice, but I can't hear what she said because I'm looking at my blue plate. One of the two French Toast sticks has been cut in half, so now there are two Medium-size sticks and one Big stick, which is even worse than before because two is in the middle and one is the beginning, and none of this can be eaten because this is not breakfast. Breakfast is three of the SAME French Toast sticks. I cannot eat this.

The French Toast box has zero, and my blue plate has one Big stick and two Medium sticks, and nothing has three. Everything is zero or the beginning or the middle, and I can't eat breakfast because it can't be finished if it doesn't have three. I can't get dressed and go outside and swing because getting dressed and going outside and swinging happens AFTER breakfast and I can't have breakfast until I have three French Toast sticks.

I know how to solve this. If my mother would cut the one Big stick in half and get rid of one of the halves, then I'd have three Medium-size sticks. And then I could eat breakfast. Or she could cut one of the Medium-size sticks in half and get rid of one of its halves, and then there would be a Big, a Medium, and a Small stick. This is not as good as three SAME-sized sticks, but it's a three that I can handle. I could eat a Big, a Medium, and a Small French Toast stick breakfast because that is three, and three is finished and safe. Then I could eat breakfast and brush my teeth and play with water in the sink and get dressed and swing outside and see Danyel.

But I can't tell my mother my solutions because my voice is broken. And I can't cut the Big or Medium French Toast stick myself because I can't feel my hands anymore. I can't go into my Hands Room because I'm stuck in Ears. I'm stuck in Ears listening to the sound of someone screaming.

While I listen to the screaming, I lose my body. I have the distant and dreamy feeling of leaving the kitchen, moving through air. I don't want to move through air. I want three French Toast sticks. But I don't have a voice, and I don't have a body. I have the distant and dreamy feeling of struggling, hot and angry, then sweaty and cool. But mostly, I'm in my Ears, listening to the sound of screaming.

Now I'm back in my body. I'm in the bathroom, watching water run in the sink, when I realize that the someone screaming is me. I scream louder, and I lose my body again. I keep screaming so I can become the scream, and then I am the sound of how I feel and not a boy in a body who is in the bathroom without having eaten three French Toast sticks for breakfast first.

CHAPTER 19.

Beth checks her watch. They still have five minutes before they need to leave the house. Gracie and Jessica are ready, wearing identical gauzy, white shirts and faded blue jeans, waiting at the kitchen table, but Sophie is still upstairs fussing with herself.

"Sophie!" Beth yells. "Two minutes!"

She steps into the bathroom for one last quick check in the mirror. With her fingers she smoothes down a section of hair threatening to frizz and wipes a bit of shine from her forehead. She fake-smiles. Nothing stuck in her teeth. Even though she knows she should stay out of the sun with her fair skin and tendency to freckle and burn and, more recently, wrinkle, she's been lying out on the deck for an hour each day for the past week, trying to achieve a healthy glow. Her cheeks are pink, and her eyes look bright. Mission accomplished.

She found a beach-portrait photographer with cheap rates on a flyer at Stop & Shop and the perfect beach-portrait shirt online at Old Navy last month. She ordered four, one for each of them, and she laundered and ironed the matching shirts weeks ago. Last night, they all painted their toenails the same shade of peac.o.c.k blue. They're all wearing tiny pearl earrings and matching silver bracelets. They're perfectly coordinated from head to toe. Beth smiles, congratulating herself on being so organized, for thinking of everything.

"Mom!"

The urgent shrill in one of her daughters' voices sends Beth running into the kitchen. She looks Jessica up and down. No blood. No tears. She looks fine. But then Beth turns her attention to Gracie. The entire front of her beautiful gauzy, white shirt is drenched in red fruit punch. Gracie, teary-eyed and shocked, is holding a tall and mostly empty gla.s.s in her hand. Not fine. Not fine at all.

"My G.o.d, Gracie! What did you do?"

"Jessica did it! She pushed me while I was drinking!"

"I didn't push her."

"You did!"

"It was an accident," says Jessica.

"Why were you even drinking anything?" asks Beth. "I told you we were leaving in two minutes."

"I was thirsty."

"Come here."

Beth doesn't wait for Gracie to move. She yanks the shirt over her daughter's head and leaves Gracie in the kitchen, naked from the waist up and crying. Beth runs into the laundry room, pours a capful of detergent onto the shirt, and scrubs it under running water. The stain lightens from deep red to pink, but it's still there. And now the whole shirt is soaking wet. Gracie can't wear this. Beth checks her watch. They need to leave the house right now.

Think. Think. Think.

Beth scrubs the shirt again. Still pink. Still wet. There's no time. She has to accept it. They can't wear the beautiful matching gauzy, white shirts. That dream is gone.

She has to come up with a plan B. Okay, they won't all be in the same style white shirt, but they can still all be in white.

"Gracie!" Beth calls. "Go to your room and put on a white shirt!"

"Which one?"

"Any! Go!"

Beth takes a deep breath and blows the air out slowly through her mouth, trying not to freak out. She walks back into the kitchen and eyes Jessica, who is standing awkwardly still, as if she were afraid to blink.

"Why did you push your sister?"

"I didn't mean to."

"Fine. Just stay there, and don't touch anything. And don't drink anything."

Gracie returns to the kitchen wearing a white T-shirt with the words GIRLS RULE, BOYS DROOL written in puffy, purple lettering on the front.

"No, no, no," says Beth, crazed impatience curling into her voice. "Not that one. No words. It can't have words on it. Go get a plain white shirt!"

"I don't have a plain white shirt!" says Gracie, still crying.

"You must."

"I don't."

"Then go get one of Jessica's!"

"It'll be way too big!"

Beth scans through a mental catalog of the girls' wardrobes. Gracie's right. All the white shirts are graphic T-shirts. Beth looks at her watch. They're late. She's never late. She likes to be early. Her face feels hot. Her soft, sun-kissed glow is now blazing red with stress.

Plan C.

"Okay, listen. Everyone has a solid-color tank top. I don't care what color, no words, go find one and put it on. Go! Go! Go!"

Gracie and Jessica skedaddle up the stairs, and Beth races right behind them.