“We both will. Together.”

“Who will be the sous-chef? Me or you?”

“You will. You’re the girl.”

“You’re a chauvinist,” she said, looking delighted. She was having a great time, and so was he. She suddenly felt very young.

He took her out to dinner that night, and they talked about their plans, about whether to live in Paris or New York. They both thought they’d prefer Paris. Marya had wanted to all her life. He thought they should find a flat on the Left Bank, in either the sixth or seventh arrondissement.

By the time they got back to her house, they still hadn’t settled the matter of whether to get married. But she was serious about wanting to see if he could be faithful. He certainly never had been in his entire life. She wanted to give it a few months to find out. She was talking about moving to Paris with him, if he behaved, by the end of the year. They could decide whether to get married after that. And in the meantime, they could enjoy each other. He offered to stay in New York for the next few months, where they could work on the book together.

He walked her into the house, and everything happened naturally after that. They wandered into her bedroom, their clothes seemed to disappear, and they wound up in bed in each other’s arms. And as he reached out to her, they felt as though they had been together all their life, and would be for the next hundred years. She felt like a girl again in his arms.

Chris’s time with his family was just what Ian needed, and it did Chris a great deal of good too, especially this year. Ian got to be a child again, playing with his cousins, and swimming every day. He learned to water-ski, and he made lots of new friends. It was so easy and carefree and normal that he almost forgot his mother was in jail. She called him once a week. And Chris dreaded the calls. They brought Ian back to reality and reminded him of all the pain he’d been through, all of it because of his mother. Chris was still furious with her for dragging Ian through it. But at the Vineyard, their wounds seemed to heal, although Chris’s conversations with his parents about Ian’s mother were always difficult for him. They thought Ian should be entirely removed from his mother, even if that meant sending him to boarding school, which Chris refused to even consider. Ian was far too young and Chris wanted his son with him. His parents didn’t agree.

“You’re not providing a proper home for him,” his mother said sternly one afternoon after lunch, after Ian scampered off. “I don’t understand why, but you’re not. You’re living in a house full of people, with ‘roommates,’ or a commune of some kind, like a student. You have a child, Chris, and if you can’t provide a proper home for him, you should send him away to school. Or at least get your own apartment and a nanny to take care of him. And the farther away you get him from his mother, the better off he’ll be. He should see as little of her as possible.” Chris didn’t disagree with that, but he was violently opposed to all the rest, and Ian was his son, not theirs. It was easy for them to sit on the sidelines and criticize him. They weren’t the kind of grandparents to want hands-on involvement, but they felt they had every right to comment on how Chris was bringing Ian up, and they didn’t approve.

“I don’t live in a commune,” Chris said hotly, “and my housemates are wonderful, intelligent people, who add a whole other dimension to Ian’s life, much more than any nanny. I moved in for convenience before Ian came to live with me, because I wasn’t ready to set up an apartment, but now I see what these people add to Ian’s life. It would be a real loss to both of us if we moved.” He believed it profoundly, but his mother wasn’t convinced.

“It’s all a bit too modern for me,” his mother said bluntly. “Children need a mother and a father and a proper home. In a case like yours, with a mother like Kimberly, Ian is certainly better off alone with you, but only if you can give him a sane, normal life in a real home, not living in a room in someone else’s house. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand that, Chris. It’s not like you can’t afford to get your own place. This is sheer laziness on your part. And Ian will pay the price for it later on. What does he tell his friends at school? Who does he say those people are? You’re too old to live with roommates, Chris, and you have a child.”

“I’m well aware of that, Mother,” Chris said coldly. His father had made similar comments to him several times. He referred to Chris’s “alternate lifestyle” as unsuitable for a child. They were both very conservative people, and Chris renting a room in a house in the West Village, and having Ian live there with him, seemed like a very bad idea to them. His father said it was irresponsible, and his mother was saying much the same thing. It was impossible to explain to either of them the kindness of Francesca, Marya, and Eileen to his son. Ian lived in a very special world, with four adults who doted on him, and even Charles-Edouard, the French chef, had been kind to him. Ian wasn’t living alone with a single father, he was living in a tribe, and in some ways Chris felt it was the best possible antidote to the agonies his mother put him through. The fact that Kim was entirely unsuitable, no one could deny. But Ian loved her, and she was his mother, so he had a right to some contact with her too, as long as it was in a safe setting for him. Chris knew that his parents were sorry Kim hadn’t died when she OD’d, and thought Ian would be better off just putting all that behind him and moving on. But the reality of their life wasn’t as simple as that, and Kimberly was still alive.

“I hope you’ll reconsider about boarding school,” his mother reiterated as Chris frowned. He hated having conversations like this with either of his parents. Their ideas were rigid and old-fashioned, and they were more concerned about what was “proper” and traditional than about what was good for the child. They had brought him up that way too, and all it had done was give him a profound dislike for their lifestyle and everything it represented. He had a deep respect for family traditions, and summers at the Vineyard that brought all the generations together, which was why he came here every year, but he couldn’t tolerate their clinging to traditions out of habit, or old-fashioned ideas that didn’t work in the complicated situation he was in. He never would have sent Ian away to school. At least this way, Ian had one loving parent with him, and for the moment, a house full of people who genuinely cared about him, and spent time with him. Chris’s parents never did. They enjoyed their grandchildren, and liked having them around, as long as their parents or a nanny were present, but his parents stayed at a distance, and observed them without ever really connecting with them, or finding out who they were. He never saw his mother with her arms around a grandchild, and the only thing his father ever asked any of them was how school was, and what sports they played.

Chris had never gotten much more than that from them either, which was why ultimately he had fled Boston and moved to New York. He couldn’t have existed on a daily basis in the rigid confines of their world. He knew they cared about him, and loved him, but the ways they chose to express it and demonstrate it had never worked for him. He had realized long since that he had been starved for emotional contact and connection as a child, and he didn’t want that for Ian, and he wanted even less to dump him in a school and leave him there. Whatever mistakes he was making, at least he had Ian with him, and could give him all the love and attention he’d never had as a child himself. The dignity and standing of their family had always been more important to his parents than the happiness of their children. It wasn’t out of meanness or even indifference, it was simply a concept they didn’t understand and never would. They had grown up and lived with so many restrictions and social rules and obligations that they could never break out of it themselves. But in Chris’s generation, the world had changed, for him and Ian anyway, but not for them. They still lived as the family had for generations, governed by rules that were meaningless to Chris now. All he had wanted as an adult was to get away from all that, which had always made him something of a rebel and a misfit in their midst. He still came home for summer vacation and holidays, but rarely for anything else. And it was particularly hard for him being there this summer. They felt free to comment on his life and Ian’s, about which they understood nothing. But his ongoing problems with Kimberly made him an easy target for their disapproval and concern, and their opinions, which he didn’t share.

There were times when Chris thought about Francesca, and found himself missing the house. If he got custody of Ian, he had also thought that he should get an apartment, but he worried that it might be lonely for them there, and his roommates were so kind to Ian. With Marya and Francesca, he had built-in baby-sitters, and the benefit of two women who cared about him and were almost like aunts. And Eileen was an additional loving friend to Ian. There was a lot to be said for all of them living in one house. Chris missed his conversations with Marya and Francesca during the summer. He hadn’t heard from either of them, but he was sure they were having a relaxing time too, and he hoped they were having fun. He wasn’t as fond of Eileen, despite her kindness to Ian. She reminded him too much of his ex-wife with her addiction to self-destructive behaviors and bad men. And in Kim’s case, Ian had paid the price. And before that, Chris had too.

He managed to avoid further serious discussion with his parents, and the only part of his vacation that Chris didn’t enjoy was visiting Kim’s parents in Newport. He hated hearing them wail about what had happened to her, as though it had been done to her by someone else. And her father was doing everything he could to get her out of jail, thus far with no success. And they talked to Ian about her as though she were a martyr and a saint. She was the devil in Chris’s eyes, particularly to their son.

Ian had sensed correctly that Chris didn’t like his grandparents, and he knew that his parents didn’t get along. He knew that his father’s parents didn’t like Kimberly either. He hated that everyone was mad at someone else. He talked about Francesca and Marya a lot, and occasionally Eileen, and when people asked him who they were, he said they were his friends. He told Chris he couldn’t wait for Marya’s Mickey Mouse pancakes when he got back. And they laughed about Charles-Edouard and the trick he did with the eggs. Ian loved it when he dropped them on the floor and made a mess.

In the end, they had a great summer. Ian grew two inches, and Chris finally relaxed. Chris enjoyed seeing his brother and sister, and their children, although he and his siblings were no longer close. They had turned out to be too much like his parents and remained in the mold they had grown up in. But he was happy to see them and Ian loved playing with his cousins at the family compound. They were both tan and happy, and the younger generations spent a lot of time on Chris’s parents’ boat. It was a handsome sailboat with four cabins and a teak deck, not unlike the one they’d had when Chris was a child. Ian loved that best of all. They were both going to miss it when they went back to New York. And when they got back, Chris was going to begin the permanent custody battle. He was determined to win. He was never going to give Ian up again.

Francesca’s time on the sailboat in Maine was easy and freewheeling. Todd’s friends were wonderful to her, and they said nothing to her about Todd and his fiancée, although they had been there the week before, and they’d had a good time with them. But they had a good time with Francesca too. She relaxed and had fun and stopped worrying about the gallery. For once, she didn’t think about anything except the wind and the sails, what time dinner was, and if she wanted lobster or steak. It was a totally self-indulgent time.

She didn’t have a single call while she was away, not a text message or an e-mail. Her BlackBerry was silent for three weeks. It was exactly what she needed, but she decided that her mother was right. Next year she needed to do something new. It was a slightly odd sensation spending her vacation with Todd’s friends, and following in his footsteps like a shadow. She thought about going to Europe next year, or somewhere alone. She almost felt ready for that.

At the end of the vacation, Francesca thanked her hosts profusely for their hospitality. She flew from Bangor to Boston, changed planes, and from there she flew back to New York. And as they landed at La Guardia, she was thinking about Ian and Chris. They had been gone for a long time, and she missed them. She missed seeing Ian’s funny little face and talking to Chris. She wondered how Ian’s mother was doing in jail.