“Now,” she said, “I’m going to teach you the most important lesson of all.”

“What’s that?” Meredith said. She seemed genuinely interested, and Connie wondered how Meredith could be so focused-nearly happy-when she was doomed to read about Freddy’s affair in a book written by Samantha Deuce.

Just then, Toby walked into the kitchen and said, “Something smells good.” He kissed Meredith on the back of her neck and grabbed her around the waist. Meredith cast her eyes down, and Connie thought, All right, what’s going on?

She said, “Did something happen last night?”

Meredith elbowed Toby in the ribs. “Connie was just about to teach me the most important lesson of all.”

Toby said, “Dinner was delicious. When we finally ate it.”

Connie glanced at her brother. He kept a straight face, then broke out into a beautiful smile. Meredith turned around and kissed Toby in a way that evoked 1979, and Connie nearly groaned. This would be a lot easier to stomach if Dan were here.

“Out of the kitchen,” Connie said to Toby. “I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”

“But I want to learn the most important lesson,” Toby said. “What is it?”

Connie felt like she should give a profound answer. What was the most important lesson? Was it love? Was it forgiveness? Was it honesty? Was it perseverance?

She wielded her whisk. “Vinaigrette,” she said.


They ate a late lunch of quiche and perfectly dressed salad greens. After lunch, Meredith and Toby wanted to go for a bike ride-probably they wanted to be alone-but if Connie sat around the house by herself she would lose her mind, so she tagged along with them. They biked out to Sconset. The climbing roses were in their second bloom, even more lush and lavish than they had been in July-and then they decided to bike Polpis Road. This was nine miles on top of the two they had already done. Connie was in terrible shape, but the bike ride invigorated her. Her heart was pumping and her legs were warm and tingling, and she filled with a kind of euphoria from the fresh air and the endorphins. It was ideal weather-low seventies with low humidity and mellow sunshine. Autumn was coming. Maybe it was this thought that made Connie suggest that they head into town instead of home to Tom Nevers.

“Town?” Toby said. “You’re sure?”

“We can get ice cream,” Connie said.

They biked an additional two miles into town, at which point Connie was wiped out. She collapsed on a stool at the counter of the Nantucket Pharmacy. Meredith and Toby flanked her and the three of them ordered chocolate frappes. There were lots of other people in the pharmacy-primarily older people who had come to get their prescriptions filled and harried-looking mothers with recalcitrant children demanding jimmies, but none of them seemed to notice Meredith, and more unusual still was the fact that Meredith didn’t seem to mind if she was noticed or not. She interacted with one little girl whose scoop of peppermint-stick ice cream was threatening to topple into the lap of her hand-embroidered sundress. The little girl was about six years old and had a perfect blond bob. The little girl was Meredith Martin at age six.

“Let me help you with that,” Meredith said, and she secured the ice cream onto the cone with a spoon.

“Thank you,” the girl’s mother said.

Meredith smiled. To Connie, she murmured, “She looks like one of these little girls I knew in Palm Beach.” Her expression darkened, the demons were encroaching, and Connie thought, We have to get out of here while things are still okay.

She eased back off her stool; even that made her legs ache. She said, “I’m never going to make it back home. We have to call a cab.”

“Thank God you said that, Nance Armstrong,” Toby said.

They called a cab that could accommodate the bikes, and rode home in exhausted silence.

It was six o’clock. They took turns in the outdoor shower, with Meredith slated to go last.

“So you can stay in as long as you want,” Connie said.

“You’re so good to me,” Meredith said.

“Who’s the little girl in Palm Beach?” Connie asked.

“Long story,” Meredith said.


Connie wanted to pour a glass of wine-oh, boy, did she-and she had earned it with nearly fifteen miles of biking and Dan away and Meredith and Toby in a state of bliss, but she decided against it. She prepared pasta and served it with the Dijon shallot cream sauce that she and Meredith had made earlier, and a salad with vinaigrette, and some leftover Parker House rolls. It was a good dinner, and the three of them ate outside. After, they cleaned up, and Toby asked if they wanted to watch a movie. Meredith said yes, but Connie said she was tired and thought she would go upstairs to read.

“But reading might not last long,” Connie said. “I’m beat.”

“It was a good day,” Meredith said.

“Dinner was delicious,” Toby said. “Thank you.”


Once in the master suite with the door shut, Connie thought, I survived the first day without Dan. But how would she make it through three more days? And how, how, how would she leave the island?

She loved him.

She sat on the edge of her bed. Okay, wait. She was unprepared to love anyone but Wolf Flute. So she didn’t love Danforth Flynn. But God, her heart was splintering at the prospect of even three days without him. The clock radio was on the nightstand. Connie reached over to turn it on, and then she got an idea.

No, the idea was stupid. It was so cliché. But before she could stop herself, Connie had her cell phone in her hand and she was dialing. With all those hours of avid listening, she knew the number by heart.

At first, the line was busy. Of course, it was busy; Delilah had millions of listeners who all wanted to send songs out to their loved ones. Connie hit redial.

And on her sixteenth try, someone answered. Not Delilah, but a screener.

“Tell me your story,” the screener said. The screener was male; he sounded as young as Meredith’s attorney. Was this some college kid earning extra money by screening for Delilah? Connie found this amusing.

She thought, My story? My story will take all night.

She said, “My husband died two years ago of brain cancer, and I never thought I’d find love again.” Here, Connie walked over to her dressing table. She pointed to herself in the mirror and thought, You, Constance Flute, are made for Delilah! “But this summer, I’ve met a wonderful man named Dan, and my life has changed. I’ve changed. Dan is away this weekend, on a camping trip with his sons, but I’d like to send out a song to him so he knows I’m thinking of him.”

“What’s the song?” the screener asked.

“ ‘Something in the Way She Moves’ by James Taylor,” Connie said. The song Dan sang in her ear up at Great Point.

“Good stuff,” the screener said. “I’m going to get you on.”


The next day, Connie taught Meredith how to make a cream soup from scratch.

“Once I show you the basics,” Connie said, “you can do this with any vegetable: broccoli, asparagus, carrot, tomato, mushroom.”

“Right,” Meredith said. “But what’s going to keep me from reaching for a can of Campbell’s for a dollar forty-nine instead?”

“You’ll see once you taste it,” Connie said. “First, you sauté an onion in four tablespoons of butter until the onion is soft.” She moved the onion around the stock pot as the butter foamed. Connie had done so well on the radio that now she was thinking TV, she was thinking the Food Network, her own cooking show! “Then, add three tablespoons of flour and cook for one minute. Cooking the flour a little eliminates the starchiness.” If Toby could go to the Naval Academy, why couldn’t Connie do the Food Network? “Add the vegetable next-in this case, four cups of sliced summer squash.” Connie enunciated clearly, mugged for an imaginary camera, then dumped the squash into the pot. Meredith didn’t notice the theatrics; she was bent over her little notebook, writing down every step. Would she really make her own soup? Connie wondered. Or was she destined for Campbell’s? “Pour in six cups of chicken broth, a cup of white wine, and a teaspoon of fresh thyme. Put the top on the pot and simmer for twenty minutes.”

Connie set the timer. She turned to Meredith. She was unable to hold it in any longer. “I was on Delilah last night.”

Meredith’s brow crinkled. “Huh?”

“I called in to Delilah and sent a song out to Dan.”

“You did not.”

“I did so. I was on the radio.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Meredith said. “Oh, my God, what I would have given to hear that. What song did you ask her to play?”

“ ‘Something in the Way She Moves.’ ” Connie said. “By James Taylor.”

A shadow crossed Meredith’s face.

Connie said, “Don’t even think about it.”

Meredith turned away. Connie absently stirred the squash in the pot.

“Okay, do think about it,” she said. “What song would you send out to Freddy?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith said. “ ‘I Will Survive’?”

“And you will,” Connie said. “You will, Meredith.”

Meredith walked over to the sliding-glass doors. “I’m going to sit in the sun,” she said. “You know, we only have nine days left.”

Nine days. A ticking started in Connie’s head, like a time bomb.


When the squash had cooked and cooled to room temperature, Connie went outside to grab Meredith. “Time to finish the soup.”

Connie poured the cooled contents of the pot into her food processor. When she turned it on, the mixture became a smooth, sunny-colored liquid. Connie poured it back into the pot and added salt, pepper, and a cup of heavy cream. She lifted a spoonful for Meredith to taste, then she tasted it herself.

Sublime. It was fresh, sweet, and squashlike. This was why Meredith couldn’t simply pick a can off the shelf.

“You have to promise me that you’ll try this yourself,” Connie said. “With some really good produce.”

“I’ll try,” Meredith said. “But I can’t promise. How can I promise?”


That evening, they ate the soup with a fresh, piping hot baguette-the crevices filled with melting sweet butter-and a green salad with vinaigrette that Meredith had made herself, as a final exam of sorts. It tasted just like Connie’s vinaigrette, and Meredith was thrilled. They did a cheers with their water glasses. The cooking lessons had been a success, Meredith was a quick study, and it was a good thing because Dan would be home soon enough, and Connie would have other things to do.


In the middle of the night, Connie was awakened by a noise. At first, she thought it was the radio; she had fallen asleep listening to Delilah. But it was a rattling, coming from downstairs. It was a pounding.

The vandal, Connie thought. There had been nothing for weeks, nothing since Toby arrived, but now, yes-someone was outside. Connie slipped out of bed. She was wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. She needed shorts.

She called out, “Toby!” The man slept like the dead. She might have to splash him with cold water to wake him up.

But when she got out to the hallway, Toby and Meredith were standing at the top of the stairs.

“Someone’s outside,” Connie said.

“I’ll take care of it,” Toby said.

“It sounds like the person is trying to get in,” Meredith said. “What if it’s Samantha? What if she came here to confront me?”

“Is that possible?” Connie asked. Of course, it was possible, but was it likely? It did sound like the person was knocking, then shaking the doorknob, trying to force the door. What if it was the FBI, come to take Meredith away?

Toby turned on the hall light. Connie peered down the stairs at the clock. It was only five after eleven.

Toby said, “Who is it?”

Connie and Meredith were creeping down the stairs one at a time. Connie tried to look out the sidelights.

A muffled voice said, “Itzashalan.”

Connie said, “It’s Ashlyn!”

Toby unlocked the door, and Connie heard herself cry, “Wait, wait!” Because they had to punch in the security code first, Ashlyn’s birthday, Connie did it automatically, her whole body was shaking like she had a fever, and she thought, “Is it Ashlyn? Is it?”

And they opened the door and Connie looked, and there was her baby girl.


Connie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did both. She was a hysterical, sobbing mess, but it didn’t matter, did it? She had her daughter, her very own daughter, in her arms. Toby’s eyes were brimming, and Meredith-well, Connie didn’t expect tears from Meredith and she didn’t find any. Meredith was smiling and nodding her head. Meredith was level-headed enough to get everyone inside and Ashlyn’s luggage in and the cabbie paid. She shepherded everybody into the kitchen, and Connie sat at the table and encouraged Ashlyn to sit, but she wouldn’t let go of Ashlyn’s hand. No way.