“I would like that,” Hope said. “Really.”

“It’s a deal,” Benton said. He reached down and toggled Hope’s foot in her sneaker. “I’ve got to shove off. Good to see you, Hope.”

“And you,” Hope said.

“I’ll walk you out,” Grace said to Benton.


In the driveway, they stood at the driver’s side of Benton’s truck.

“Bullet dodged,” Grace said. “She didn’t see.”

“Yeah, I know,” Benton said. “But still… that was too close for comfort for me.”

“And me,” Grace said. “We’ll have to be more careful next time.”

“Grace,” Benton said.

She didn’t like the tone of his voice. “What?”

He took a breath. “She’s such a great kid. And I’m sure Allegra is just as wonderful. You have a family, Grace. It doesn’t make me feel good about what we’re doing, and I’m sure it doesn’t make you feel too terrific either.”

“The girls have their own lives,” Grace said. “And Eddie…”

“I think it would be best if I stopped coming for a while,” Benton said.

“What?” Grace said.

“The yard is in good shape,” Benton said. “If you have any questions, you can call me. My phone is always on.”

“Benton?” she said. She swallowed. He was right. What, what, what would Grace have done if Hope had seen them? That would have been a completely different level of awful. “Okay, but you’ll come back, right? I mean, you’re not leaving me forever, are you?”

“No, Grace,” he said. “I’m not leaving you forever.” He touched her cheek, and then he climbed into his truck and drove off.


When Grace went back into the kitchen, Hope was at the counter, making a list on the notepad that Grace used for groceries. Hope said, “What was the book called that Benton said was his favorite?”

Grace looked at Hope. “I don’t know?” she said, and she headed up to her study. She needed to talk to Madeline.


Benton didn’t come the next morning, nor the next. I think it would be best if I stopped coming for a while. How long was a while? A week? Two weeks? A month? If he stayed away for a month, she would perish.

A vicious migraine descended on Wednesday afternoon, only it was a migraine of the heart, not the head. It was the worst emotional pain Grace had sustained since she couldn’t remember when. Nothing mattered. She didn’t care that it was a mild, sunny day filled with possibility. Grace could tend to the hens, collect eggs, spend a couple of good hours in the garden. Cooking usually made her feel better. She could make something complicated for dinner-an asparagus soufflé, a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Instead, she went overboard with her Fioricet. She took two at four o’clock, when it became clear to her that Benton wasn’t going to stop by that day, and then a third and fourth at six o’clock, when she should have been making dinner. Grace locked herself in her study. Eddie and the girls would have to fend for themselves, if anyone was even home. No one had come up to check on her.

You have a family, Grace.

She couldn’t fault Benton, and she certainly couldn’t hate him. He was right! He had pulled the plug right before they crossed a line. Grace should be grateful. She had stood on the altar at the First Church in Salem and had vowed to love Edward Pancik, forsaking all others-but from the moment Benton Coe had brought her the Moroccan mint tea and shared that first pistachio macaron, Grace had been gobsmacked. And, truthfully, she had fallen for Benton before that. She had fallen for him the first time she ever saw him, the previous spring. He had been standing on the highest mud hill in her then-undeveloped yard. She had, she remembered, turned the enormous diamond of her wedding ring inward, so that it chewed at her palm. She had wished she were single.

He made her so happy. Even before the kissing, back when they were “just friends,” seeing Benton had given her days meaning.

She took two more pills. The sixth pill sent Grace into a kaleidoscopic stratosphere-an Alice in Wonderland tea party in a field of poppies with Toto and Timothy Leary.

She pulled the shades down in her study and lay on the crushed-velvet sofa, marveling at how comfortable it was. She wondered that she had never thought to sleep there before.


In the morning, Grace awoke with a sensation of having been buried alive. She was parched, her eyes burned, her nostrils stung. She experienced a moment of profound befuddlement. Where was she? Who was she?

Grace Harper Pancik, she thought. In the study of her house on the Wauwinet Road. And there was someone knocking on her front door.


Grace staggered through the house, trying to bring herself back to reality; she might have been Rip Van Winkle, asleep for twenty years. She might have been just back from a journey on a time machine. It was Thursday. The clock said ten minutes after ten. Eddie would be at work, the girls at school.

On the kitchen counter sat an open pizza box, displaying one cold, congealed piece of mushroom-and-green-pepper pizza from Sophie T’s. That explained what her family had eaten for dinner. There were dishes in the sink, and there was one of the Baccarat wineglasses holding the residue of red wine. Next to it, an empty bottle of the Screaming Eagle.

Eddie had clearly thought nothing of drinking his precious, prized wine without her. He hadn’t managed to get the dishes into the dishwasher, nor the pizza box into the recycling bin. He had decided to wait for Grace to wake up and do it.

Still, the knocking.

Who would it be? Grace wondered. UPS and FedEx knew to just drop off.

Then, Grace thought: Benton? She hurried for the door. Normally, he just walked around the side of the house, into the yard, but he might not feel comfortable doing that under present circumstances.

But when Grace opened their massive front door-it was made of oak and was heavy enough to withstand a battering ram-the person she found standing before her was Madeline.

“Thank God you’re alive,” Madeline said. “Eddie called me. He said you’d locked yourself in your study and spent the night there?”

Grace opened the door so that Madeline could enter. She was getting a rebound headache, which was nearly as bad as a migraine and would require Excedrin and strong coffee to combat.

“I’m alive,” Grace said. “But barely.”

“It’s a beautiful day,” Madeline said. “I think we should go to lunch, sit outside, share a bottle of wine.”

Grace peered out at the bright, warm day. It hurt her eyes to look at the sun.

“Don’t you have to write in your apartment today?” When Grace had talked to Madeline on Monday, Madeline said something about a deadline she had to meet for the new book.

“I’m taking today off,” Madeline said. “I’m devoting myself to you.”

Grace felt stupidly grateful. She would take a shower, put on a dress, and go to lunch with Madeline.

She didn’t know how any woman anywhere conducted an affair without having the ear of a best friend.


They went to the Great Harbor Yacht Club for lunch, since it had just opened for the season. The summer people had yet to arrive, so they would have the place virtually to themselves for confidential conversation. It was a stunner of a day, the kind of day that promised more days exactly like it, for months to come. The hostess led Grace and Madeline across the grass to the premium outdoor table for two, with an uninterrupted view of the harbor and the huge summer homes in Monomoy. The waitress handed them menus, and Grace said, “We’ll have a very cold bottle of Sancerre, if you have it.”

Madeline regarded her menu. “Definitely worth giving up work for,” she said. “I love it here. You are so lucky.”

Grace knew she was lucky. She and Eddie had languished on the wait list at the Nantucket Yacht Club for years before Grace realized that they would never get in. She supposed Eddie had pissed too many people off, or possibly the old Nantucket families who belonged there didn’t want a man nicknamed Fast Eddie to join their ranks. But then the Great Harbor Yacht Club opened, and Eddie jumped at the opportunity; he was one of the first people to write a check for the six-figure initiation fee.

Grace studied the menu-oysters on the half shell, grilled Caesar salad with creamy Roquefort dressing, lobster club sandwich with shoestring fries-and tried to make herself feel hungry.

The waitress came with the wine, which Grace tasted and approved. The waitress poured two glasses, then set the bottle in a bucket of ice. Grace and Madeline touched glasses, and Grace said, “Thank you for making me do this.”

Madeline said, “Thank you for buying lunch.”

They laughed, but a short moment later, the waitress came back with an uneasy expression on her face. She leaned over to Grace and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt your drinks, but I just found out from our general manager that Accounting hasn’t received your check for this year’s dues? So, technically, I’m not allowed to serve you?”

“What?” Grace said. She reached for her phone to text Eddie. He handled all their bills. But cell phones were verboten at Great Harbor. She smiled at the waitress. “I have two ideas. One is, I could just pay you cash for lunch, and then we can clear up the missing dues check later? I’m sure my husband sent it, or he meant to send it. But he’s got a lot going on at the moment with his business.” Grace wondered if the invoice for the yacht club had gotten mixed up with some of the bills for the spec houses. Or, possibly, he had left the bill for Eloise to pay, and she had forgotten. She was getting older and tended to let things slip. Grace had encouraged him to replace her, but, as Eddie pointed out, she was related to half the island. He couldn’t just fire her.

“I’m sorry,” the waitress said. “I can’t accept any cash.”

“Okay,” Grace said. “How about if I write you the check for the dues right now, and then, if you find my husband’s check, or if it comes in the mail, you can tear it up.”

“I’ll ask the manager about that?” the waitress said.

She left to do so, and Grace pulled her checkbook out. She rolled her eyes at Madeline. “I can’t believe Eddie,” she said. “I’m totally mortified.”

“Please,” Madeline said. “I’m your best friend. I wish I could help.”

The waitress reappeared. “Our manager said that would be fine.”

“Okay,” Grace said. “Good. How much is it?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars,” the waitress said.

Grace wrote the check out, feeling Madeline’s eyes on her. Fifteen thousand dollars. Back when Grace and Eddie had just met Madeline and Trevor, they would go for dinner on Saturday nights and split the bill. Madeline later admitted to Grace that the cost of the meal weighed on her mind every second, to the point where she almost couldn’t enjoy her food. What had they ordered? How much had the wine cost? (Eddie always chose it.) Did they have enough cash, or would they have to pile it onto their credit cards, which were already sagging like a rained-on roof?

Oh! Grace had said. She’d had no idea Madeline felt that way. If she’d known, she would have encouraged Eddie to pay each and every time. But Eddie wouldn’t have liked that. He was a naturally frugal person, a result of having grown up dirt poor, living over a dry cleaner’s in downtown New Bedford.

If he paid every time, he might argue, what would happen to the Llewellyns’ pride?

Now Grace wondered what Madeline was thinking. Thankfully, the waitress vanished with the check, and the issue was over.

Madeline said, “What’s going on with Benton?”

Grace didn’t have anything to describe except her longing. No, Grace, I’m not leaving you forever. But what if he was? What if he got back in touch with McGuvvy, called her up in San Diego and convinced her somehow to come back to Nantucket? Grace had stood at her window and waited for Benton’s truck to appear in her driveway every morning. She took care of the chickens because they would starve without her, but the rest of the garden she’d ignored, because she just couldn’t make herself cut back the roses or wipe their leaves with lemon water. She couldn’t deadhead the perennial bed. She couldn’t even mow the lawn, and that was her favorite task.

She said, “The morning it happened, he started talking to Hope about the books he’d read that he thought she would enjoy. And it killed me. He became this other person. There I was, standing in front of my daughter-and with every book he mentioned, I fell more and more in love.”

“Grace,” Madeline said. “You are not in love. I know you think you are. But you’re in love with Eddie and your girls.”