Eddie wouldn’t talk to her, and could she blame him?

Just then, a text came in from Benton. Grace was flooded with relief until she read it.

It said: I’m leaving the island tomorrow. There’s an opportunity in Detroit I’ve been considering for a while. I’m going to pursue it and let Donovan run the business here. We were careless and impetuous, Grace, and I accept 50 percent of the blame. I wish you well. You will always be my First Lady. XO B.

Grace couldn’t believe how hurt she was by his choice of words. He wished her well? He was moving to Detroit? They had been careless and impetuous? XO?

They had been in love-who cared about Benton’s career or Grace’s reputation? What did those things matter?

He accepted 50 percent of the blame. That was big of him.

Detroit? He had been “considering it for a while”-but this was the first Grace had heard about Detroit. Would McGuvvy meet him in Detroit? McGuvvy was from Ohio, right? And Ohio bordered Michigan, so, safe to say, McGuvvy would probably move to Detroit and teach sailing on the lake. Benton had probably been considering going back to McGuvvy for a while!

She would always be his First Lady, but what did that matter if she didn’t end up with him?

Careless? He made it sound like they had forgotten to wind the garden hose or check the pool filters.

Impetuous? Grace knew what the word meant, but she looked it up anyway. Acting or done quickly, without thought. He couldn’t have said anything that would have made her feel worse. He didn’t love her; the shout-out on Lucretia Mott Lane had been a drunken lie and his subsequent declarations, further lies. He hadn’t stood up to Eddie. He had acted afraid of Eddie, when he could have easily taken Eddie over his knee and spanked him.

He wished her well.

What ensued for Grace was nothing short of total devastation. She couldn’t stand to look at the gardening shed. She would gladly hire someone to come knock it down. She wanted to pour gasoline over the roses and set them on fire. She wanted the whole yard to burn.

She climbed into her Range Rover and drove like a bat out of hell to Benton’s office. It was still not quite noon, and all of the work trucks were gone, including Benton’s black pickup. Where was he? She just needed to see him, she needed a few calm moments to talk this through with him. Eddie wouldn’t say anything to anyone; he didn’t like sharing news that reflected poorly on him. No one would ever know what had happened. Benton could stay here. Or… Grace could go with him to Detroit.

No, she thought immediately. She couldn’t leave the twins like that. There was just no way.

She parked the car haphazardly and raced up the steps to Benton’s apartment. The door to his place opened, and a young, bearded man with glasses and a porkpie hat stepped out.

“Hi?” he said. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Benton,” Grace said. “Is he here?”

“He’s out in the field, I do believe,” the man said. “I’m Donovan, his manager. Do you have a question or a problem?”

“Both,” Grace said honestly. Then she felt like a total fool. “I’m Grace Pancik.”

“Oh, right!” Donovan said. “I thought you looked familiar. I saw the spread in the Globe. That was some great press. We’ve picked up three new clients from that already.”

“Great,” Grace said. She tried to smile, but her face would not obey. “Listen, I really need to get ahold of Benton…”

“Did you try his cell?” Donovan asked.

“I did,” Grace said. She wanted to ask if she could sit in the apartment and wait for Benton to return, but it was also Donovan’s apartment, and Leslie’s, and Grace realized that her behavior now was bordering on psychotic. “Do you know where in the field he is? I really need to speak to him in person.”

Donovan held out his palms as if checking for rain. “Benton is his own man,” he said. “He doesn’t share his schedule with me or anyone else.”

Grace took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“But you might check Edith Allemand’s house,” Donovan said. “He goes there Mondays and Fridays.”

Edith Allemand’s house-Main Street. “Thank you,” Grace said. She hurried back down the stairs, but then she turned around.

“Donovan?” she said. “Do you know anything about Benton going to Detroit?”

Donovan said, “I knew he was considering it, but last I checked, he hadn’t made a decision.”

Grace climbed back into her Range Rover and drove toward Main Street. Sure enough, at number 808, Benton’s truck was in the driveway. And right there in the front yard were Benton and the legendary Mrs. Allemand. Benton was holding both of Mrs. Allemand’s hands, and Mrs. Allemand was talking. If Mrs. Allemand had been any younger than eighty-five years old, Grace would have felt jealous.

Grace pulled up in front of the house, chagrined at her own audacity (the voice of her grandmother Sabine begged her not to make a scene)-but there was nothing else she could do. She had to talk to him.

He noticed the car, and a concerned expression came over his face. He said something to Mrs. Allemand, then loped toward Grace’s car. Grace loved the way he walked. She loved everything about him. She was a total goner.

He poked his head through the open passenger-side window. “Grace,” he whispered. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Do you understand how inappropriate this is?” he asked. “Do you know how this looks?”

“I don’t care how it looks,” Grace said. “And you used to not care. When you kissed me on Lucretia Mott Lane!”

“I have a business to run,” Benton said. “And you have a family. Go be with your family, Grace. Take care of your daughters. Work things out with Eddie. Please, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Please don’t stalk me like this again, okay? It’s making me a little nervous.”

Stalking? Grace thought indignantly. She wasn’t stalking.

But here she was, in front of Mrs. Allemand’s house, and Donovan was sure to tell Benton that Grace had stormed the office.

Stalking.

“You still owe Hope that list of a hundred books,” Grace said. “You can break my heart-that’s fine-but don’t disappoint a sixteen-year-old girl.”

From the yard, Mrs. Allemand warbled out, “Is everything okay, Benton?”

Benton waved at Mrs. Allemand, then gave Grace one last look. “Please, Grace. Clean break, okay? You’ll be fine. Now… good-bye.”

Good-bye.

Grace drove off.

She wanted Madeline. Madeline was the only person who would understand.


The first thing Grace did when she got home was to resign as a member of the Nantucket Garden Club. In an e-mail to Jean Burton, she cited “personal reasons.” She didn’t care what those personal reasons were interpreted to be. She didn’t care about anything.

She opened her medicine cabinet. She took a Fioricet and tried to focus. Benton was gone-but what about Eddie? Could she still save her marriage? Did she want to save her marriage?

She would go out and get those steaks, she decided. She would light candles and pick a bouquet of fresh flowers, and she would try to set things right. In the meantime, maybe Benton would come to his senses.

Clean break, okay? Meaning what? Should she pretend as if the postcards from Morocco and the mint tea and the pistachio macarons and the ploughman’s lunches and the slow dancing on the deck and the photo shoot with the Boston Globe and all their fiery lovemaking in the garden shed had never happened?

Detroit?

But Eddie didn’t come home for dinner. He had to tend to the rental on Low Beach Road, he informed her in a terse text. Grace ate dinner in silence with the girls, who chattered with each other about the books they were reading. The food was delicious, but Grace couldn’t force down a single bite. She had ruined everything. Her lover was gone, he had proved to be a coward-Considering Detroit for a while now?-and she had trashed her marriage. Just as Madeline had predicted. How do you see this ending?

Grace had four glasses of wine at dinner, then a fifth, because the girls were going to the movies together in town. Grace wandered upstairs in a bit of a stupor. She found her cell phone, read the text from Benton again. She needed Madeline. Could she call Madeline?

Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater.

No, she could not call Madeline.

As Grace fell asleep, she tried to find a place of gratitude. Her girls were healthy and getting along. And she still had the most glorious property on Nantucket Island. Not to mention her Araucana chickens and a flourishing organic-egg business.

Exotic chickens and pale-blue eggs were all good and fine, but they were no substitute for love.


When Grace woke up at midnight, Eddie was still out. Still at the rental on Low Beach Road? Or possibly tying one on at a bar in town? Grace didn’t even feel she could text and ask him. She crept down the hallway to her study and looked again at the article in the Sunday Boston Globe. There were her hydrangeas, her roses, her Adirondack chairs-all looking perfectly, professionally styled. There was the footbridge and the brook and Polpis Harbor beyond. There was the gardening shed and the copper farmer’s sink, which she now wanted to tear out and deliver to the take-it-or-leave-it pile at the dump. And there were Grace and Benton, seated at the teak table in their accustomed places, raising their champagne glasses and smiling out at all the beauty they had created.

She texted Benton: I miss you.

Silence.

Eleven minutes later (she had meant to wait fifteen but couldn’t), she texted: I know you miss me.

Silence.

There was nothing in the world, she decided, that wounded like silence.


Ever since the night of the séance, Grace had harbored mixed feelings about her sister-in-law, Barbie. Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left. Eddie had been to Grace’s left, Grace had been to Madeline’s left, and Trevor had been to Barbie’s left. Barbie would never be in a position to betray Trevor, and it was pretty clear Barbie wasn’t referring to herself, anyway.

Grace would betray Eddie.

Madeline would betray Grace.

Barbie had been right: Grace had started her affair with Benton Coe six months later. Did Barbie have psychic powers? Or had Barbie’s saying the words influenced Grace’s behavior? Grace went back and forth on the question, but she had never viewed Barbie the same way since. And after the séance, Barbie had stopped joining Grace, Eddie, and the twins at the holidays. She claimed this was because she preferred traveling with one of her mystery men, but Grace always felt like Barbie had discovered something rotten about Grace and wanted to distance herself.

Besides, Barbie Pancik was, by nature, a very private person and hard to get close to. Her loyalties lay staunchly with Eddie and the business and, beyond that, with herself.


Imagine, then, Grace’s surprise to find Barbie Pancik standing over her bed in the middle of the night, shaking Grace awake.

Grace cried out. It was a bad dream, Barbie looming over her, the black pearl swinging like a pendulum, her perfume suffusing the atmosphere of the bedroom.

“Grace, you have to wake up,” Barbie said.

Bad dream. But no, not a dream. For some unfathomable reason, Barbie Pancik was in her bedroom. Bad something, something bad. Grace looked to her right-no Eddie. Eddie was dead. There was no other reason why Barbie Pancik would be here. Eddie had found out about Grace and Benton and had killed himself.

Grace clamped her hand over her mouth and shook her head.

Barbie lowered herself onto the mattress next to Grace and said, “You have to listen to me.”

“No,” Grace whispered. “Nonononono.”

“Eddie is in trouble. There was a misunderstanding at the house on Low Beach Road, and the FBI have him in custody.”

Grace went back to thinking, Bad dream. Because what Barbie was saying, even if she was real-which she did indeed seem to be-made no sense. FBI? What kind of misunderstanding could bring the FBI?

Barbie handed Grace a glass of water from the nightstand. “I want you to drink this, and then I’m going to tell you some things that you are never, ever to repeat. Do you understand me?”

Grace accepted the water and nodded. Barbie would have made a good mother, Grace decided.