Father Dominic was stunned to see Claire and Zack sitting in the front pew when he exited the confessional; the surprise registered on his face. A slender, pretty young woman hurried out of the church, and Claire wondered what she had confessed and whether it was anywhere close to as appalling as what Claire was about to admit to. Father Dominic said nothing; he simply gestured to the empty booth, and Claire carried Zack in and knelt. She wished fervently that she had been born a Protestant because at that moment, owning up to this enormous sin, saying it out loud to another human being, seemed a beastly punishment.

She started in with the act of contrition. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins . . . Zack clawed at her neck. He needed his fingernails cut: it felt like he was drawing blood. Claire took a deep breath. She eyed Father Dominic, whose head was bowed in prayer. She was trembling, as terrified as she’d ever been in her life. What was she afraid of? She was afraid he would hate her. He saw her, not every week, but many weeks, in church with the kids. He thought her to be a devout person; he had called her daily when Zack was in the hospital in Boston and had prayed with her over the phone. Now he would see her for who she truly was.

“I’m committing adultery,” Claire said. She expected Father’s head to pop up, she awaited his aghast expression, but he was still. She was grateful for this stillness, this posture of acceptance. “I’m having an affair with Lockhart Dixon.” Claire said his name because not to say his name felt like holding back a part of the truth. Claire had no idea if Father Dominic knew Lock—Lock was a member of Saint Paul’s Episcopal. They might have known each other through one of Nantucket’s Children’s programs.

Father Dominic remained still. Claire closed her eyes. “That’s all,” she whispered. Zack started to cry.

When Father Dominic raised his head, his expression was blank. In regard to confession, Father Dominic had once claimed that there was a hole in the back of his head. People’s sins drained out nearly as soon as they entered, he said. But Claire was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen today.

Father Dominic said, “You will stop? You came to confess, so you understand what you’re doing is wrong. Will you stop?”

Tears fell—Zack’s, and Claire’s own. Of course he would ask her to stop, or demand it.

“I don’t know if I can,” she said.

“You can, Claire,” Father Dominic said. “You must pray for strength.”

“I can pray for strength, but I don’t know if I can stop seeing Lock. I could tell you I’m going to stop, but I would be lying.”

Father Dominic shook his head, and Claire felt an argument rising in her. It was the argument that ran like ticker tape through her mind. Did the adultery automatically make her a bad person? Did the good things that she did—caring for her kids, washing Jason’s T-shirts, chairing a benefit that would bring important programs and enrichment into the lives of hardworking families, being a kind and thoughtful friend, helping injured birds on the side of the road rather than letting them suffer—did these things count, too? Or did only the sins count? Was there some kind of moral accounting that would put her ahead? Because she didn’t feel like a bad person or an evil person. What, anyway, did Father Dominic know about heart-stopping passion?

Zack was crying now; his cries reverberated against the walls of the confessional booth. Claire said, “Can you give me my penance?”

“You have to stop,” Father Dominic said. “Then I can give you your penance.”

She had to stop. She repeated this in the car on the way home. Zack screamed in the backseat and kicked his legs; his cries were echoing inside her. She was not a barroom urchin addled by drink, like her father; she was a reasonable woman. She had to stop.

By the time she got home, she did have a headache, so she took some Advil and lit a fire and poured a glass of wine, all with Zack snuggled against her chest, on his way to sleep. She had a pot of chili on the stove, and corn bread, and homemade applesauce. At five thirty, it was pitch black outside and the kids and Jason came home, their cheeks rosy from the cold and the exercise.

Jason did not ask how she was feeling, but he did taste some chili from the wooden spoon and declared it delicious. J.D. stripped off his pads and his sweaty long underwear while Ottilie set the table in her cheerleading outfit.

Jason touched Claire’s back and said, “This is how I always sort of imagined it. Our life.”

The fire, the pot of chili, her children at home on a chilly fall evening. What was not to love? She had to stop.

Claire nodded. Her heart was a bad apple, soft and rotted. “Me, too,” she said.

PART TWO

CHAPTER SIX

He Loves Her

It was boom or bust, their business, and it was starting to wear on Siobhan. She slaved through the summer and fall, fielding phone calls from impetuous brides-to-be and their mothers; she woke up in the morning knowing she wouldn’t see the boys for five minutes because she had a sit-down lunch for fifteen people at noon, cocktails for a hundred in Brant Point at six, and a dinner buffet in Pocomo at six thirty. (Could she really be in two places at once? She would have to be.) This all-hell-has-broken-loose, wild-ass chaos was slightly preferable to suffering through the winter and spring, making good on all the dinners for eight that Island Fare put up for bid at charity auctions, and constantly worrying about money and illegal staff and getting jobs and money again. The business made a profit, but life was expensive. Liam had hockey, which had cost a fortune even before he broke his arm and took an eight-thousand-dollar jet ride to Boston, where he underwent two surgeries and incurred bills from a three-day hospital stay and five subsequent weeks of physical therapy. That was behind them now, but there was the mortgage, heating oil, and Christmas approaching, and Siobhan was beginning to suspect that Carter had a gambling problem. The man loved sports, but that was hardly unusual; God knows Siobhan had seen a pub full of men, including her father and her five brothers, scream bloody murder at the telly when rugby was on, or even worse, cricket. Carter spent so much time in the confines of the hot kitchen, it was healthy for him to have some release, and Siobhan was glad it was sports and not porn on the Internet. He was in a football pool, she knew that, but then the other night at dinner he announced that he had lost twelve hundred dollars on the Patriots game. Twelve hundred dollars! Siobhan nearly sprung a leak. She knew nothing about sports in this country and even less about the gambling that attended the sports, but she had assumed it entailed a bunch of guys throwing twenty bucks onto the bar. Twelve hundred dollars was six lovely dinners out; it was an entire weekend in Stowe or New York City.