He had gotten her back into the hot shop, back to work. He hadn’t thought of it as a come-on; if he thought of it at all, it was as a public service. The world, in his opinion, should not be without the art of Claire Danner Crispin. When he asked her to create a piece for the auction, he was pretty sure she’d be thrilled, flattered. He had not, at that time, understood why she had stopped working. He thought the break was temporary, a maternity leave. Now he knew the whole story, and while there was much that Lock wanted to say in response, he kept his mouth shut. He was glad he had gotten her back into the hot shop, working again.

You would have gone crazy, he said. Spending the rest of your life sponging countertops.

Oh, I don’t know... , she said.

But it was clear she loved being back at work. She was fired up again, she said.

Lock had a harder time convincing her that neither the fall nor Zack’s early delivery was her fault.

I was the one who fell, she said. I was dehydrated. I wasn’t drinking enough water. The temperature was unsafe, I knew that. My doctor warned me . . .

She talked all the time about Zack. Lock had only seen Zack once, in passing, though Claire described him as very needy and “way behind” where her other kids were at his age. Lock thought it sounded bad, or potentially bad, and in an attempt to help, he gave Claire some information about Early Intervention (Nantucket’s Children funded them every year) as well as the name of a doctor in Boston. Lock thought Claire would be grateful for this information, but it immediately became clear that she resented it.

“You think there’s something wrong with him!”

“I don’t even know him, Claire. I haven’t spent five minutes with him. I only gave you the information because you seemed concerned and I wanted to help.”

This turned into an argument. For the first time, they parted on bad terms. Claire was sobbing about Zack—there was something wrong with him, it was her fault, she knew it—and there was Lock, rubbing her nose in it, giving her the number of a doctor in Boston, and of Early Intervention. If I thought he needed Early Intervention, she screamed, I would have called them myself! Lock had only been trying to help. He facilitated things like this all the time; it wasn’t his job to make a diagnosis, only to put people with problems in touch with people who could solve the problems. He’d tried to explain this to Claire, but she was having none of it. She drove off.

Lock didn’t hear from Claire for five days. Five empty, nearly unbearable days. He was distracted at work; every time the phone rang, he stopped what he was doing and watched Gavin, listening. Was it Claire? No. Every time he heard the door open at the bottom of the stairs, his heart leapt. No. He sent Claire one (vague) e-mail of apology, then another. She did not respond, but this wasn’t entirely surprising. Claire rarely checked her e-mail. Finally he decided he would stop by her house. This decision was both rash and carefully thought out. On the one hand, he didn’t want to see her cheerful, bustling household and feel bereft and lonely because his own home was as chilly and white as an empty icebox. After Siobhan had run across the two of them, together, in Claire’s car, they had made a rule about seeing each other during the day: they wouldn’t do it except in the name of legitimate gala business. There was, of course, a lot of legitimate gala business: Claire was working on production for the concert; she and Isabelle were back-and-forthing on the invite design, possible underwriting, and assignments for the committee members. Before the argument, Claire and Lock had had lunch on two occasions, once with Tessa Kline of NanMag. Tessa was doing a feature spread on Nantucket’s Children and Lockhart Dixon, executive director, and the annual summer gala, and Claire Danner Crispin, gala cochair and local artisan.

“I’ve always wanted to do a really in-depth piece like this,” Tessa said, “and bring in all these different, intersecting elements.”

They were at lunch at the Sea Grille, and Lock and Claire were sitting next to each other on the banquette while Tessa faced them, firing questions. At one point, Claire nudged Lock with her leg and he shifted away from her. They talked all the time about how important it was to “be careful.” Siobhan already harbored suspicions; they couldn’t have any more close calls. If they got caught, it would ruin everything: Claire’s marriage, her family life, Lock’s marriage, his reputation, and the reputation of Nantucket’s Children.

The affair was a grenade. Pull the pin, and everything got destroyed.

But Lock couldn’t stand thinking of Claire upset by something he’d done. He couldn’t let another day go by without seeing her.

He decided to go to Claire’s house under the pretense of dropping off a stack of underwriting letters that Claire had to sign and mail out, ASAP. Before the argument (and it couldn’t accurately be called an argument because they hadn’t fought or even disagreed—he had inadvertently offended her), Claire had asked him, all the time, to stop by and see her. It would be sweet, she said, and romantic, if he surprised her sometime.

Come in the early afternoon, Claire said. Jason is never home.

Lock wasn’t worried about Jason. He had actually bumped into Jason at Christmastime at Marine Home Center, where they were both buying tree stands. They stood in line together and made small talk.

Jason said, “Claire is really into that thing the two of you are working on.”

“Mmmm,” Lock said. “Yes. The gala.”

“Should be a hoot,” Jason said.