“I’m revolting,” she said.

“You? Never.”

“My hair?” she said. “And God, I stink.”

Her hair was matted against her forehead and there were marks on her face where her goggles had clamped against her skin. She smelled sour and musky. And yet she had never been more beautiful. In fact, Lock would have been hard-pressed to remember a time he had ever found any woman more beautiful than Claire was right now, working, sweating, smiling in her hot shop. She was a queen.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” he said. “About giving you those numbers. I just thought—”

She put her hand over his mouth. “Forget it. I was too sensitive. I shouldn’t have stormed off.”

“And then you didn’t call . . .”

“You didn’t call me.”

“I didn’t feel like I could call you,” he said. “I did send an e-mail. Two, in fact.”

She didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure if this meant she had read them or not, but it didn’t matter. What the five days of silence had shown him was that he was in love with her. He might have been in love with her for a while, but he had never felt compelled to say it. To say it would be the ultimate in not safe.

“I’m in love with you,” he said.

Her eyes were wet—or it was the perspiration, or a trick of his vision in this heat. But no, he was right: she was crying.

“You must be,” she said. “You came.”

He squeezed her as hard as he could, fearing she would melt in his arms like butter, she would slip away, disappear. The molten glass on the end of her pipe, that hot, pulsing, living thing, that organ she controlled and expanded with only her breath—that was his heart.

They did not kiss much more and they certainly didn’t go any further. The hot shop was too hot, and there was Pan waiting in the house, and the whole fact of Lock’s trespassing on her (and Jason’s) territory. And, too, there was a sense that the purpose of this afternoon’s visit was deeper and more meaningful than their previous couplings. He had shared something, he had given himself over, and now everything was changed. It had been elevated. He was in love. She owned him. He was hers.

“I have to get back to the office,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “But one thing, please? Will you come up and see Zack?”

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs, asleep. I just want you to look at him.”

“Why?”

“Just because he’s my baby. I want you to see him. Please?”

They entered the house together, though not touching. Pan was sitting on a barstool at the counter, eating her lunch. She watched them silently as they climbed the stairs.

They entered the nursery, painted butter yellow. It had an alphabet rug and gauzy drapes, a walnut crib and matching changing table, shelves of board books, an upholstered rocking chair, a basket of plush animals. Heather had had such a nursery—her nursery was redecorated now and served as Daphne’s “study,” though Daphne did no actual work in there that Lock knew of, other than writing angry letters to the editor of the New York Times about the liberal slant of the paper’s journalism. This nursery was cozy, like the rest of the house; it soothed the soul. It gave Lock peace to walk in behind Claire, to gaze down on the sleeping baby, a beefy redhead with Claire’s pale skin. He was snuggled under a blue blanket, working a pacifier.

“This is Zack,” Claire whispered.

What did Lock think about this sleeping baby? Claire was knitting her fingers together nervously. She thought there was something wrong with her child, and it terrified her; she was scared, despite the fact that Gita Patel, a very good pediatrician, had said that Zack was fine, normal, healthy. For some reason, Claire wanted a diagnosis from Lock; her fears about Zack were the one thing she wanted him to assuage. It was the only thing she had ever asked him for.

Zack’s hair was red and curly like Claire’s, and his long, curved eyelashes were red. His skin was white like plaster or powder or snow or pure marble. His eyelids flickered back and forth; he sucked rhythmically on the pacifier. He was Claire’s child, her baby, and Lock felt a surge of love for him. If there was something wrong with this child, Lock would help Claire find it, fix it, cure it.

“He’s beautiful,” Lock said. “He’s perfect.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

He Leaves Her

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Sent: February 10, 2008, 10:02 A.M.
Subject: The invite
Isabelle—
Thank you for sending me the mock-up of the invite. It’s lovely, really, with the peach and the mint green, very elegant without being tired or fusty. I just wanted to address a few points. First of all, it seems you have renamed the event. “Une Petite Soirée” does have a certain Continental charm, but Nantucket isn’t Paris, nor is it Saint-Tropez, and the event has been called the “Summer Gala” for so long that I think, to avoid confusion, we should stick with it. So please change “Une Petite Soirée” to “Summer Gala.”
I noticed Aster forgot to include where the event was being held, so we need him to add a line after “6–10 P.M.” that reads “Town Recreational Fields, Old South Road.” Lastly, would you mind changing my name so that it reads “Claire Danner Crispin” instead of “Mrs. Jason Crispin.” Without getting into the particulars of my marriage, suffice it to say that nobody on this island or anywhere else in the world knows me as “Mrs. Jason Crispin.”