Gita Patel smiled at Claire and said, “He looks great. Do you have any concerns?”

“I look at him,” Claire said, “and I feel something isn’t right.”

“Something like what?” Dr. Patel said.

“Like he’s not developing fast enough. He can’t walk. He doesn’t crawl on his hands and knees. He cries all the time. He doesn’t have any words. He isn’t active or engaged like my other kids were.”

Dr. Patel put a finger out. Zack grabbed it. She held his hands and he took a few steps down the examining table. She tickled his feet, and he smiled, then started crying.

“See?” Claire said.

“He’s fine, Claire,” Dr. Patel said.

“He was so little when he was born,” Claire said. “He was intubated for so long. I shouldn’t have been in the hot shop. It was irresponsible.” She picked Zack up and hugged him. “I feel so guilty.”

“He’s fine, Claire. He’s going to be fine. Kids develop at different rates, even siblings. Okay? If I had any doubts, I would tell you, but I don’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Dr. Patel put her hand on Claire’s arm, and this gesture and the words were so comforting that Claire nearly said, I have a lover, Lock Dixon, and he’s in Tortola with his wife. I miss him. I need him. Father Dominic says I have to stop, but it’s beyond me. Sometimes I can’t believe this is really me because I am not like this. I’m a good person, or I always had been until this thing. Can you help me?

“Thank you,” Claire said.

Bad day followed bad day. Lock was away, still away. How was he filling all those hours with Daphne? Claire thought of Daphne, breasts spilling out of her bathing suit, swimming in a pool with an infinity edge while some cute British butler brought her a planter’s punch. Claire considered e-mailing Lock and telling him about the visit with Dr. Patel; he would be interested in this, he would be happy to hear Claire repeat Dr. Patel’s words, but no, she would not contact him first. He had yet to send her a single e-mail. So . . . if he was wondering how things here were going, let him wonder!

Siobhan called to say that Carter had had an unexpected windfall, and to celebrate, they were throwing a drinks party. Martinis and munchies, Saturday night. This raised Claire’s spirits. Lock was with Daphne in Tortola, but Claire had a wild, rollicking party to attend. She would get perniciously drunk.

Claire was all keyed up for Saturday night. Carter and Siobhan threw the best parties on the island, and all of Claire’s friends would be there, the people in her foxhole. She looked in her closet for something to wear; she yearned for something new, although she never had time to shop. She put on jeans and a jade green cashmere sweater and pearls. She tried not to think about Lock. As she got ready she drank a glass of wine and Jason drank a beer and they listened to Max West on the stereo in their room. Jason was wearing jeans and a black shirt and a black blazer and his cowboy boots. His hair was damp and mussed, and Claire ran her hands through it, smoothing it. He smelled good, his face had a day or two of growth, which was how she liked it—scruffy—and he had a tan from working outside. It had been weeks since he’d come home reeking of cigarette smoke, she realized. She should be grateful for that. Jason was handsome, he was sexy, and she could see this and know it intellectually, but it was hard to make herself feel anything.

“Do you want to fool around?” she asked, thinking it must be a balmy night in Tortola, and Lock and Daphne would be on their way out to dinner, ordering grilled lobster and conch fritters.

Jason glanced at his watch. “We don’t really have time, do we?”

Claire blinked at him, stunned. In fifteen years, he had not turned away from even the slightest chance of getting lucky. They had been late for all sorts of things because of Jason’s libido; they were famous for being late.

She shrugged. “I guess not.” She touched his collar. “You look good tonight, Jase.”

“You, too,” he said.

Claire poured a second glass of wine into one of Zack’s plastic cups and drank it on the way to Siobhan’s house. They took Jason’s truck. It was warm enough to crack the windows, and Jason hummed along to the Allman Brothers on the radio. Claire looked at his profile, as familiar to her as her own face. He was her husband, they had built a family together, a house together, a life together—and yet they had nothing in common anymore, did they, except their mutual efforts to sustain what they had created. They were alone, out of the house together for the first time all week, and they had nothing to say. Claire could ask him about the job, but he didn’t like to talk about work; she could revisit, for the hundredth time, the encouraging things that Dr. Patel had said about Zack, but the words lost their effect every time she repeated them. She wanted to ask Jason why he had turned her down, back in the bedroom. Was he angry with her? Had he noticed her foul mood of the past ten days and connected it to Lock’s absence? Did he know what was going on? Had he lost interest in her, finally, this week—had his desire for her dried up? Was he consumed with stress, about the house in Wauwinet or about something else? She was flabbergasted to find that she had no idea what he was thinking about.

“Does your back still hurt?” she asked.

“A little,” he said.

“Did you take a painkiller?”

“Three Advil, right when I got home.”