Before Lock returned to the inn to shower and change—they were going to a restaurant thirty miles away, at Heather’s suggestion—Heather said, “You and Mom don’t have to worry about me. I’m going to be fine.”

Lock looked at his daughter—her dark hair, her wide, pretty mouth, so much like Daphne’s, her strong legs, her slender, feminine feet in espadrilles—and he nearly wept. He had expected to hear those words when she was ready to embark on her honeymoon, or when she was setting off for college, perhaps—but not now, at the age of fifteen. He thought he’d experienced and expelled all his sadness about losing his daughter’s confidence and her company, but he was wrong. He felt it freshly now.

He was so consumed with keeping things between Heather and Daphne on an even keel—it was exhausting—that he didn’t have a second to think about Claire. That changed once Lock and Daphne pulled away from Phillips Academy, once they were alone together, with what seemed like an endless stretch of alone-together time in front of them. Daphne stared out the window silently for a while, then started on a diatribe about Heather. Her legs were the legs of an eighteen-year-old boy, a cross-country runner, with those ropy muscles. If she stayed at that school, she would most certainly become a lesbian. They had to pull her out. She seemed so unhappy, anyway, didn’t she? Positively morose. She hadn’t smiled once the whole time they were there. And what to make of the vegetarianism? She had been raised on beef tenderloin! The school was to blame—so liberal, so forward-thinking, offering shameful alternatives to the way normal people lived. Had Lock happened to notice the hair on the girl who served them? Heather should move home. They could redecorate the basement, turn it into a hangout with an iPod station and the best speakers, a computer, a plasma TV, a refrigerator—full of hummus, if that was what she wanted! Anything so she would come home! She’s so set on privacy and independence, we’ll just promise her we’ll never go down there.

Lock was silent. The idea wasn’t terrible. Lock wanted Heather home as much as Daphne did, but he knew it was never going to happen. In response to Lock’s silence, Daphne started to cry, and Lock reached over for her hand, which she flung away in anger.

“We should have had more children,” she said. “I can’t believe I let you talk me out of it.”

It was pointless to remind her that after Heather was born, a cyst formed on one of Daphne’s ovaries and she’d had both ovaries removed. Blame for the fact that Heather was an only child had, since the accident, fallen squarely onto Lock’s shoulders.

At some point during the ride to the airport, Lock remembered Claire, although it would be inaccurate to say he’d forgotten her. Rather, he’d decided, out of fairness to Daphne and Heather, that he would do his best to contain his feelings for Claire. He would put them in a box—a small, gold treasure chest, as he envisioned it—and keep it closed and locked. However, as Daphne railed against him for first one offense, then another, Lock opened the box, just a crack—he pictured Claire driving to the grocery store, pulling a gather from her pot furnace, climbing into bed. In Lock’s mind, she was alone, though in reality, he knew, this was never the case. More images flowed out of the box: He heard Claire’s clogs on the stairs of the Elijah Baker House as he waited, two glasses of wine in hand, breath suspended, for her to pop her head around the corner. Hey, you. He thought about wiping away the tears that often appeared in the corners of her eyes after they made love. Claire cried for a variety of reasons: the sex was astonishing, the rush of emotion overwhelmed her, she hated to leave him, it hurt, physically, to rip herself away. And, too, there was guilt—about Jason, about Daphne, about the kids—and there was fear, fear of getting caught, fear of going to hell. Nearly every time they were together, they talked about stopping, about walking away in the name of a righteous life. But neither of them ever followed through. It was cathartic to talk about but impossible to execute, leaving each other. They felt ecstatic, elated, anxious, guilt-ridden, despicable—but mostly, they felt alive. Each day was spring-loaded and tense with possibility—to see each other, to talk, to touch—and it was this emotion that was too intoxicating to give up.

The actual vacation, although parts of it were pleasant—the hot sun, the cool, clear blue water, the delicious food and drinks, the luxurious room, the attentive service—felt to Lock like a vacuum. It was an eight-day, seven-night tunnel of no Claire; it was something to be survived. He had promised Claire he would e-mail, and in fact, the resort had a business center he could have used at any time, but he felt that communicating with her—trying to put words to his emptiness and then subjecting himself to the added torture of awaiting a response—would be infinitely more painful than just putting his head down and enduring. He and Daphne spent long, silent hours by the pool, each of them reading, and while Daphne napped, Lock took walks on the beach, thinking not of Claire (always of Claire) but of what topics he could bring up at dinner that would not incite a verbal attack from Daphne. She did seem marginally better at the resort, though she found ways to insult the other guests (who were primarily British and therefore reserved and inclined to keep to themselves, especially when they heard Daphne lapse into her clucking). There were two evenings of intimacy and these were, perhaps, the most trying times for Lock. Sexually, Daphne was both aggressive and impossible to please. Lock, helped along by three rum punches, strove to remember Daphne as she used to be, before she took to assaulting his manhood at the same time that she was trying to excite him. It was during these intimate moments that Lock thought to himself, I cannot stay married to this woman. He would not be able to stand a lifetime of such sexual encounters, but he also knew he would never be able to cut Daphne loose, no matter how bad things got. There wasn’t another man alive who would be willing to take Daphne on, and her parents had passed away, so what this meant was that if Lock abandoned her, she would become Heather’s lot, and Lock could not, would not, burden his daughter that way. He would stay with Daphne.