“So?” Claire said. “What do you think?”

What to say? The truth? I’m bloody horrified. I’m trying not to get sick. Be careful what you wish for. The kids—what about your beautiful kids?

Claire started to cry. “You hate me. You think I’m awful.”

Siobhan loathed sitting in judgment like this. It didn’t suit her. She was supposed to be the wicked one, the imp, the fiend.

“How long?” Siobhan said.

“Since the fall.”

Siobhan gasped but hoped it wasn’t audible. That long. Since the beginning, practically. Well, Siobhan had suspected something at Christmas. Something—but not this. I’m in love with him. This was not Claire giggling over the phone about the cute guy slinging her bags of rubbish into the back of a truck. This was a real situation. Love. Love? Claire was easily swayed, easily influenced; she let people in too close too soon; she loved with abandon, unconditionally; she cared about people, worried about them, took on their shit. It was in her blood, some heinous legacy dumped on her by her parents. Was it any wonder that Lock Dixon, a man with what Siobhan could only assume was a miserable existence—the damaged, schizo wife—had taken advantage of this and invaded?

“Say something!” Claire pleaded.

Siobhan dug her toes into the cold, crumbly sand. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you understand.”

“I don’t understand. Make me understand.”

“You think I’m betraying Jason and the kids. But haven’t you ever been so in love that nothing else mattered?” Claire grabbed Siobhan’s hands and squeezed them, but they were numb and bloodless, two dry sponges. “Haven’t you ever felt like your heart was upside down?”

Had she? She rummaged: Carter? Edward? Michael O’Keefe, with those blue eyes, the blue black hair, the tall leather boots? He rode horses. That was why young Siobhan had wanted a horse! She had been fatally in love with Michael O’Keefe. Was that what Claire was talking about? Probably, yes, but Siobhan had been how old then, eleven? They were grown women now; they knew better!

“Are you going to leave Jason?” Siobhan asked.

“No.”

“Okay,” Siobhan said. “So if you have no plans to leave Jason, then how do you see this progressing?”

“I have no idea.”

“You have to stop, Claire.”

“You sound like Father Dominic.”

“I’m sure I do.”

“I can’t stop. I’ve tried.”

“You have?”

“I try every day.”

“So are you just going to keep . . .”

“I really don’t know.”

“Because eventually, it’s going to come to a point where . . . or something will happen that . . .”

“You are my dearest friend in all the world,” Claire said, “and I trust you with my life. But you can’t tell anyone. Not your sisters back in Ireland, not Julie, not Carter . . .”

“Jesus, Claire, of course not.” Siobhan said this automatically, without thinking of how this secret, this insidious worm, was going to gnaw away at her. Could she keep this a secret? Siobhan pushed her glasses up her nose. Her lenses were smudged with salty condensation.

“I can’t believe I told you.” Claire was crying again. “I feel like I just set free the last remaining smallpox virus. I feel like I just handed you the weapon you’re going to murder me with.”

There was a way Siobhan was supposed to be acting; there were things she was supposed to be saying—comforting, reassuring things—that were eluding her. She had wanted the truth, the truth she now had. She had wanted the air clear; she had wanted Claire back. Be careful what you wish for.

Siobhan coughed into her hand. Her mother was everywhere with her maxims. The Irish had words for each blasted occasion, and the words were always right. Her mother’s hand always landed on her back, rubbing away the world, no matter how bad things got. This too shall pass away, Siobhan, my pet. This too shall pass.

Siobhan looked at her friend. Absolution was beyond her, but was comfort?

“Everything is going to be okay,” she said.

“You think?” Claire said.

CHAPTER NINE

She Blows It

Unlike coastal New Jersey, where Claire grew up, which had a mild spring, Nantucket went from slate gray skies and thirty-mile-an-hour winds to full-blown summer. The change of season was apparent all over the island; it was as though someone had raised the curtain and the show had begun. There were people everywhere; there was traffic; there were lines at the Stop & Shop and the post office; the sidewalks of Main Street were congested with people drinking coffee, buying wildflowers off the back of the farm truck, talking on cell phones, walking dogs, pushing strollers. The restaurants were opening one by one, and this year, Claire and Jason were invited to all of the splashy opening parties because Claire was cochair of the gala, because she was high- profile now, because her name had been linked to Max West’s in the newspaper, because Lock had somehow added her name to each and every invitation list—who knew why?

It was becoming nearly impossible to see Lock. There were people occupying the houses next to and across the street from the Elijah Baker House, there were people visiting the Greater Light garden at all times of day and night, and the police had started trawling even the most remote beaches. The board members of Nantucket’s Children were all in residence, and they popped in and out of the office at unexpected times. Once, when Lock and Claire were in the conference room having quiet, fervent sex, there had been an insistent knock on the door below. It caused them to jump and separate, to furiously pull on their clothes and button, zip, straighten. Lock tiptoed to the twenty-paned window, which was open (for ventilation purposes, it had to be, and because it was such a stubborn old dinosaur, it would remain open until October). Down on the sidewalk was Libby Jenkins, cochair from the previous year’s gala, with her husband and another couple. Libby had consumed some wine, perhaps, and her voice was a touch slurred as she said, “Damn, it’s locked. The office is to die for, I’m telling you, all the original plasterwork from eighteen fifty . . .” Libby and her group drifted off down the street, but Claire was left spooked. She and Lock held each other, breathing heavily, until a safe amount of time had passed and Claire felt okay to whisper, “Jesus.”