Siobhan pressed her head against Edward’s chest. Edward was a good man, a good person; he would be a wonderful father and an amazing provider. Siobhan had not loved him enough or in the right way, and there was no crime in that, but there was a crime in not behaving like a decent human being. Facing Edward all these years—even the blurred glimpse of him as they passed each other in their cars—had meant facing her worst failure.

She couldn’t apologize, however. She didn’t have the words at her disposal and she feared anything she said would sound lame or overwrought, not to mention ten years late. So she raised her face and she kissed him as softly as she possibly could, and the kiss stirred her, it excited her in a way she had forgotten she could be excited, and soon they were kissing crazily, they were two people in a movie, kissing and sucking and pawing each other. She was going to follow Claire into the dark forest! She was going to shag Edward. She would sin, but it would be ameliorated, in a way, by Siobhan’s making things right with Edward. She would be giving him something he’d been waiting for for ten years.

Where? There, in the back of the van? The back of the van was cluttered with dishes. Her chef’s jacket was now open, exposing her camisole underneath, and Edward’s shirt was unbuttoned at the top. She could see he was ready to go, and she was certainly ready. Her mind flickered to Claire, Isabelle, Lock—all still inside, right? Blotting glue on the envelopes with the dainty sponges, peeling stamps, discussing the names of the people on the invitation list (“He’s the one with the house on Shawkemo Road . . . whose wife died of . . . and then, the next summer, he married a twenty-five-year-old”). Was anyone looking for Edward or Siobhan? Most certainly not. Everyone inside was drunk, anyway.

“My car,” Edward said. “The hood of my car.”

Siobhan thought he was kidding. It would be bad enough when she confessed to Father Dominic about the adultery, but imagine the look on Father’s face when she told him it had happened on the hood of Edward’s Jaguar! But Edward had a point: The hood of his car was tucked under the branches of a large tree. Even in the dark, it was in shadows, and it was the car parked farthest from the house.

Yes! Hurry! They were sneaking now, tiptoeing over the crushed white shells of Isabelle’s driveway. Siobhan felt lawless and heady. Was she really going to do this? It seemed so. Just the one time, and it was Edward, an old lover, not a new lover. Did that make it any less treacherous than what Claire was doing? Claire was in love; that was her justification. Siobhan was not in love with Edward; she had fallen out of love with Edward or had never been properly in love with him, she had lied to him about that or had misrepresented herself, the lie had broken his heart, and she felt guilty. And so now here she was, sinning in order to make things right. It made sense to Siobhan but it was also perfectly fucked up. Would she go to hell? Would she and Claire go together?

She smelled somebody’s cigarette.

“Who’s out there?” a voice shouted.

Edward whipped around. “Hello?” he said. He held Siobhan with one hand, and the other hand flew to his shirt buttons. Siobhan clenched her chef’s jacket together in front and peered around Edward.

Gavin Andrews came crunching around the corner. When he saw Edward and Siobhan, he shouted, “Ahh!”

And Siobhan screamed, “Ahh!”

Gavin put a hand to his heart. “Jesus,” he said. “You scared me! I thought there was a burglar out here!”

“A burglar?” Siobhan said, thinking automatically of the truffle salt. But she had put it back!

“No burglars,” Edward said. “It’s just us.”

“Yes,” Gavin said, taking a drag off his cigarette. “I can see that.”

They stood for a moment in awkward silence. Okay, Siobhan thought. She was not going to shag Edward. Gavin Andrews, of all people, had arrived like a sign from God and put a stop to it. Now Siobhan had to worry about what this looked like. Did it look like she and Edward were about to shag on the hood of Edward’s car? Oh, God, Siobhan hoped not. It was safe to bet that half the gossip on the island of Nantucket started with Gavin Andrews.

“I was helping Siobhan put dishes in her van,” Edward said. Somehow he had gotten his buttons done and his shirt straightened and he looked perfectly normal and presentable. But Siobhan looked like she had just fallen out of bed after a legendary ravishing. “How’s everything inside?”

“Oh,” Gavin said. He blew a stream of smoke through his nose. “Fine.”

They had both had a lot to drink and it was very late, nearly midnight, but an opportunity like this didn’t present itself often, so they took it. They drove to Altar Rock and looked at the moon. It had been nearly two weeks since they’d been alone together, and although they’d talked every day, they hadn’t really talked, and so as Claire lay in Lock’s arms, she told him all of the things that she’d been saving up for him—that she loved him, that she missed him, that her heart was lonely, starved, suffocating without him. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on this way.

He kissed her neck. “The Eiffel Tower,” he said. “The post office.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I know.” Play cards, eat Big Macs, go to the movies, do the things that other people did, do them together. She’d had a lot to drink, and it was affecting her. Here she was, in the middle of the night, in the most beautiful place in the world. Altar Rock, the highest point on the island, was not much more than a hill, but it looked out over the moors and ponds. This was her home, in the moonlight. She was only going to be alive once. Shouldn’t she be happy?