Of course there’s no listing. It’s 2015. Everyone got rid of landlines ten years ago.

Another honeymoon. On St. Mike’s—St. Michael’s, on the eastern shore of Maryland. There’s only one place that anyone would honeymoon on St. Mike’s, right? The Inn at Perry Cabin.

The woman who answers at the reception desk sounds young and bubbly, which is a good sign. “Good morning, the Inn at Perry Cabin, how may I direct your call?”

“Yes, good morning, this is Senator Ursula de Gournsey.” Ursula pauses. Please let this young woman follow politics. “I’m trying to reach Cooper Blessing. I believe he’s there on his honeymoon?”

“Good morning, Senator! Yes, he is. I’ll just need you to provide his room number so I can connect you.”

“I don’t have the room number,” Ursula says. “I didn’t anticipate having to call him this week but something urgent has come up. If I leave a message, will you please make sure he sees it right away?”

The desk clerk says, “Ohhhhmmmmm.” She pauses. “I suppose I can just put you through. Please hold, Senator.”

The phone starts to ring and Ursula wonders how she became a woman who would interrupt someone’s honeymoon to ask about her own husband’s possible infidelity. She should hang up! But she can’t. She needs to know.

A groggy Cooper answers the phone. “Hello?”

She’s woken him. Of course she’s woken him; it’s just after nine in the morning. She tries not to picture Cooper naked and hungover beneath the inn’s featherlight comforter, lying next to whatever poor woman has just become the fourth—fifth?—Mrs. Cooper Blessing.

“Cooper?” Ursula says. She sounds unhinged. She is unhinged. “It’s Ursula de Gournsey, good morning.”

She hears a rustling noise that she can only imagine is Cooper sitting up in bed, wondering what the hell is going on. “Good morning?” Cooper says. “Ursula…is everything okay? It’s not Jake, is it?” His voice breaks a little. He must think Jake is dead or injured or terminally ill, and now Ursula feels even worse. The last time she saw Cooper was at his parents’ funeral.

“Jake is fine,” she says quickly. “He and Bess are out to breakfast. They’re both just fine.” She inhales the breeze blowing in off the lake. The lake is so big, it creates its own horizon; she’s pretty sure that people who grew up on the coasts have no idea just how vast the Great Lakes are. “I’m calling to ask about your weekends with Jake on Nantucket.”

A beat passes. Cooper clears his throat. “Ursula,” he says.

“You and Jake go to Nantucket every year over Labor Day,” Ursula says. “Right?”

Another beat passes. Ursula hears a voice, female, the new wife, justifiably wanting to know who is calling their hotel room at nine in the morning during their honeymoon and making Cooper squirm. Ursula may end up being the reason for Cooper’s next divorce.

“Ursula de Gournsey,” Cooper whispers. “I’ll just be a minute.” And then he clears his throat and says, “Sorry about that, Ursula.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Ursula says. “Sorry for inserting myself into your life at what I’m sure is the least convenient moment. But something came to my attention just now. I was reading this…blog…and it dawned on me that maybe you and Jake haven’t been going to Nantucket together all these years. Maybe he’s…been going alone? Or with someone else? I don’t need any proof from you; you don’t need to send me pictures or share any stories. I’ll take you at your word.” Ursula feels her coffee about to repeat on her. If Cooper says he hasn’t been going to Nantucket, then an awful, stinking possibility will be exposed and they’ll both have to acknowledge it. “Has it been you that Jake spends Labor Day weekend with up on Nantucket?”

Half a beat, maybe not even. “Yes,” Cooper says. “Yes, of course, Ursula.”

Of course. Ursula closes her eyes. Would Coop lie to her? The answer, she can only assume, is yes. Cooper has a questionable track record with women; that much is irrefutable. Maybe he lies to his wives. Maybe he’s pathological. The other person he might be covering for is…his sister, Mallory. Mallory Blessing is pretty, yes. She’s a simple, clean kind of pretty. Girl-next-door pretty. She isn’t glamorous, isn’t powerful, isn’t a siren. She isn’t anything like Ursula. There is no way Mallory Blessing has enough allure to reel Jake all the way back to Nantucket year after year after year. Ursula is paranoid; deranged, even—and she has just shown her hand to Cooper.

“Great, Coop, thank you so much!” Ursula says. She makes her voice as bright and cheerful as she can so there’s no doubt in Cooper’s mind that she’s a complete sociopath.

“Ursula?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for checking in,” Cooper says. “See you on the Hill.”

Ursula hangs up. She walks back to her Adirondack chair. Her iPad is lying in the grass, Leland’s Letter still glowing on the screen. Everything about the morning has lost its appeal. She did not assess the situation slowly or methodically. She acted on impulse and now she feels like a fool.

The sand dollars and fortune cookies, though. It bothers her.

Mallory drops Link off at Nobadeer Beach to meet his friends. Nobadeer is on the same coastline as the beach they live on and Mallory can’t quite understand why Link doesn’t just invite his friends to the house like he did when he was younger. Mallory even offered to make everyone fajitas with her homemade guacamole. But Link said that Nobadeer was “more fun.”

Plus, he said, nobody wants to go to the beach when there are parents watching.

Watching what? Mallory asked, but she received no answer.

“There had better not be any beer in that backpack,” she says. “If the police call me, I’m not answering. You’ll molder in jail.”

“No beer,” Link says.

“Prove it,” Mallory says.

Link hesitates, then unzips the backpack: two bottles of water and a Gatorade.

“Lucky you,” Mallory says.

“Where’s the trust?” Link says. His tone is good-natured but when he gets out, he slams the door of the Jeep a little harder than he needs to.

“Hey,” she calls through the open window. “I love you.”

He raises a hand.

“I love you, Lincoln,” she says a bit louder.

He turns around scowling, but he can’t hold on to it. He grins. “Love you, Mama.”

Mallory’s phone rings. It’s Cooper. Cooper? He just got married six days earlier on the eastern shore of Maryland. Mallory flew down for the wedding. It had been a simple affair—just her, Amy and Coop, and Amy’s sister and mother. While Mallory was away she’s pretty sure Link had people over, even though he was supposed to be staying at his friend Bodie’s house. When she got home, the floor in the kitchen was sticky, she was out of Windex, paper towels, hot dogs, and ketchup, and she’d found an empty Coke can on the windowsill in the bathroom. She was relieved it was Coke, but Link is fourteen and she has taught high school way too long to be naive; beer is probably not far behind.