Kirby and Jessie groan in stereo. Kirby is as pretty as a model—she’s stick-thin with golden hair like Tiger’s and delicate features—while Jessie is as dark and mysterious as a gypsy child. Magee has always wanted a sister. She desperately wants all three of Tiger’s sisters to accept her, so she has been watching their every move.

“What kind of surprise?” Kirby asks.

Kate’s face breaks into a grin. Magee has found Kate to be fairly reserved and proper, so her enthusiasm now is something brand-new.

“A big, big surprise. David, don’t turn here.”

Kate’s husband, David, has been very kind and welcoming to Magee. Before they left Boston, he pulled Magee aside and said, “Don’t let this family intimidate you. There are a lot of strong women. Just be yourself.”

Now he says to Kate, “What do you have up your sleeve, Katie Nichols?”

“I’ve done something wonderful!” Kate says, clapping her hands like a child. “Just keep driving where I tell you.”

Magee will be relieved if they’re going to a hotel instead of the grandmother’s house. In his most recent letter, Tiger told Magee that she would be expected to shower outside all weekend. That last bit had thrown Magee into a sheer panic. It was thirty-eight degrees outside; they’d been having frost for weeks. Surely Tiger was joking?

The two-car caravan rumbles up the cobblestoned main street lined with charming storefronts. Magee gazes at the pumpkins in windows, the corn shocks by doorways, the last of the orange and red leaves clinging to the trees that line the sides of the road.

“Does Blair know where we’re going?” Jessie asks.

“She does not,” Kate says. Kate cranks down her window and waves her arm at the car behind.

Blair says to Angus, “What is my mother doing? Where are we going?”

“It looks like she wants us to follow them,” Angus says. “Maybe to look at the ocean? Is that some kind of Thanksgiving tradition you all have?”

“No,” Blair says. They usually celebrate Thanksgiving at Exalta’s house in Beacon Hill as they did last year, when Blair ate the cherrystone clam that didn’t agree with her and then the next day discovered she was pregnant. They did come to Nantucket for Thanksgiving one year when Blair was a teenager. It had been rainy and cold and Kate lit the fireplace in the living room without remembering to open the flue and the living room filled with smoke and Exalta got in a dither about soot ruining the mural. Then it turned out that Nonny had forgotten to pick up the turkey they’d ordered from Savenor’s before they left and they ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Woodbox—and to protest the turn the holiday had taken, Blair ordered the beef Wellington. Blair hadn’t wanted to come back to Nantucket this year. There just wasn’t room for everyone and especially not since Kate invited Magee—but Kate insisted they would all just cram in.

“I don’t know where they’re going but I don’t feel like a wild-goose chase right now,” Blair says. “The second the babies wake up, they’ll have to nurse.”

“They just fell asleep,” Angus says. “We have at least an hour, maybe longer. I’m going to follow them. Why not?” He reaches out to stroke Blair’s leg. “It’ll be an adventure.”

Blair takes Angus’s hand and relaxes against the seat. Angus is a new man, carefree and spontaneous. He received a whopping bonus from NASA—ten thousand dollars!—but he has declined their offer to work on the next mission. He’s going to teach a normal course load, mentor his graduate students, and help out with the babies.

Blair had wondered if Angus’s psychoanalysis with Trixie was any different than witchcraft, but she has to admit, he really does seem better. He hasn’t suffered any episodes, and his general demeanor is looser and more relaxed. He smiles and laughs; he’s present and engaged. Blair had called the graduate-school admissions office at Harvard to check on the status of her deferral and was informed that she could start her studies in January. After they get home from Nantucket, Blair will begin to wean the babies and they will interview nannies.

Kate’s parents head out on the Madaket Road. If they wanted to see the water, why not drive to Cisco? It’s much closer.

“Where are we going?” Blair asks.

Kirby can’t believe a surprise has been thrown into their Thanksgiving. The whole point of Thanksgiving is tradition, sameness—although this past year has been one of enormous, unpredictable change, so why should Thanksgiving be any different?

Kirby wonders if her grandmother is in on this surprise. Exalta came up to the island on Monday, which was completely unheard of, and it made Kirby wonder if there was some truth to Jessie’s claim that she had personally witnessed Exalta and Mr. Crimmins kissing, as in really kissing, on the night of the moon walk.

Kirby isn’t sure that means Exalta and Mr. Crimmins are sleeping together—perish the thought!—but she will concede that Exalta has softened up. Kirby has spent a fair amount of time this fall currying favor with Exalta. She goes to lunch at the Union Club with her once a week because Exalta has agreed to pony up the three thousand dollars Kirby needs for a semester abroad in Geneva.

At their most recent lunch, Exalta ordered a bottle of champagne and they both got a little tipsy. Exalta had leaned across the table and said, “Tell me, Katharine, about your romantic life. Surely there must be a young man.”

Kirby felt heat rise to her cheeks, which was a novel sensation. She wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or nerves or love. She had been seeing Darren. There was a date at Mr. Bartley’s Burgers, then after that, an afternoon trip to the aquarium, then they met at the Boston Public Library to study together and went to Chinatown for noodles afterward. Kirby tried to keep things casual because she was leaving for Switzerland right after the new year and she couldn’t risk a heavy romantic entanglement. But then Darren announced that he would be studying that same semester at the university in Genoa, Italy, which was only two hours away by train, and so suddenly Kirby was fantasizing about the kind of torrid affair they could conduct in cities where nobody knew them on a continent where no one would judge them.

Kirby said, “There’s no one special.”

“No one?” Exalta asked.