Is everything okay?

Tess looked up, unsurprised by the question. Yeah.

No, I mean it. Something’s going on. What is it? You haven’t been to mass in weeks.

I’m finished with the Lord.

What does that mean?

I don’t want to talk about it.

Are you mad at me? This was Andrea’s fear, a fear greater, perhaps, than she was willing to admit. Andrea knew she was tough, she knew she was prickly, aggressive, unforgiving, she knew there were women who disliked her and that even Phoebe and Delilah had their moments with her. But she had always saved her nicest, kindest, sweetest self for Tess.

Tess softened. No. God, no, Andrea. I could never be mad at you.

Andrea felt herself about to cry chardonnay tears. She had been racking her brain, trying to figure out if she had done something wrong, if she had made some kind of egregious misstep that had hurt Tess.

Is it… April Peck?

April Peck? Tess looked confused. Then she shook her head and her chin wobbled. April Peck is such small potatoes.

Such small potatoes. The phrase had stuck with Andrea because it was an odd turn of phrase, and because those were the final words on the topic. Addison had come bumbling into the conversation, interrupting them, pulling Tess to her feet, imploring her to come watch. They were about to announce best actress.

“Small potatoes?” Jeffrey said now.

Andrea looked at him. “What do you think that meant?”

Tess canceled lunch dates, she skipped her monthly book group, she claimed to be taking an intense Pilates class at the gym that met three afternoons a week. The Pilates class met from four to five on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but one Wednesday, Andrea saw Tess in the ever-reliable Kia barreling down the Polpis Road at five minutes to five. She was driving like a bat out of hell, which was what caught Andrea’s attention in the first place (this may have been a standard complaint from the police chief’s wife, but in her opinion, people on this island drove way too fast). Then Andrea saw it was Tess and she nearly called her, though the last thing Tess should be doing was speeding and talking on the phone. Andrea checked her mental calendar, trying to figure out what would have put Tess on the Polpis Road at five minutes to five on a Wednesday. Didn’t she have Pilates class? The health club was on the other side of the island. Andrea was the police chief’s wife, not the police chief, but she decided to do some investigating herself. The detective work was elementary. Andrea called the health club to inquire about the Pilates class held at four o’clock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The man who answered the phone was flummoxed.

“Pilates? We offer Pilates Tuesday and Thursday at ten A.M. and Monday and Thursday at six A.M. and six P.M.”

“Nothing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at four?”

“Spinning class Monday and Wednesday at three. Jazz dance Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at five-thirty. Do you want jazz dance?”

“Jazz dance?” Andrea said.

Later she called Tess at home. Tess was upbeat. “I’m making quesadillas,” she said.

Andrea paused. “How was your Pilates class?”

“It was great!” Tess said. “I can feel it working. My abdomen is so much tighter.”

Jeffrey was quiet. All Andrea could hear was the sound of the fans, which nicely mimicked the sound his spinning brain might make as it came up with myriad possibilities, then flung them away.

“Should I state the obvious?” he said.

“She was seeing someone?” Andrea said.

“She was seeing someone.”

They sat with that a minute, Andrea shocked by the sound of the words. Well, hello, she wasn’t an idiot. This possibility had shadowed each of Tess’s mood swings, each lie, and particularly the phrases “finished with the Lord” and “small potatoes” when used in regard to April Peck.

If April Peck was small potatoes, what was big potatoes?

Seeing someone? But who?

“She would have told me,” Andrea said.

“You’re right,” Jeffrey said.

“No, she wouldn’t have,” Andrea said.

“You’re right,” Jeffrey said.

“She thought of me as her mother.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint you.”

“I wouldn’t have been disappointed in her,” Andrea said. But even as she said them, the words felt false. Andrea had always had mixed feelings about Greg, but she believed in marriage. (She was Catholic! She grew up with a nun living in her basement!) When Tess and Greg had separated during that week in November, it was Andrea who had talked her into going back. It was Andrea who had made the picnic for the anniversary sail. She had broken the sacred rule of no gifts because she wanted Tess and Greg to be happy on their anniversary. She had sensed that Tess was getting ready to leave the marriage, and she had been saying, Stay!

She was seeing someone.

Andrea felt the firm clutches of certainty. Tess had been seeing someone. It explained everything.

She stood up to leave. She could handle only one revelation per day, and this was a biggie. But was it really as shocking as Andrea was making it out to be? Wasn’t it like a pile of dirty laundry in the corner with a blanket thrown over it? Pull back the blanket and there it was, just as you knew it would be all along.

Jeffrey stood as well. He was looking at her intently, and she couldn’t bear it, because this was goodbye. This was the end of the secret, strange journey the two of them had taken together. Andrea had entrusted her grief to Jeffrey, and he had been tender with it, he had spent hours and hours talking Tess’s life through. It was a painstaking process that no one else would have donated the time to. Andrea had come here because she loved Jeffrey, and Jeffrey let her stay because he loved her, too. Now they had come to the end of the life story of Tess DiRosa MacAvoy, and this meant that Andrea would stop coming here, there would be no more stolen hours in the sweltering attic, and this was its own kind of heartbreak.