“You can’t,” Dabney said. Mondays at one, Box taught a seminar on Tobin to twelve handpicked seniors; it was his favorite class.

“I suppose I could ask Miranda to cover it,” Box said.

Ah, yes, Miranda. Thirty-five-year-old Australian economics prodigy Miranda Gilbert, with the naughty-librarian glasses and the enchanting accent. She had been Box’s teaching and research assistant for the past four years. Dabney had always been a little jealous of Miranda. But Box would never keep a secret from Dabney as she was now doing. She should just tell him: Clendenin Hughes would be arriving on Nantucket tomorrow. So what? To not tell him turned it into a bigger deal than it was. To not tell him made it seem like Dabney was affected by it.

Dabney was affected by it.

“How is Miranda?” Dabney asked.

“Miranda?” Box plucked a maraschino cherry from the jar and ate it, then grimaced. “She’s fine. Dr. Bartelby is getting ready to propose, I guess.”

Dr. Bartelby, Miranda’s boyfriend, was an internist at Mass General. Dr. Bartelby (whose Christian name was Christian) and Miranda had come to visit the Beeches on Nantucket the past three summers. “He told her he’s getting ready to propose? That takes all the fun out of it.”

“I’m not sure how it works these days,” Box said. “But I do believe Miranda is about to join the married ranks.”

A wave of dizziness overcame Dabney and she steadied herself against the counter.

“Are you all right?” Box asked. He put a hand on her lower back, but even that light touch hurt.

She had to make the ribbon sandwiches before the bread dried out. And the asparagus needed to be trimmed and roasted. Agnes and CJ would be home soon with the daffodils for the car. Decorating the Impala on Friday evening was one of Dabney’s favorite parts of the weekend. But all Dabney could do was stagger through the kitchen and into the library, where she collapsed on the sofa. Box covered her with an afghan crocheted by her beloved grammie, the first Agnes Bernadette. Dabney felt like she was going to die.

Forbearance: her ancestors had endured much worse, Dabney knew. Her great-great-great-grandmother, Dabney Margaret Wright, had come to Nantucket from Beacon Hill, leaving behind home, furnishings, and society. She and their three sons had moved into a house on Lily Street while Warren sailed off to hunt whales. He had been gone for eighteen months on his first trip, then home for six months—and he never returned from his second trip. Dabney Wright had made the best of a tragic situation: she joined the congregation of the Summer Street Church, and befriended other women who had been widowed by the sea. She had not complained, at least not in Dabney’s imagination. She had kept a stiff upper lip.

And Dabney, too, would persevere. After Dabney recovered from her spell, she assembled the ribbon sandwiches and wrapped them in wax paper. She roasted the asparagus. Agnes and CJ took charge of bedecking the Impala: a daffodil wreath on the grille and a blanket of daffodils laid across the wide trunk. Dabney showered and put on her navy and yellow Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. It was one of the dresses Patty Benson had left hanging in her closet when she abandoned her husband and daughter. Dabney didn’t attach sentimental value to things, or at least she didn’t in this case. She wore her mother’s dresses all the time because she liked them, and they fit.

Dabney tried to make a reasonable effort at dinner at the Club Car, despite the fact that she wished she were in bed with a bowl of soup and a Jane Austen novel. Instead, she ordered the lamb chops, as she always did, and Box selected an excellent Australian Shiraz to go with them. One sip of the wine set Dabney’s head spinning.

She said, “You know, Box was teaching at Harvard when I was a student there, but I never took one of his classes.”

Agnes stared at her mother. She had ordered the crab cake, but she hadn’t taken a single bite. “Yes, Mommy, we know.”

CJ smiled at Dabney. He was wearing a navy blazer and a sumptuously patterned Robert Graham shirt. Before they left the house, Box had admired CJ’s chocolate suede Gucci loafers and then said to Dabney, “You should get me a pair like that!” Dabney had to admit, CJ presented well, he smelled good, and he had a nice head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair and straight white teeth. Too white, like maybe he treated them. But that wasn’t a reason to dislike the man. CJ had ordered the lamb chops, medium rare, just like Dabney had, and this reminded Dabney of a time the autumn before when he had ordered exactly the same thing as she had. It was as if he was copying her in an attempt to be found agreeable.

CJ said, “If I remember correctly, you were an art history major? You wrote your thesis on Matisse?”

“We named our dog, Henry, after him,” Agnes said softly.

CJ, who did not care for dogs (“too dirty”), didn’t respond to this. He said to Dabney, “You should go see the Matisse chapel in Nice.”

It wasn’t likely that Dabney would ever make it to France, but she gave him credit for trying.

“My favorite painting is La Danse,” Dabney said. “It’s at MOMA, but I’ve never seen it.”

CJ said, “The director at MOMA is a friend of mine. So if you ever decide to come to New York, I’ll set something up.”

Dabney drank her wine. She didn’t touch her lamb chops. She had absolutely no appetite.

She imagined Clendenin Hughes walking into the dining room of the Club Car, throwing Dabney over his shoulder, and carrying her out. Then she indulged in a moment of deep self-pity. She had lived a calm and peaceful existence, a happy and productive existence—until this morning.