Don’t you think it’s weird that she took Benton as her date?

Eddie stepped out onto the deck. Grace and Benton were having what appeared to be a lovely little lunch, despite Grace’s tears. Eddie bristled. While he was at work, toiling and sweating over their finances, Grace was at home picnicking with the person who was supposed to be working for them.

If Eddie were lucky enough to be reincarnated, he was coming back as Grace’s gardener.

“Hey, there,” Eddie said.

Benton was leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. He looked a little more at ease at Grace’s side than Eddie might have wanted him to, but there didn’t appear to be anything untoward going on. It wasn’t even like Grace was crying on his shoulder. She had her elbows on the table and was dabbing at her eyes with her lunch napkin. She and Benton were sitting next to each other, but not unreasonably close. And when Eddie stepped out, they didn’t seem jumpy or alarmed. It didn’t seem like they were hiding anything.

Benton got to his feet. “Hey, Eddie,” he said. He shook Eddie’s hand. “Grace was just telling me about your night.”

Grace raised her weepy eyes. “How’s your heartburn?”

“Never been worse,” Eddie said.

“Can I get you some crackers and butter?” Grace said.

Eddie wasn’t sure he could manage even that much, but it was embarrassing to be offered nursery food because he couldn’t handle stuff like bacon and tomato—or even cucumber sticks and Grace’s buttermilk-herb dressing.

“I’m fine,” he said, in a way that made him sound like a pouting child.

Grace scooted her chair back and got to her feet. “I’ll get the crackers.”

Benton stood as well. “I should go. I have the lovely Mrs. Allemand waiting for me.”

“Edith Allemand?” Eddie said.

Benton grinned. “The one and only.”

Edith Allemand lived at 808 Main Street in a house that made Eddie salivate every time he drove past it. It was, possibly, the finest example of whaling-era money on Nantucket aside from the Hadwen House and the Three Bricks. Edith Allemand was about five hundred years old but still cogent and active. She was the kind of woman Grace had described her grandmother Sabine to be: impossibly refined and elegant. Otherwise, Eddie might have knocked on her door and begged her to let him list the house.

“Do you think she’ll ever sell?” Eddie asked.

“Never,” Benton said. “She’s leaving the house to the Nantucket Historical Association.”

Eddie’s hopes deflated, even though he knew she would do something socially responsible with it like give it to the historians. “Perfectly good waste of a six-figure commission,” Eddie said.

Benton threw his head back and laughed, and Eddie congratulated himself on being able to joke despite his excruciating pain. He liked Benton Coe, he decided. Nice guy, and clearly at the top of his professional game if Edith Allemand trusted him.

Benton waved. “Good to see you, Eddie. I’m sorry to hear about Allegra, but… this too shall pass.”

“Oh, I know,” Eddie said. “Thanks.”

“Bye, Grace!” Benton called out. “Hang in there—I’ll see you later!”

They could just barely hear Grace’s voice from inside. “Thanks! Bye!”

MADELINE

She was awoken in the morning by a phone call from Trevor.

“You have to come home,” he said. “We have a crisis on our hands.”

Madeline didn’t know why she felt surprised, but when Trevor showed her the photograph on Brick’s phone, she gasped. Allegra was sitting on the hood of Ian Coburn’s Camaro in pale, lacy underwear, and she was pinching a joint to her lips. Her long, dark hair was mussed, and her eyes held a faraway, dazed look. Ian Coburn was also in his underwear, a bottle of whiskey between his legs. It was disgusting, not so much because of what it showed but because of where it led the imagination.

“I guess they’ve been seeing each other on the sly for months,” Trevor said.

“Oh my God,” Madeline said. “How did you end up with his phone?”

“He threw it at the wall,” Trevor said. “There’s a hole in the plaster upstairs, but the phone survived.” He minimized the screen so that Allegra and Ian Coburn disappeared. “Lifeproof case.”

If only there were lifeproof cases available for humans, Madeline thought. Even from the kitchen, she could hear the sound of Brick crying—horrible, broken moans punctuated by shouted profanities.

Madeline climbed the stairs and stood outside the closed door. She instantly flashed back to when Brick was a baby; she could never stand to listen to him cry. But hearing him cry as a sixteen-year-old was far, far worse. His pain was real, his heart was broken, he had believed in a girl, he had loved her, and she had deceived him. She had preferred another, she had carried on behind his back. She had humiliated him.

Trevor came quietly up the stairs. It sounded as if Brick were pounding on his mattress.

Madeline said, “What should we do for him?”

“What can we do?” Trevor said. “It’s heartbreak. He has to work through it alone, just like the rest of us.”

Madeline looked into her husband’s green eyes. She said, “I am not, I repeat, not having an affair with Eddie Pancik.”

Trevor said, “I’m glad you’re home.” And he gathered her up in his arms.