“Great,” Grace said. She tried to smile, but her face would not obey. “Listen, I really need to get ahold of Benton…”

“Did you try his cell?” Donovan asked.

“I did,” Grace said. She wanted to ask if she could sit in the apartment and wait for Benton to return, but it was also Donovan’s apartment, and Leslie’s, and Grace realized that her behavior now was bordering on psychotic. “Do you know where in the field he is? I really need to speak to him in person.”

Donovan held out his palms as if checking for rain. “Benton is his own man,” he said. “He doesn’t share his schedule with me or anyone else.”

Grace took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“But you might check Edith Allemand’s house,” Donovan said. “He goes there Mondays and Fridays.”

Edith Allemand’s house—Main Street. “Thank you,” Grace said. She hurried back down the stairs, but then she turned around.

“Donovan?” she said. “Do you know anything about Benton going to Detroit?”

Donovan said, “I knew he was considering it, but last I checked, he hadn’t made a decision.”

Grace climbed back into her Range Rover and drove toward Main Street. Sure enough, at number 808, Benton’s truck was in the driveway. And right there in the front yard were Benton and the legendary Mrs. Allemand. Benton was holding both of Mrs. Allemand’s hands, and Mrs. Allemand was talking. If Mrs. Allemand had been any younger than eighty-five years old, Grace would have felt jealous.

Grace pulled up in front of the house, chagrined at her own audacity (the voice of her grandmother Sabine begged her not to make a scene)—but there was nothing else she could do. She had to talk to him.

He noticed the car, and a concerned expression came over his face. He said something to Mrs. Allemand, then loped toward Grace’s car. Grace loved the way he walked. She loved everything about him. She was a total goner.

He poked his head through the open passenger-side window. “Grace,” he whispered. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Do you understand how inappropriate this is?” he asked. “Do you know how this looks?”

“I don’t care how it looks,” Grace said. “And you used to not care. When you kissed me on Lucretia Mott Lane!”

“I have a business to run,” Benton said. “And you have a family. Go be with your family, Grace. Take care of your daughters. Work things out with Eddie. Please, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Please don’t stalk me like this again, okay? It’s making me a little nervous.”

Stalking? Grace thought indignantly. She wasn’t stalking.

But here she was, in front of Mrs. Allemand’s house, and Donovan was sure to tell Benton that Grace had stormed the office.

Stalking.

“You still owe Hope that list of a hundred books,” Grace said. “You can break my heart—that’s fine—but don’t disappoint a sixteen-year-old girl.”

From the yard, Mrs. Allemand warbled out, “Is everything okay, Benton?”

Benton waved at Mrs. Allemand, then gave Grace one last look. “Please, Grace. Clean break, okay? You’ll be fine. Now… good-bye.”

Good-bye.

Grace drove off.

She wanted Madeline. Madeline was the only person who would understand.

The first thing Grace did when she got home was to resign as a member of the Nantucket Garden Club. In an e-mail to Jean Burton, she cited “personal reasons.” She didn’t care what those personal reasons were interpreted to be. She didn’t care about anything.

She opened her medicine cabinet. She took a Fioricet and tried to focus. Benton was gone—but what about Eddie? Could she still save her marriage? Did she want to save her marriage?

She would go out and get those steaks, she decided. She would light candles and pick a bouquet of fresh flowers, and she would try to set things right. In the meantime, maybe Benton would come to his senses.

Clean break, okay? Meaning what? Should she pretend as if the postcards from Morocco and the mint tea and the pistachio macarons and the ploughman’s lunches and the slow dancing on the deck and the photo shoot with the Boston Globe and all their fiery lovemaking in the garden shed had never happened?

Detroit?

But Eddie didn’t come home for dinner. He had to tend to the rental on Low Beach Road, he informed her in a terse text. Grace ate dinner in silence with the girls, who chattered with each other about the books they were reading. The food was delicious, but Grace couldn’t force down a single bite. She had ruined everything. Her lover was gone, he had proved to be a coward—Considering Detroit for a while now?—and she had trashed her marriage. Just as Madeline had predicted. How do you see this ending?

Grace had four glasses of wine at dinner, then a fifth, because the girls were going to the movies together in town. Grace wandered upstairs in a bit of a stupor. She found her cell phone, read the text from Benton again. She needed Madeline. Could she call Madeline?

Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater.

No, she could not call Madeline.

As Grace fell asleep, she tried to find a place of gratitude. Her girls were healthy and getting along. And she still had the most glorious property on Nantucket Island. Not to mention her Araucana chickens and a flourishing organic-egg business.

Exotic chickens and pale-blue eggs were all good and fine, but they were no substitute for love.