“What are you going to tell Sylvia?” she asked. For a second, as his hand paused in its caresses, she was afraid. But then he frowned and said he would tell her the truth, that it was never that serious to begin with. His dismissal of his girlfriend, contrary to Ivy’s expectations, felt like a letdown. She would rather it had been a struggle for Roux to choose between them. “Why were you even with her then?” she asked.

“Why else? Her face.”

Ivy looked out the window, where the shadow of the oak tree brushed up against the glass like gigantic palm fronds. “I should go. They’ll be coming up soon. Will you wait for me until tomorrow?”

She heard the thrum of his voice reverberating against her eardrums as he brushed his lips on her temple: “Of course.” Ivy suddenly saw that life could always be easy like this. A postcoital cigarette. Pillow plans. Honest duplicity, instead of the infinitely more exhausting duplicitous honesty.

* * *

I CONSIDER THAT our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18. The priest closed his Bible. Let us pray.

Ivy closed her eyes. Uncertainty gripped her. Had she done another stupid thing last night? She pictured Gideon’s downturned face working on his laptop, distant and unbothered, oblivious—or indifferent—to her sufferings. Her heart hardened. Then she tried to imagine the glory awaiting her with Roux. They’d leave New England, forsake its frigid winters and maddening rotaries and crumbling brick buildings, for… for what? She pictured the hole in Roux’s sock. The faded workman jeans. At least he had some money and a nice car. Maybe they could go on a road trip across the country, eat burgers and chug beer while drifting through gambling towns like the lovestruck couple in a country song music video. They’d make their way to California, buy a ranch house, plant a lemon grove. It was a version of someone’s success, somewhere in the world.

Around her, the congregation stood as one, hymn books open. Their voices rose through the dome: Shall we gather at the river… Where bright angel feet have trod… Ivy glanced down the pew where the four Speyers’ heads were bent, sunshine halos around their crowns, their sweet voices singing together in harmony. If you love me, she thought at Gideon, you’ll look at me. If one couldn’t ask for a sign in a church, then where could one ask? But he didn’t look at her. He didn’t look.

* * *

GIDEON ASKED IF she wanted to take one last walk down to the beach, he said there was something he wanted to say to her. She almost wished to save him the effort; he looked so pale and serious, still dressed in his black Sunday suit, as if returning from a funeral, with two frown lines between his brows. But then her eyes met Roux’s across the kitchen countertop. He gave her an imperceptible nod and she smiled bravely to show she understood.

She followed Gideon across the lawn, which over the past week had become as familiar to her as her own house. Down the narrow trail with its vivid fuchsia rugosas, the bushes lush and overgrown from days of rain, and the sand, damp and soft, between her toes all the way until the water’s edge. Gideon walked barefoot, his pants rolled up to midcalf. She stepped inside the lines of his footprints. Even with sandals on, her feet could not fill the indent.

They didn’t talk much. Gideon occasionally pointed out a neighbor’s house: See that flat-looking one facing us? The Scollocks live there year-round…They don’t have kids and mostly keep to themselves… Mr. Scollock takes a swim every morning for his arthritis… the Clarks are in that one… Always small talk first. Then business. There was an order to everything for people like the Speyers.

“It’s nice that you’re close with your neighbors,” said Ivy.

“This”—Gideon waved his arm at the ocean—“is in my blood. I get homesick all the time for this place. When I was little, I’d make my parents drive here from Andover in the dead of winter just so I could climb these rocks. My best summers were here. My first kiss, my first, well, you know.” They’d stopped by a part of the beach hidden from view of both the Clarks and the Scollocks. Tangled strips of seaweed draped over a piece of driftwood like a rotting carcass. Ivy tried to imagine a young, naked Gideon rolling around in this smelly, dead stretch of beach. Such self-abandonment was beyond her comprehension of him. But he had been that way once. Just never with her.

“That was a long time ago,” said Gideon, picking up a pebble and tossing it into the water. “But honestly—I wouldn’t mind raising my kids here. Did you have a good time here?”

People had been asking Ivy that all week: are you happy, did you sleep well, are you having fun? And no matter her state of mind, she would always respond with honest conviction: Yes, I love it here. Because access was always preferable to no access.

“It feels like I’ve been waiting to come here my entire life,” she said, her throat swelling. What was the point of pretending otherwise when it was so close to the end anyway?

They made their way farther down the shore to a rock formation jutting several hundred feet into the water, wide enough for someone to walk straight out into the sea. The sun had disappeared behind gray clouds. A violent wave crashed into the stones and sprayed them with salty droplets, and this reminder from the sea, so stark and indifferent to her pain, flung Ivy’s resolve to the surface like the piece of seaweed splayed on the driftwood. Better to be the one doing the leaving. “There’s something I wanted to say to you.” She turned around. Gideon was on one knee.

The hand that gripped hers was cold and hard. Gideon’s voice, while right below her, sounded as if it were being broadcast from a faraway place, one with a muffled signal, so that she only understood humming disjointed phrases: “—unexpected—you told me the other day that you loved me—unprepared—I did some—rather—don’t want to lose you—” His voice came back in full near the end: “I want you to be my w-wi-wwiife. W-will you m-m-marry me, Ivy?”

Was he joking? she wondered. No, no, not Gideon. He would never play a joke of this magnitude. And his face was so white, his lips so drained they appeared almost purple.

Then a hot licking happiness drenched her like a bucket of steaming water on a chilly night. Her shoulders convulsed, one hand rose to cover her gaping mouth. But how to thank him? How to express her leaping gratitude?

“Ivy?”

“Yes! Oh, yes!”

Then they were in each other’s arms, laughing. He took out a black velvet box from his pocket and opened the lid. The stone was a brilliant blue sapphire, rimmed with little diamonds. He took her left hand and slid the ring past her knuckle. It was too big. She closed her fist to keep it from sliding off.

“We’ll get it resized,” said Gideon.

“Did you have this with you the entire trip?” Had she been wrong about everything?

“It’s Grandma Cuffy’s,” said Gideon. “Mom’s been keeping it for me… I asked her for it this morning.” Ivy made a small gasping noise, drinking in every word. “As for Sylvia,” Gideon went on, “I know she really does like you. She’s been telling me all week how wonderful you are, how much you fit into our family. I hope you’ll give her a chance.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Ivy. It really didn’t. “I was just in a bad mood earlier. Imagining things on my own.”

“Her heart’s in the right place.”

She placed a finger on his lower lip. “Do you know… I actually thought you were bringing me here to break it off with me.” She felt his surprise in the twitch of his neck.

“Why?”

“When I told you I loved you, you said you cared about me a lot.” He began to clarify but Ivy added, “And then we had that fight yesterday about the cat.”

“Was that a fight, really?” His tone made it clear he did not think so.

Ivy tried to justify her earlier certainty—why had she been so angry, so sure that Gideon was pulling away from her?—but like a person at the end of a twelve-course meal who could no longer evoke the sensation of hunger, she could not bring to mind a single piece of solid evidence of how Gideon or his family had wronged her. A flicker of stubborn pettiness held out, insisting it’d not all been in her head, but the voice was instantly quashed under the undeniable reality of Gideon’s warm, reassuring embrace.

“And you didn’t let me finish the other day,” he said into her hair. “I love you.”

“You what?” she whispered.

“I love you.” He placed a hand on her arm. “Don’t move. I think a seagull just crapped on your shoulder.”

“My grandmother says getting shit on by a bird is one of the luckiest omens… We’ve been blessed by the Chinese gods, Gideon!”

They laughed until their sides hurt.

* * *