Bart arrives safely home.

Ava falls back to sleep.

Her phone beeps, a text.

There is a knock on the door.

Really? Ava thinks. She can’t rise to answer, she’s too tired. She’s too tired even to care who it might be so she mumbles, Come in.

“Ava.”

Ava rolls over. Scott is standing at her bedside, and he does not look happy.

“Hi?” she says. “Are you home?” She reaches for the glass of water by her bed. “I’m an idiot. I can see you’re home. How are you, honey? Welcome back.”

Scott says, “Don’t call me ‘honey.’”

His voice is strangled. It is, she understands, a voice filled with fury. Oh no, she thinks. Oh no.

Scott marches over to Ava’s dresser, where he stares at the arrangement of Christmas flowers like it’s a pile of dead baby frogs.

Oh no! Ava thinks. She left the card right on her…

“I can’t stop thinking about you?” Scott says. “Nathaniel?”

She had meant to move the flowers to the living room. She had meant to bury the card. She thought she had more time.

“Nathaniel sent me flowers,” Ava says weakly.

“Yes, I can see that,” Scott says. “Do you know why I’m home so early?”

“Because you wanted to be at the baptism?”

“No,” Scott says. “Because Luzo called me last night and said he saw you and Nathaniel together up on the widow’s walk of the Whaling Museum!”

Ava feels dizzy. She shuts her eyes. Dominic Luzo is Scott’s best friend. He’s a police officer, and the police station is right across the street from the Whaling Museum. Ava didn’t think anyone could have seen her and Nathaniel; apparently she was wrong.

“What were you two doing up there?” Scott asks.

“We were talking,” Ava says.

“You couldn’t have talked at the party?” Scott says. “You had to go up to the widow’s walk?”

Ava has never seen Scott so angry—not when the school committee cut their budget for enrichment assemblies, not when the gifted and talented teacher, Mrs. Fowler, thought it was okay to teach second graders about the human reproductive system. Ava nearly gets her Irish up and fights back. You have been with Roxanne Oliveria all weekend when you should have been here with me! But that will sound petty. Ava didn’t meet Nathaniel on the museum widow’s walk because Scott was gone; she went with Nathaniel because a part of her still loves him.

“I’m sorry,” Ava says.

“Sorry for what? I thought you were just talking,” Scott says. “Did you sleep with him?”

“No,” Ava says. “But I kissed him. Just once. It was a… kiss good-bye.”

“A kiss good-bye?” Scott says. “You said good-bye to him last Christmas! And what is up with these flowers? He can’t stop thinking about you? Does he not realize you’re my girlfriend?”

“He does realize that,” Ava says.

Her phone buzzes again, another text.

Oh no, Ava thinks.

“Is that him?” Scott asks.

“I…?” Ava says. “It’s probably Shelby. She and Zack are coming to the—”

“Do you mind if I check?” Scott says.

Ava does mind. She hops out of bed and grabs her phone. Her screen shows two missed calls from Scott and two texts from Nathaniel.

The first text says, I am still in love with you, Ava Quinn.

The second says, Can I please come to the baptism?

Ava collapses on the bed. “They’re from Nathaniel.”

“What do they say?” Scott asks.

Lie, Ava thinks. But she is too tired to lie, and she’s too confused. She hands the phone to Scott so he can read them himself.

He says, “Well, I can’t blame him for still being in love with you.”

Tears spring to Ava’s eyes. She can handle anything right now except Scott being understanding. She should have told Nathaniel to buzz off on Friday night, but she didn’t. She let herself get sucked back into his irresistible vortex, and now she’s in the same spot as a year ago—stuck between Nathaniel and Scott.

“Are you going to invite him to the baptism?” Scott asks.

“No,” Ava says. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” Scott says. “You look like maybe you want him there.”

Ava wipes at her face. “I don’t know what I want.”

“This is just great,” Scott says. “I leave for a day and a half and somehow Nathaniel Oscar takes the opportunity to swoop in and try to steal back my girlfriend.” Scott eyeballs the flowers like he might throw them across the room; Ava wouldn’t blame him if he did. “And now, you don’t know what you want. I thought you wanted me. I thought you wanted us!”

“I do,” Ava says, though she doesn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears. She takes another sip of water. “Did you leave Roxanne in Boston?”

“She was discharged from the hospital at six a.m.,” Scott says. “She was happy to get out of there early.”

“You did the right thing, going with her,” Ava says. “You’re a good guy, Scott.”

“Maybe too good,” Scott says. He walks out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him, and Ava lets him go.

KEVIN

He and Kelley head to the airport while Margaret and Drake check the ferry docks. Kevin would like more hands on deck, but Jennifer and Ava are still asleep and Mitzi stays at the inn to deal with the guests. Kevin is terrified that Isabelle will try to take Genevieve back to France and once they’re gone, they will not be allowed to come back. Isabelle’s papers are not in order. It is number one on their list of things to take care of, but they are so busy day in, day out with the inn and the baby that neither of them have time to go to Boston and meet with an immigration lawyer.

Once Isabelle is off the island, how will Kevin ever find her? She has her own credit card; Kevin doesn’t even know the number. He can’t have the police chase her when she’s a grown woman who left of her own volition. Or can he?

In the car on the way to the airport, Kevin tells Kelley about seeing Norah the night before. “I don’t know why I talked to her. I should have just walked away.”

“Well, you and Norah share quite a lot of history,” Kelley says.

“Yeah,” Kevin says.

“You grew up together,” Kelley says. “I think it’s natural that you would have been drawn to her.”

“I wasn’t drawn to her,” Kevin says. But he had been drawn to her. Isabelle probably saw it written all over Kevin’s face—and that was why she left. “I hate Norah.”

“Hate is a strong word,” Kelley says. “Although she wasn’t a great influence. You quit the trumpet, your grades dropped, you started working at the Bar. Your mother wanted to step in and have what would now be called an intervention, but she felt too guilty for staying in New York and I felt too guilty for moving you to Nantucket. And in her own way, Norah made you happy. You were friends. Inseparable.” Kelley leans back against the seat. “I do not feel well.”

“You look awful,” Kevin says.

“Oh yeah?” Kelley says, perking up. “Well, so do you.”

Kevin’s phone rings. It’s his mother. “They’re not at the Hy-Line and they’re not at the Steamship,” she says. “I got the woman at the Hy-Line to check the passenger list, even. She made an exception because she recognized me.”

“Okay,” Kevin says. His heart is dying; any minute now, it will stop beating. His baby girl. And Isabelle, the person who changed his life, made it worthwhile. He may have grown up with Norah, but it was Isabelle who finally turned him into a man. “Well, if she’s not at the boat, then she must be at the airport.”

“Let’s hope,” Margaret says.

Nantucket Memorial Airport is mobbed with people who have had their Christmas Stroll fun and are now headed back to Boston, New York, and beyond. Kelley and Kevin split up—Kelley goes to the right to check the Crosswinds Restaurant. Kevin heads to the local airline desk, the whole time scanning the crowd. He doesn’t see Isabelle and Genevieve anywhere. At the Island Air desk, he asks Pamela, the gate agent, if she’s seen them. He’s known Pamela for over twenty years and the woman cannot keep a secret. She tells Kevin straight out: she hasn’t booked Isabelle and the baby on any of her morning flights.