Before

The ferry out to Crow Island left at 8 a.m. It was a three-hour journey, the boat winding its way out of the harbour on Montauk’s north side, east around the Point, then south-east across the Atlantic for one hundred and one miles. Johnny told Rebekah that the island was on the same parallel as Philadelphia, but after a while it became hard to imagine it on the same parallel as anything, because, before long, they were surrounded by nothing but ocean.

Rebekah sat in the passenger lounge and watched land fade from view behind her, the coastline slipping into the sea. It was the penultimate day of the season and the ferry was almost empty. Inside, there were only two other men, one dressed in overalls, the second in oilskins, and then a bored girl, in her late teens, who was manning the concessions stand. Outside, on deck, there was a guy smoking a cigarette whom Rebekah had watched drive a U-Haul truck onto the ferry.

Johnny wove his way back, laptop bag on his shoulder, coffees in hand, a plastic-wrapped cookie in his teeth. ‘Here we go,’ he said, handing Rebekah a cup. He sat down next to her. ‘How are you feeling?’

She watched him unwrap the cookie. It wasn’t the first time she’d left the girls, but it was the first time she’d been so far away from them.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, although the way Johnny looked at her suggested he knew it was a lie. ‘Honestly,’ she added, not wanting to spoil the day before they’d even got there. He’d been so excited about the trip when she’d picked him up that morning, about writing again, at the idea of research and the opportunity to interview a bona-fide expert.

‘Is Noe having the girls all day?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, and then Gareth will look after them tonight.’

‘What time did you say you’d be back?’

‘I didn’t. I’m going to call Noe later, just to check in on how it’s going, and I’ll update her then. We didn’t really have time to get into it this morning.’

Rebekah winked at Johnny, making light of the early start, but it had been stressful and upsetting, and was another reason she felt a little disjointed: to get to Noe for 4.30, and then Johnny’s for 4.50, she’d had to wake both girls from dead sleeps at 4 a.m. They’d hated it, were tired, grumpy, whined almost the entire way over to Noe’s, and Rebekah had had to leave them in floods of tears to make it to Johnny’s: if she’d been late picking him up, they wouldn’t have had enough time to get across Long Island to Montauk for the eight o’clock ferry.

‘The ferry gets back to Montauk at eight p.m.,’ Johnny said gently, offering Rebekah half a cookie. ‘You should be back home by ten thirty. Ish.’

‘It’s cool,’ Rebekah said. ‘Noe’s brilliant with the girls.’

Johnny sipped his coffee, still looking at her. ‘I really do appreciate this, Bek. All the garbage you’ve gone through this year with Gareth, your job, the girls, all of that, and you can still find time for me.’

Rebekah thought of Mike again, of what he’d said that night in the diner. I’ve got to start making more of the moments I get.

‘I want to be here, Johnny.’ She propped her head against his shoulder and he put his cheek against her hair. ‘So this place shuts tomorrow, right?’

‘Halloween, yeah.’

‘Just like you to wait until the last minute, big brother.’

‘You know me,’ he replied. ‘Always organized.’

‘Always.’

‘So are you and the girls going out trick or treating tomorrow?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ she replied. ‘A whole group of us from the neighbourhood are getting together. Kyra’s very excited. Chloe … I’d say she’s indifferent.’ She smiled. And then she thought of something else: ‘Oh, I almost forgot. Kirsty called me and left a weird message.’

‘Kirsty Cohen?’ Johnny stared at her.

‘She said she wanted to talk to me about someone.’

He frowned.

‘And that someone was you. Any idea why?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Could it be to do with the woman she set you up with?’

‘Louise?’ Johnny looked away from Rebekah, out of one of the windows. ‘I doubt it. I haven’t heard from Louise in weeks.’

‘Oh.’ Rebekah tried to see his face. ‘Sorry, John.’

He shrugged.

‘Maybe Louise wants to get back in touch with you.’

He still didn’t look at her.

‘I doubt it,’ he said quietly.

It only occurred to Rebekah much later on that, in the rush of the morning, she’d never told Noella exactly where she and Johnny were heading. On the phone, when she’d arranged it with Noe, Rebekah had told her that Johnny and she were going out for the day, then had quickly moved on to what time she’d drop the girls off, because that had seemed more important. They hadn’t had time to get into anything else on the call because Noe had had to hurry out to a work function. Rebekah hadn’t been in touch with Gareth about the trip either, other than to explain that she and Johnny were going out for the day and that Noe would drop the kids off in the evening. And that morning with Noella, at four thirty, it had been so fatiguing and the girls so upset that, again, she’d never had the chance to talk about their plans.

‘We’re going out to Long Island first,’ Rebekah had told Noe, as she’d removed the girls from their car seats. Chloe had been bawling her eyes out and Kyra kept asking the same question over and over again: Where are you going, Mommy? Where are you going, Mommy? Where are you going– ‘I’m going out with Uncle Johnny, Ky. Please.’

She handed Chloe to Noella, then hurried around to the other side of the car, checking her cell for the time, flustered, worried about missing the ferry.

‘Once we get to Long Island,’ she said, as she popped Kyra’s seatbelt, ‘we’re going to get –’

‘Bek.’

‘We’re going to get the –’

‘Bek,’ Noe said, reaching across the back seat, putting her hand on Rebekah’s arm. ‘Calm down. Just call me later, okay?’

Rebekah had nodded then, smiled at her friend, and looked at Kyra, her daughter’s eyes welling with tears. ‘I’m sorry, my angel,’ she said to her daughter, then leaned in and kissed her. ‘Mummy loves you so much.’

In the minutes after that, as she got back behind the wheel of the Jeep, she waved to the girls from the other side of the windshield.

They were both crying again.

‘I’ll try to call you from Montauk,’ Rebekah said, through her open window, but all Noella did was wave at her.

Over the engine noise, she hadn’t heard her.

And then, as she reversed out of the driveway, as she got her last glimpse of the girls, Rebekah remembered the worst bit: Kyra.

It wasn’t her tears.

It was the way she reached out – as if Rebekah were about to topple into some deep, dark hole.