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Luke’s boat was called Matilda. The name was painted across the side in beautiful calligraphy. The white hull crept up across the shimmering waves as Luke ducked up over it, checking various ropes with a sure sense of himself and his skill. He looked more muscular than normal, tanned from many days on the water, and his smile was bright and handsome as Heather and her daughters watched on.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Bella called.
Luke laughed. “I never know what I’m doing.”
“That’s reassuring,” Kristine added.
He’d packed a little picnic of two bottles of champagne, berries, and cream. Bella and Kristine hopped onto the boat without pause as Heather remained on the creaking dock. She blinked out toward the horizon line, so bright and hopeful beneath the northeastern sun. Could she convince herself to board?
“I don’t think Allen could have done this,” Bella said to Kristine with another ironic grin.
“Can you just lay off the Allen convo for a minute?” Kristine demanded.
Bella shrugged as Luke laughed.
“Do I even want to know?” he asked.
“No. You don’t want to know Allen,” Bella affirmed. “He wore more cologne than all three of us combined. You could smell him all the way from A Avenue— but he lived in Brooklyn!”
Luke stepped toward the dock and stretched out his palm for Heather to take. He wanted to be her support, both morally and physically. She placed her hand over his and took a deep breath. Her right foot found the edge of the boat, then her left. In a moment, she was on board, and Luke gave her a firm nod.
“Why Matilda?” Heather asked as she adjusted herself into a little seat near the staircase to the lower deck. Almost immediately, she regretted her question because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know all about Luke’s previous love interests. She’d already dealt with simmering jealousy when it came to people like Monica from the records collection.
“Oh, gosh. It’s a long story,” Luke replied. He snapped the rope off the dock and then cast them out from shore, hurriedly reaching to bring the sails out. They erupted, taking the air within them and then rushing into the waters beyond.
Heather forced herself to inhale, exhale. Bella and Kristine perched out of the way, captivated by the waters as they surged forward. Heather wanted to scream to the sky above because this was unnatural. The ocean was nothing but cruel.
“Was she the one who got away?” Bella called over the winds.
“Oh, no. Nothing like that,” Luke told her as he steadied the sails.
“You’re a mystery man, Luke,” Kristine commented.
“I think it’s good to keep some stuff to yourself,” Luke told them. “Can’t give everything away. Then where would your power be?”
“If Kristine tried to keep anything from me, I’d know about it,” Bella said. “It’s a twin thing.”
“Ah. The famous twin thing. I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Luke offered playfully.
Again, Heather was faced with the dramatic truth—she knew nothing about this man. Nicole had said he was something of a wild card. But why? What had happened in his past? What was he running away from?
Bella poured champagne into little gleaming flutes. Heather gripped the stem with tentative fingers. She’d begun to count minutes, praying that they would make it back to land soon. It had been maybe ten minutes, maybe forever. Whatever happened, she couldn’t let panic take over. Not then. It would distract Luke from his main task, which was ensuring her daughters were safe.
But Bella, Kristine, and Luke were fine. They cracked jokes, sipped champagne, and spoke about the city. Luke had spent a bit of time there prior to his era in Bar Harbor. According to him, the city had changed a great deal since then. He described the bars and restaurants he’d once frequented, which, according to Kristine and Bella, had all closed in the past ten years. Luke grumbled inwardly.
“That’s what I like about Bar Harbor. Things don’t change that fast around here.” He stretched his arms out toward the coastline. “People stick around. People care for what they have. Memories have greater density here because of it. For so many years, I didn’t even understand the concept of solid ground. Now I do.”
Kristine and Bella glanced at one another, seeming to have a conversation through the air. Heather very rarely understood what went on between them. It was that twin thing again.
She gripped the railing with white fingers, then forced herself to sip her champagne again. Years and years ago, Max had taken her out on a very similar boat. She’d had no fears. She had perched at the edge of the thing and dived into the waves, falling into the darkness and then erupting to the surface with laughter. Max had called her a wild card, a free bird. She had even written a children’s book about sailing— drawing the pictures herself that time, painting a portrait of her life with Max. One of eternal sunshine.
The waves crashed against the sides of the boat. Heather’s nausea mounted. Max had been the strongest swimmer she’d ever known, the bravest man in the world. When his ship exploded off the coast, she’d envisioned a million ways he and the other crew might have survived. But days had turned to weeks, which had turned to months and still no bodies, no sign of life anywhere.
Why had she ever clung to any concept of hope? Was it just the way people survived? You needed something to hold. You needed land on which to stand.
Land— she needed to get to land. She needed her babies on land and stat. She forced her eyes to open and peered up at Luke, who was basically a stranger. His smile waned.
“Are you feeling okay, Heather?”
She cleared her throat. Bella and Kristine appeared on either side of him as though she was on trial.
“I can’t. We have to— we have to go—”
She wasn’t making sense. She closed her eyes again and felt on the verge of passing out. She dropped her flute of champagne, and the glass shattered from one side of the boat to the other. What a mess she was. Why had she come to Bar Harbor? Why had she thought her daughters could join her during this messy era of her life? She was no good for anyone.
Heather was in the midst of a full-fledged panic attack when Bella and Kristine insisted they return to shore as soon as possible. Luke asked if Heather was prone to these or seasickness. The girls replied no. That they should have known better than to agree to this, anyway. Heather felt utterly weak at this point.
Suddenly, there was the abrupt sound of the boat landing against the side of the dock. Heather’s eyes opened enough to see Luke draw the rope around the dock and tie it tight. She rose and hustled off the boat as quickly as she could. Due to rushing, she fell to her knees on the dock and collapsed in a heap. Bella and Kristine called out. But just then, everything faded to impossible blackness.
There was nothing left.
**
AGAIN, THERE WERE VOICES around her. Heather felt far, far away, as though she floated in a dream.
“I should have brought us in sooner. She was looking pale even a few minutes in.” This was Luke, who sounded inconsolable. “I wish she would have told me she didn’t want to go. I would never have suggested it.”
“She wanted to push herself.” This was Bella.
“She’s stubborn.” Kristine was somewhere farther away.
Heather still couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. Fatigue wrapped itself around her. Did she even have the muscles to stand? She wasn’t on the dock anymore. Maybe somebody had moved her somewhere cozy. Maybe she was on her bed at home.
“You should tell the staff if you want anything— food, drinks, anything at all.” This voice wasn’t as familiar as the others. It was dark and raspy, yet somehow surprised.
“Thank you. And thank you for letting us use your couch,” Bella said.
“When I saw you all on the dock, well...” The voice seemed hesitant to dive into any form of emotion. “I’m just glad we have this place near the docks.”
“It means a lot,” Kristine affirmed.
“Was it seasickness?” the voice asked.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Bella said, “Our father died on the ocean last year. He was an oceanographer, and the boat had a gas leak which resulted in an explosion that killed most of the crew. I don’t think any of us have been on the water since.”
“We should have known not to go,” Kristine murmured as her voice bubbled with sorrow.
“That is an awful tragedy. I am terribly sorry for your loss.” This was the voice again.
Something within Heather’s stomach twitched with familiarity. Where had she heard this voice before? She had to wake up, had to see. She had to ensure her daughters knew she was all right. She’d made a mess of the day already. Maybe she could make an excuse and say she’d eaten something bad for breakfast— anything.
Lifting her eyelids felt like lifting twenty-pound weights. Clouds had shifted over Bar Harbor, thank goodness, and cast whatever room in which she now lay in an eerie, gray light. Bella sat in a chair alongside her. Heather herself was stretched out on a white couch in what looked to be a swanky beachside restaurant. As it was midafternoon, only a few guests lingered at various tables. Soft jazz music floated from the speakers.
“There she is,” Bella breathed. She gripped Heather’s hand harder, enough to remind Heather of just how alive she still was.
“Hi, honey.” Heather’s voice cracked.
Kristine rushed toward her with a glass of water. “Drink this. You’re probably just dehydrated. Do you ever use that water bottle I got you for Christmas?”
Heather wanted to make a joke about Kristine being a mother hen instead of herself. But instead, she gripped the glass and sipped. Slowly, the world around her took on a more physical shape. Her eyes lifted over her daughters’ heads to find Luke in conversation with a dark-haired, broad-shouldered man. Clearly, this was the owner of the deeper voice from earlier, the man who’d just learned about Max’s terrible death.
Standing alongside Luke was none other than Evan Snow, the very man who’d just kicked Luke and Heather out of his godforsaken mansion.
“What is he doing here?” she rasped then, just loud enough for Bella and Kristine to hear.
“Oh? He saw us on the dock,” Bella explained. “He rushed out and helped Luke bring you in after you collapsed.”
“But why him?” Heather demanded.
“He owns the restaurant, apparently,” Kristine replied, glancing over her shoulder. “Do you know him?”
Heather closed her eyes again. All of this was a nightmare. Suddenly, the man who’d drawn a boundary between herself and her father’s past had just learned about the single worst thing that had happened to her: Max’s death. It felt too personal.
“Can we just head back home?” Heather whispered.
“Of course,” Kristine said hurriedly. “I’ll ask Luke if he can drive us now.”
Heather spread herself out on the back seat of Luke’s pickup, tucked safely behind Luke, Kristine, and Bella, who squabbled over which radio station to play before landing on a classic Queen song, which they sang in a beautiful chorus.
Before Heather had made her way out of Evan Snow’s restaurant, he’d caught her eye and nodded to her, almost formidably. What had that nod meant? His eyes had told a far different story than before. It was as though he’d finally allowed himself to see her for who she really was. Heather wasn’t entirely sure she liked that. It made her feel too vulnerable.