Chapter 1

Seattle, June 12, 2008

I step down onto the old dock and it creaks beneath my feet, as if letting out a deep sigh. It’s dark out, but the string lights that dangle overhead illuminate my path.

What did the woman from the rental office say on the phone? Seventh houseboat on the left? Yes. I think. I grasp my suitcase tighter and walk ahead slowly. A sailboat sways gently in the water where it’s tethered to an adjoining houseboat, a two-story, with a rooftop deck and cedar shingle siding weathered to a gray-brown. A lantern flickers on a table on the front deck, but seconds later its flame is extinguished, maybe by the breeze, maybe by someone lingering in the shadows. I imagine the residents of the dock peering through their darkened windows, watching me, whispering. “There she is,” one says to another. “The new neighbor.” Someone smirks. “I hear she’s from New York.”

I hate the hushed exchanges, the looks. The crush of curiosity drove me from New York. “The poor thing,” I overheard someone utter as she stepped out of the office elevator a month ago. “I don’t know how she even manages to get out of bed every morning after what happened. If it were me, I don’t know how I’d go on.” I remember how I hovered in the hallway until the woman rounded the corner. I couldn’t bear to see the look on her face, or any of their faces. The headshaking. The pity. The horror. In Seattle, the shadow of my past would be under cloud cover.

I take a deep breath and look up when I hear the distant creak of a door hinge. I pause, bracing for confrontation. But the only movement I detect is a kayak gliding slowly across the lake. Its lone passenger nods at me, before disappearing into the moonlight. The dock rocks a little, and I wobble, steadying myself. New York is a long way from Seattle, and I’m still groggy from the transcontinental flight. I stop and wonder, for a moment, what I’m doing here.

I pass two more houseboats. One is gray, with French doors that face north and a weather vane perched on the roof. The next is tan, with window boxes brimming with red geraniums. Various urns and planters line the deck in front of the home, and I stop to admire the blue hydrangeas growing in a terra-cotta pot. Whoever lives here must be a meticulous gardener. I think of the garden I left behind on my balcony in New York, the little garden box planted with chard and basil and the sugar pumpkin for . . . I bite my lip. My heart swells, but the porch light on houseboat number seven anchors me to the moment. I stop to take in the sight of what will be my new home: Situated on the farthest slip on the dock, it floats solemnly, unafraid. Weathered cedar shingles cover its sides, and I smile when I notice an open porthole on the upper floor. It’s just as the advertisement depicted. I sigh.

Here I am.

I feel a lump in my throat as I insert the key into the lock. My legs are suddenly weak, and as soon as I open the door, I fall to my knees, bury my head in my hands, and weep.

Three weeks earlier

It’s nine in the morning, and the New York sun streams through the eighth-floor windows of Dr. Evinson’s office with such intensity, I drape my hand over my eyes.

“Sorry,” he says, gesturing toward the blinds. “Is the light bothering you?”

“Yes,” I say. “Well, no, it’s . . .” The truth is, it isn’t the light that’s burning, but my news.

I sigh and sit up straighter in the overstuffed chair with its brash white and green stripes. A signed, framed photo of Mick Jagger hangs on the wall. I smile inwardly, recalling how I walked into Dr. Evinson’s office a year ago, expecting a black leather couch and a clean-shaven man in a suit holding a notebook and nodding reassuringly as I dabbed a tissue to my eyes.

According to my sister-in-law, Joanie, he was Manhattan’s most sought-after grief therapist. Past patients included Mick Jagger—hence the wall art—and other big names. After Heath Ledger’s death, his ex, Michelle Williams, came to see Dr. Evinson on a weekly basis. I know because I saw her in the lobby once flipping through an issue of Us Weekly. But his celebrity client list didn’t impress me. Frankly, I’d always been scared of therapists, scared of what they might cause me to say, cause me to feel. But Joan encouraged me to go. Actually, encourage is the wrong word. One morning, she met me for breakfast in the restaurant on the ground floor of Dr. Evinson’s office building, then put me on an elevator destined for the ninth floor. When I reached his foyer, I thought about turning around, but the receptionist said, “You must be Dr. Evinson’s nine o’clock.”

I walked into the room reluctantly, noticing the green-and-white-striped chair, the one I’d sit in every Friday at nine for a year. “You expected a couch, didn’t you?” Dr. Evinson asked with a disarming smile.

I nodded.

He swiveled around in his desk chair and patted his gray beard. “Never trust a therapist who makes his patients lie on a couch.”

“Oh,” I said, taking a seat. I recall reading an article about the great debate over the couch as a therapeutic mechanism. Freud had subscribed to the method of sitting behind his patients, while they reclined on a couch in front of him. Evidently, he despised eye contact. Still, others, including Dr. Evinson, found the whole couch scenario to be unproductive, even stifling. Others agreed, saying it put the therapist in a place of dominance over the patient, squashing any chance for real dialogue and meaningful feedback.

I wasn’t sure which side I was on, just that I felt awkward in his office. But I sat in that overstuffed chair anyway, sinking down into its deep cushions. The soft fabric felt like a great big hug, and I proceeded to tell him everything.

I lean my head back into the thick cushion.

“You’re still not sleeping well, are you?” he asks.

I shrug. He prescribed sleeping pills, which help . . . a little. But I still wake up at four each morning, eyes wide open, heart hurting no less than it did when I closed my eyes the night before. Nothing has helped. Antidepressants. Sedatives. The Valium they gave me in the hospital the day my world changed forever. None of it takes the pain away, the loneliness, the sense of being forever lost in my own life.

“You’re keeping something from me,” he says.

I look away.

“Ada, what is it?”

I nod. “You’re not going to like it.”

His silence, I’ve learned, is my cue to continue. I take a deep breath. “I’m thinking about leaving New York.”

He raises his eyebrows. “And why is that?”

I rub my forehead. “It’s the memories of them,” I say. “I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t . . .” Tears well up in my eyes, though I haven’t cried here in months. I’d reached a level of healing, a plateau, as Dr. Evinson called it, and had felt a little stronger—until now.

“If I leave,” I say with a trembling voice, “if I go away, maybe this pain won’t follow me. Maybe I . . .” I bury my face in my hands.

“Good,” Dr. Evinson says, always quick to find the positive. “Change can be beneficial.” He nods as I look up from my hands, but I can tell his skepticism mirrors my own. The fight-or-flight response has come up in our sessions, but I’ve never been one to act on the latter.

“Let’s talk about this,” he continues. “So you’d really want to leave your home, your work? I know how important both are to you.”

Last month, I was named deputy editor of Sunrise magazine, and at thirty-three, I’m the youngest person to hold the post. Just last week, as a spokesperson for the magazine, I shared travel tips for families with Matt Lauer on the Today show. My career is thriving, yes, but my personal life, well, it withered and died two years ago.

Everywhere, from the window seat in the apartment to the little café on Fifty-Sixth Street, memories linger and taunt me. “Remember when life was perfect?” they whisper. “Remember when you were happy?”

I grimace and look Dr. Evinson square in the eye. “I fill my days with work, so much work,” I say, shaking my head. “But I don’t work because I love it. I mean, I used to love it.” The tears well up in my eyes again. “Now none of it matters. I feel like a kid who works so hard on an art project at school, but when she brings it home, no one’s there to care.” I throw up my hands. “When there’s no one there to care, what does any of it matter? Does any of it even matter?” I rub my eyes. “I have to get out of this city, Dr. Evinson. I’ve known it for a long time. I can’t stay here.”

He nods thoughtfully. I can tell my words have registered. “Yes,” he says.

“So you think it’s a good idea?” I ask nervously.

“I think it could have value,” he says after a moment of thought. “But only if you’re leaving for the right reasons.” He looks at me intently, with those knowing eyes that seem to peer right into my psyche. “Are you running from your pain, Ada?”

I knew he’d ask me that. “Maybe,” I say honestly, wiping a tear from my cheek. “Really, all I know is that I don’t want to hurt anymore.” I shake my head. “I just don’t want to hurt anymore.”

“Ada,” he says, “you must come to terms with the fact that you may hurt for the rest of your life.” His words gouge me like a dull knife, but I know I must listen. “Part of what we’re doing here is helping you live with your sadness, helping you manage it. I worry that you’re compartmentalizing your pain, that you’ve made yourself believe that the hurt you feel exists only in New York, when it actually lives in here.” He points to his heart.

I look away.

“Where will you go?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Somewhere far from here.”

He leans back in his chair and scratches his head before clasping his hands together. “My daughter has a friend in Seattle who owns a houseboat, and it’s for rent,” he says suddenly.

“A houseboat?” I furrow my brow slightly. “Like that movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan?”

“Yes,” he says, digging a card out of his desk drawer. “She was here visiting and mentioned that my wife and I should come stay.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I was kind of thinking of someplace warm. Doesn’t it rain a lot there?”

“You know what they say about rain,” he says with a smile. “God’s tears.”

“So I won’t be crying alone,” I say, half-smiling.

He hands me the card, and I read the name Roxanne Wentworth. “Thanks,” I say, tucking it in my pocket as I stand up.

“Remember what I said,” Dr. Evinson reminds me, pointing to his chest. I nod, but I pray that he’s wrong, because I know I can’t bear to feel this way much longer. My heart can’t take much more.

The phone rings once, then twice. I consider hanging up. Suddenly this idea of mine seems crazy. Leave my job? Move to Seattle? To a houseboat? My finger hovers over the End Call button, but then a cheerful voice answers. “Ms. Wentworth’s office, how may I help you?”

“Yes,” I say, fumbling to find my voice. “Yes, this is, um, my name is Ada Santorini, and I’m calling to inquire about . . . the houseboat for rent.”

“Santorini,” the woman says. “What a beautiful name. I knew a family with that last name when I studied abroad in Milan. You must be Italian?”

“No,” I say quickly. “I mean, my husband was—I mean, listen, I’m sure you’ve already rented the houseboat.”

“No,” the woman says. “It’s available the first of the month. It’s absolutely charming, though I’m sure you already know as you’ve seen the photos online.”

“Photos?”

“Yes,” she says, reading me a Web site address, which I quickly key into my computer. My office door is open and I hope the nosy intern in the cubicle outside isn’t listening.

“Wow,” I say, scrolling through the images on my screen. “It’s . . . really cute.”

Maybe Dr. Evinson is wrong. Maybe I can escape my pain. I feel my heart beating wildly inside my chest as an e-mail from my editor in chief pops up on my screen. “The Today segment was a hit. The producer wants you to share more tips on traveling with children. Be in studio for hair and makeup by five a.m. tomorrow.” My head is spinning a little. No. No, I can’t do this. Not anymore. “I would like to rent it,” I say suddenly.

“You would?” the woman asks. “But don’t you want to hear more details? We haven’t even talked about the rent.”

The nosy intern is standing in my doorway now. She’s holding the cover image of the August issue. A little girl and her mother are smiling, swinging in a hammock. “No,” I say immediately. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take it.”