CHAPTER NINE

The dog showed up again while Eve was walking around the house with Red Allen, the painter that Cousin Jane had suggested.

“He’s all the way in St. Peter’s, mind,” Jane had said as she’d written the painter’s number on a scrap of paper for Eve. “And he’s been known to indulge himself. You know what I’m saying.” She made a tippling motion, as if tossing back a shot. “He did my son Bobby’s house last year, and Bobby came home one day to find Red passed out on the lawn. Right under his own sign, if you please!”

“Why should I call him, then? Can I trust him?” Eve asked.

Jane nodded vigorously without dislodging a single strand in her tight gray cap of hair. “Oh, don’t you worry. He’ll get the job done. I’ll come by every day, keep a close eye on him. And Red won’t charge an arm and a leg because the man is family. A MacLeish through and through. Our second cousin, mine and Andrew’s. You give him a call and say Jane told him to give you a fair deal.”

Jane had brought her snowflake rolls; Eve stuck them in the freezer after she left. There was barely any room in there. Andrew’s relatives had continued dropping by with biscuits, snowflake rolls, pecan tarts, and pies, all made with island butter and cream. She hoped it would all fit into the cooler for the ride home.

When Red showed up this morning, damp hair slicked back and smelling of cologne, she’d seen the MacLeish blood in him right away. He looked, at first glance, so much like Andrew and Malcolm that her breath caught in her throat as the painter climbed out of his battered blue truck. He had removed his cap to greet her with a funny little bow, revealing the familiar MacLeish blond hair and ruddy color, the nose turned up at the tip like a stubborn elf’s.

“Whoa,” Red said now, as Bear lumbered across the lawn, fanning the air with his tail. “That’s some horse you got yourself there.”

“Oh, he’s a good pony, all right.” Eve scanned the road for Darcy’s truck as she rubbed the dog’s head. Bear pressed himself against her thigh, blissful, nearly knocking her over. “I call him Bear, but his real name’s Sparrow.”

“Yeah, that dog’s definitely no Sparrow,” Red said. “Whose is it?”

“He belongs to a guy staying in North Lake. It’s his son’s, actually.”

“Huh. He’s a fair piece from home. Lucky that dog hasn’t been hit.”

“Or stolen.”

Red scratched his head. “Doubt anybody could lift that animal.”

She laughed, and they went back to discussing the work. There were clapboards to replace, most of which Red said he could do. He promised to call her with a quote by that night and suggested a couple of places to buy paint in Charlottetown. “You keeping it yellow?” he asked, one foot in the truck as he prepared to leave.

“I guess so. Andrew’s family would kill me if I changed the color.”

“Well, now, they’re not the ones living here,” Red said. “You want to change the color, you go ahead.”

“We’ll see,” she said, not wanting to explain that she knew yellow or white were the colors that would probably appeal most to would-be buyers. Only people from away would be interested in buying this house. People looking for an Anne of Green Gables experience or a beachfront property they could tear down and replace with a glassy McMansion. Islanders were more likely to build new houses on family plots of land than fix up the old places. They were too practical to want a leaky old house like this one in winter.

Eve spent the rest of the morning pruning bushes around the deck and clearing fallen leaves out of the perennial gardens. Any other autumn, she’d be digging up the dahlias and storing the bulbs in the basement for winter; this year she’d have to leave them. Customs wouldn’t let her bring them across the border. Or maybe Jane would want them?

Oh, it was all too much to think about.

For lunch she made a sandwich of cheddar cheese sliced onto a snowflake roll, sharing the food with Bear. Her shoulders and back ached from the yard work. The dog drooled as he ate, then flopped onto the wooden floor, lying on his side and stretching his legs out. She had to step around him to bring her dishes to the sink. She didn’t mind; she was glad of the company.

Eve had just completed her next round of phone calls—to the plumber to drain the pipes for winter, to a roofer who could come tomorrow to inspect the shingles, and to a contractor who might be able to finish weatherproofing the basement—when she heard Darcy’s truck rumble into the yard. Bear wagged his tail but didn’t bother getting up.

“You sure are one lazy pony,” Eve said as she stepped over the dog to open the kitchen door. “In here, Darcy,” she called from the deck. “I promise I didn’t kidnap your dog. He came of his own volition.”

“Don’t lie to me, now,” Darcy said. “You picked up that beast and carried him into the house kicking and struggling.”

She laughed, then gave him a serious look. “If you can’t watch that dog more carefully, you might want to tie him up so he doesn’t wander and get hit. Islanders drive this road like it’s the autobahn.”

Darcy shrugged his broad shoulders, which were clad in the same battered green jacket he’d had on the first time she met him. “I actually thought I had shut him inside before I went to the university this morning, but this dog can open doors.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Nope. Watch. Come outside.”

Eve stepped onto the deck next to Darcy, who closed the kitchen door tightly behind her before calling the dog. “Sparrow! Hey, Sparrow! Let’s go to the beach!”

To her astonishment, the knob turned and the dog stepped outside. He came over to Darcy and pushed his nose into the man’s big palm.

“Not bad,” Eve said, patting the dog’s silky back. “There’s only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Now you’ve made him a promise. And this doesn’t seem like the kind of dog that would forget.”

“I suppose you’re right. I could use a walk anyway. Want to join us?”

“Sure. Let me grab a jacket.” Eve went into the house and plucked her blue Windbreaker off the hook, then pulled the door closed and started toward the steps leading down the cliff to the beach.

“Wait,” Darcy said. “How about if I show you a secret cove?”

Eve turned to look at him. “You forget that I’ve been coming here for forty-five years.”

“I promise you haven’t been to this place.”

She hesitated as she thought about the work still ahead of her: phone calls, linens to pack and ship, clearing out the basement and the rest of the barn. The barn was taking forever because it had a second floor, and nearly everything she touched brought back fresh memories of Andrew and the girls. Plus, she kept having to make runs to the Waste Watch Drop-Off Center at Dingwells Mills twenty minutes away to dispose of things.

Darcy cleared his throat noisily, startling her. “You coming?”

She watched him cross the yard to the truck with his long loping walk. He let down the truck’s gate, and the dog jumped in, surprising Eve with his agility. She followed. Was there really a beach on this eastern end of the island that she hadn’t explored?

Darcy pulled onto the road and headed toward North Lake. As they passed the fields next to her house, Eve noticed that the potato harvesters were out, churning up the rich red soil, uprooting potatoes to be collected by the trucks that followed the diggers.

Potatoes were big business on PEI. Eve had always admired the beauty of the rolling fields, the deep green leaves dotted with white flowers interspersed with golden fields of wheat and the hypnotic, dizzying bright yellow squares of the canola crops.

But she also felt tense and vaguely guilty whenever she watched her neighbors work their fields. Many relied on farming for a living. They were laboring from sunrise until after dark, even on weekends, while most of her time on the island had been spent hiking, biking, swimming, or going out on a boat with one of Andrew’s cousins.

Such long, lovely days in this place, and now those were coming to an end. Eve swallowed hard, reminding herself that this was Andrew’s island, not hers. His family’s home. Her own “home place,” as the islanders called the houses where they were born, was actually a brick house in sensible, academic Madison, Wisconsin. Another place she’d stopped going. After her parents died, and her brother, too, of colon cancer just before his sixtieth birthday, there didn’t seem to be much point. Not when her sister was such a hermit.

You got old enough, and the losses kept piling up. Eve studied her hands in her lap, the fingers still slender but the knuckles enlarged now, arthritis settling into her joints. Her hands were sixty-six years old, just like the rest of her. Her body was wonderfully functional. She was lucky, but she didn’t always feel that way, too mired in grief to count her blessings.

“Penny for ’em,” Darcy said, glancing at her.

“I was thinking those must be your windmills over there,” Eve said to distract him—and herself. She pointed to the tall white turbines. She’d never paid much attention to them before; only noticed with a start, one day, that the windmills had gone up while she’d been away. The horizon had been drastically altered by their presence, yet somehow she didn’t mind. The windmills were beautiful as well as practical.

“Not exactly mine,” Darcy said. “But I’m proud to have played a small part in getting them to this part of the island.”

“How?”

“I helped my PEI University colleague, Ed, write a grant proposal to fund them. I used to come up to the island with my parents to camp, and when I started studying wind energy in college, I always said PEI would be the perfect place for wind farms, with so few trees and all that water around us. I was one of the engineers overseeing the first big wind-power project in Vermont,” he added. “Did you know the city of Burlington is now powered entirely by renewable energy? Wind power, wood chips, and hydroelectric.”

“Brag much?” she said, but grinned. Darcy’s enthusiasm was refreshing.

They were traveling along the north side of the island, the land flatter and emptier here than on the southern shore, feeling almost desolate. She asked Darcy more about his work—he was overseeing another wind farm being installed in southern Vermont—and about his children.

Eve felt relaxed for the first time on the island since Andrew’s death. Maybe it was because someone else was planning her afternoon. Eve had always been independent—she’d had to be, given how much Andrew traveled for work and having had to juggle her career with children—but sometimes it was good not to have to be in charge.

Unfortunately, though, Darcy’s next question was one she’d been dreading. “How about you?” he asked. “Any kids?”

Here was the point where she always had to choose how honest to be. She and Andrew had argued about this. Andrew’s view was that people typically didn’t want to hear about a dead or missing child. It made them uncomfortable, he said, because who knew what to say in response? And it made him sad as well, so why go there?

For Eve, though, it seemed dishonest to talk about only one of her daughters. Mentioning Zoe kept her daughter’s memory alive, even if she really was gone for good, a thought that made Eve twist her hands more tightly in her lap. She would never accept that idea. Not without proof.

To Darcy, she said, “I have two daughters, Catherine and Zoe. Catherine is a nurse practitioner in Cambridge. Zoe has been missing for a while.”

He glanced at her. “What do you mean? How long has she been gone?”

“Five years now. She ran off. Took a bus to D.C. and then, well . . . We don’t know what happened.” The problem with bringing up Zoe, of course, was that it often provoked questions she couldn’t answer; she tried to head them off. “Zoe was struggling for years. Drinking, drugs, poor choices in men. We worked with the police and with private investigators, too, but nothing came of it. Catherine is raising Zoe’s daughter. Zoe is presumed dead by the police.”

Darcy gave her a sharp glance, steering with one hand on the wheel, the other propped on the window. “But you don’t believe it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d feel her absence.” Eve kept her gaze fixed on the road ahead of them. “There would be some sign.”

“From the universe?”

“Yes. For lack of a better word. That’s exactly it.”

To her surprise, Darcy nodded. “I’d feel that way if one of my kids were gone, too.”

Relieved, Eve fell silent for a time and watched the horizon scroll by, the sky gleaming a fierce bright blue, free of the usual hazy clouds. She hadn’t talked about her certainty that Zoe was alive with anyone in ages. Years. People were tired of the subject.

“I kept searching for her,” she said. “I visited every place Zoe ever loved. I was so sure I’d find her. I even tried taking the same bus to D.C. she’d taken, and interviewed people myself. Nobody remembered her.”

“I’m sure she was trying to fall between the cracks,” Darcy said. “She must have been distressed. Depressed.”

“Or scared and running from something. Or someone.” Eve had uncovered more about Zoe’s life than she’d ever expected—or wanted—to know: the arrests for shoplifting, the homeless shelters Zoe had lived in with Willow, the abandoned building in Worcester where Zoe had squatted for a week. But all of that was from before she ever got on the bus in Boston. After that, nothing. It was as if her daughter had never existed.

They were passing Campbell’s Cove now. Eve deliberately changed the subject. “I suppose they’re not selling ice cream here this time of year.”

“Probably not,” Darcy agreed. “Why? Is this one of your regular hangouts?”

“Anywhere that has ice cream is my hangout. You name it: this campground. Shirley’s in Souris. Cows in Charlottetown.”

“Oh, that Cows’ blueberry ice cream!” Darcy moaned. “A dish of blue ecstasy!”

Eve laughed. “What’s wrong with these places, that they don’t sell ice cream all year?”

“What I always loved about Campbell’s are those little wooden camping huts,” Darcy said.

“Really? Huh. They always struck me as claustrophobic. Like wooden tents, only with less air.”

“No, no. They’re practical. Love them,” Darcy declared, then pointed. “Here we are. My secret cove.” He turned to her, gray eyes dancing. “You haven’t been here, right?”

“No. I hardly ever come to this side of the island,” she said, struck suddenly by the difference between Darcy’s eyes and Andrew’s. Andrew’s had been blue and set slightly too close together on either side of his snub nose, giving him the sharp, intelligent look of a small, burrowing mammal.

Darcy’s eyes were creased at the corners from laugh lines and too much time spent squinting outdoors, yet the irises were wide and a gray that looked warm instead of cool. Andrew assessed you with one glance. Darcy embraced you with a look.

“So, why haven’t you?” Darcy asked.

“It’s easier to go down the steps from our house and swim than it is to get in the car,” she said. “The only beach we ever went to on the north side was St. Margarets, back when they had lobster suppers at the church.”

“You’ve seen the Pioneer Cemetery there?”

“Oh yes. Andrew helped fund the restoration. He has people buried there. It’s a beautiful site. I love the sandstone tombstones.”

They had left the main road and were following a narrow gravel track between dormant blueberry fields. The fruit shrubs had turned a rose-tinted gold. The gravel soon gave way to red clay, and Darcy’s truck jounced so hard over the ruts that Eve had to hang on to the door.

After another half mile, they arrived at a small turnout overlooking a pond surrounded by cattails. A great blue heron stood there, mirrored in the water. Eve loved the herons, their broad silvery wings and crooked necks, their long knobby legs. She loved it that such improbable, imaginary-looking creatures actually existed outside her imagination.

They climbed out of the truck and Darcy let down the gate for the dog. Bear led the way along a sandy footpath nearly overgrown with marsh grasses that whispered against Eve’s jacket. It was like walking through shoulder-high water. She could hear the surf but couldn’t see it, because of a tall dune ahead of them that seemed to rise from the ground as abruptly as a pyramid in the desert.

Darcy was ahead of her, carrying a blanket and a bag. Eve caught a glimpse of a wine bottle and hoped he wasn’t getting any silly ideas. She had mentioned Andrew deliberately earlier to avoid all that nonsense. “How did you happen to have a blanket and wine in the car?” she said. “Are you always so prepared?”

“You mean, am I an alcoholic Boy Scout? No, darling. I packed some things in case you were home and happened to need nourishment. I know how busy you are. We could have eaten at your house, but it’s always nicer at the beach.”

“Tell me that if you’re still up here in February,” she said. “How did you even find this place?”

“Accidentally. Like I find most of my favorite things.”

“Like what else?” She was breathing harder now that they were ascending the dune’s steep slope. Luckily, the dog was slower than she was, so she could keep up her end of the conversation by pretending to wait for him.

“I ended up in Vermont by accident because my motorcycle broke down in the Green Mountains during one weekend joy ride. A farmer let me sleep in his barn and then gave me a job picking strawberries for the summer. I met my wife by accident, too. We literally bumped into each other on a street because we were both carrying things that blocked our view of the sidewalk.”

Eve laughed. “What were you carrying?”

“In her case, books—she was an ESL teacher—and, in my case, a spoiler I’d bought for twenty bucks that I’d intended to attach to my Mustang.”

Eve wondered about his wife, but maybe Darcy didn’t want to talk about his wife any more than she wanted to discuss Andrew. He wore no wedding ring. There was something buoyant about Darcy’s personality—he walked on the balls of his feet, as if he were still a young athlete, a distance runner, maybe—that made Eve think he wasn’t bitter about whatever had happened.

“And this place?” she asked. “How did you find yourself way out here?”

Darcy gestured toward a stand of pines on a nearby headland. “I was headed to a concert there, at Rock Barra, but I turned left instead of right at the fork and ended up at this beach instead.”

“A concert?” Eve didn’t know there was anyplace to hear music on this part of the island.

“Yes. Rock Barra is a retreat. The musicians in residence give concerts on Sundays with guest artists.”

“Wish I’d known,” Eve murmured, though what good would it have done? Andrew hated going out and wasn’t a fan of unnecessary noise. He especially disliked fiddle music, which was odd, given his Celtic heritage and the fact that so many people played it here. You could go to a ceilidh or a kitchen party every night of the week on Prince Edward Island.

“Ah. We’ve arrived,” Darcy announced grandly.

It was grand, she had to admit: a length of pink sand bordered by steep red cliffs on either side. There was a bluff on top of one cliff with feathery yellow grass, a bright contrast to the burgundy rocks tinged orange in the sun. Pine trees topped the cliff on the opposite side.

“Okay,” Eve said as they stood at the crest of the dune. “You managed to surprise me. This really is spectacular. Thank you.”

Darcy looked pleased. “Good. I haven’t surprised many people lately,” he said, holding out his hand for her as they descended.

“Why not?” She ignored his hand and went first, taking little leaps as she descended, unnerved by his gesture and by his appealing body.

“Too old and slow these days,” he said. “What’s that line from Yeats? ‘An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.’ That’s me. A bit worn-out and patched up. Though I hope I have a few years left in this coat.”

“Careful what you say. I might be older than you.” Eve ran down the second half of the dune, letting her weight carry her, whooping as she nearly lost her balance.

Darcy was right behind her, laughing. “You can’t possibly be older than I am,” he said when they’d stopped on the beach to catch their breath. He dropped the bag and toed off his sneakers.

“You’d be surprised. Plus, if you’re worn and tattered, I’m torn to shreds.” She took a deep breath, then added, “My husband died in May. I’m finding things very difficult.”

Eve was horrified to hear the quaver in her voice. She began walking rapidly toward the headland side of the beach, to the red rocks piled there like a giant staircase.

Darcy was at her side in an instant, touching her shoulder. “Of course things are difficult for you. I already knew about your husband. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“How did you know?” She kept her head down.

“It’s a small island. Forget six degrees of separation. It’s more like two.”

“My husband’s cousin Jane keeps reminding me of that.”

“She’s the one who told me about Andrew, actually,” Darcy said.

“Oh, hell no. Please, please don’t tell me you’re another MacLeish.”

“No. But Jane is the sister of my friend Ed at the university, and she was a good friend of my wife’s.”

“Was?” Eve hadn’t wanted to pry—if the wife was dead, she’d have to invite Darcy to her pity party, and if he was divorced, she’d have to speculate about why—but it seemed impolite not to ask.

“My wife has been gone five years now,” Darcy said.

“Gone, as in divorced?” Eve said. “Or dead?” She covered her mouth, shocked at herself. “I’m sorry. That was so rude.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re entitled to be rude. You’re a new widow and grieving. You get to sit on the throne of grief and dispense pronouncements without filters.”

“I hope not,” Eve said. “That sounds odious. Tedious, too.”

He laughed. “Too bad. That’s what losing a spouse does to people. And, in answer to your question, my wife died of cancer. It was a long haul. For both of us.”

Eve walked quietly beside him, trying to time her breathing with the waves washing in and out so rhythmically along the shore. An old calming trick of hers.

So Darcy was one of the good ones, the sort of spouse who saw things through to the end. A caretaker. Would she and Andrew have done that for each other? Occasionally she found herself feeling relieved not to have been put to that particular test. And Andrew, for his part, would have been pleased by his own death. It was just the kind of ending he would have orchestrated for himself if he’d been giving the instructions: No pain. No drama. Just peace.

The only mistake he’d made was that he’d died at another woman’s house. At Marta’s.

Now Eve thought of something else. “Jane didn’t send you to my house on some misguided attempt at matchmaking, did she?”

Darcy smiled. “No, no. That was all Sparrow’s doing.”

“Good. Where is he, anyway?”

They walked up and down the beach, calling the dog’s name. Just as Eve was starting to worry, they found the dog asleep in the shade beneath a wooden staircase leading up one of the cliffs at the far end of the cove. The stairs were at nearly a ninety-degree angle, almost a ladder. “Sparrow knows this is where I play music,” Darcy said. “He probably thinks that’s what we’ve come to do. He just couldn’t figure out how to get up the stairs, poor guy.”

“I don’t blame him,” Eve said. “That looks like the staircase to heaven. Or hell. What do you play?”

He grinned. “The fiddle—what else? Want to see the retreat? We could go up there. Rock Barra is closed for the season, but it’s still an interesting place.”

“All right.” Eve hauled herself up onto the first step with the thick rope that served as a railing and began climbing. She was aware of Darcy behind her, close enough that he blocked the wind. At one point she was warm enough to unzip her jacket.

At last they reached the top of the cliff. A circle of stones had been arranged on the headland around a fire pit. Darcy told Eve that people came here for seaside yoga retreats as well as songwriting and music workshops. Airstream trailers were randomly tucked among the pines, gleaming silver, and there was a wooden outhouse.

The main building was unlike any Eve had ever seen. About half of it was glass. The other half was cedar shakes, gone silver with age, and the roof had turf on it.

“The house was originally built as a movie set,” Darcy said as they walked around the property. “I know it looks odd, but there’s no better place to hear music.”

“I bet,” Eve said. “I would have loved coming here.”

“Well, there’s always next summer.” Darcy offered her a hand down the stairs.

Eve shook her head and grabbed the rope railing, not wanting to risk touching him. The attraction was there, a buzz between them that made her imagine warmth, a red color. She didn’t want to encourage it. What would be the point? She was a mess. And done with all that, anyway. Life was simpler alone.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be back on the island again,” she said as they descended with the dog’s watchful eyes on them from the beach. “I’m actually getting the Chance Harbor house ready to sell.”

“Give it time. You may change your mind.” Darcy’s voice was gentle.

They walked in silence back to where they’d left the bag and blanket. A few gulls wheeled overhead, but other than the birds and the dog, she and Darcy had the beach to themselves. Eve was aware of their isolation, of the thrilling sensation she so often had on this end of Prince Edward Island—that she really had arrived at the end of the world. So much sky, unlike the brief glimpses of horizon between buildings and trees you got back home. It made you feel both closer to the heavens and insignificant.

Darcy uncorked the bottle of white wine he’d brought in the bag. He poured some into a plastic cup and handed it to her. Eve had meant to refuse the wine, but all of a sudden wine seemed like a fine idea here on this sunny beach, with this man. She felt oddly younger, her earlier bodily complaints and sorrows forgotten as she sipped the chilled wine and took a piece of cheese that Darcy cut for her with deft motions, using a knife with a curved olive-wood handle he’d bought in Italy on one of his consulting jobs last year.

They talked about Italy, where Eve had traveled twice with Andrew, comparing what they both loved about the country—olive groves, medieval villages, narrow winding roads, the abundance of good food and cheap wine—and what they didn’t like, such as the scooters zipping up onto the sidewalks in Florence and the long lines at the museums.

“The mistake I made last time was inviting this woman I’d been seeing to come with me,” Darcy said. “I thought it would be good to have a companion in Florence, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Eve laughed and took another sip of wine. “Why?”

“Well, to begin with, this woman looked like a Barbie doll. She’d recently had breast implants despite being over fifty. And she wore so much makeup, it took her more than an hour to get ready anytime we went out.”

Eve raised an eyebrow, trying to picture Darcy—so raw-boned and dressed as he always seemed to be, in practical, workman’s clothes—with a woman like that. “Why did you even go out with her?”

“A reasonable question.” He cut a cube of cheese and fed it to the dog. “I guess I didn’t know how to say no. My wife had died and this woman was my sister’s husband’s niece, if you can follow that. We’d met at a few family functions and my sister encouraged the woman to call me. Let me tell you, there was some guilt on both sides, when my sister found out what a nutcase she was.”

Eve laughed. “Do tell.”

“You don’t want to hear all that.”

“Do I look bored? Try me.”

“Well, for one thing, this woman was always telling me what gorgeous boobs she had. Maybe because she bought them and wanted to know if she’d gotten her money’s worth. Who knows?”

“Or maybe she still felt insecure, even after the implants,” Eve suggested. “I’ve always wondered what they feel like. Do they feel real?”

Darcy shrugged. “Fine. Firm. They have their appeal. Though I did find it odd to lie down next to a woman and realize part of her was still awake and aimed at the ceiling. But that’s not the point.”

“I would think that would be two points, actually,” Eve said, laughing. “I’d love it if any part of me was still firm and bouncy.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re doing all right. You’re a very attractive woman.”

“For my age, sure.” Eve waved a crust of bread at him. “Don’t worry. I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m glad to have all of my limbs working at this point. Go on with your story.”

“Well, after a few months, she started migrating into my house without ever having discussed it with me. I’d come home and there would be a few pots and pans she’d brought over from her place, or a new blanket or something. I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t like it, either.”

“Why didn’t you stop her, if you didn’t like it?”

Darcy sighed. “You’re going to think I’m shallow if I tell you.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Well, for the first time in years, I was having regular sex. My wife had been sick for a long time, and it wasn’t a gentle disease.”

“I understand. So what happened after the woman moved in?”

“Well, we went to Florence—a disastrous trip—and when we came back, my father fell ill and I had to travel to New York to see him. I decided to wait there until he died. It was near Christmas, and I didn’t want him to be alone.”

“Of course,” Eve said.

“Thank you. However, my new roommate didn’t see things that way. When I told her what I was doing, she cried and said I’d ruined her Christmas.”

“My God.”

“Yes. I invited her to remove her belongings from my home at that juncture.” Darcy cut another sliver of cheese and handed it to her. “Now. What about you?” he said, as they ate the last of the cheese and stood up to shake out the blanket.

“What about me?”

“You know. Marriage, sex, dating. Any good stories?”

Eve felt her face grow hot as she stepped toward him with her end of the blanket and their hands touched. She hastily moved away. “I’m not sure we know each other well enough for me to want to share that.”

“Come on. I did. Why would you want a conversation that’s a one-way street?”

“My husband hasn’t been dead long enough for me to make an open book of our marriage, much less of our sex life.”

Darcy reddened. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that it’s rare for me to be able to talk this openly with anyone.” He tucked the blanket into the bag, then called the dog as they started walking back toward the dune. “Listen, though. I have a favor to ask.”

“As long as it’s not anything to do with sex, ask away.”

Darcy laughed. “No, no. It’s about my birthday.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“In ten days. And I’ve been invited to look at a potential wind farm site on Cape Breton Island that week. Have you been there?”

Eve shivered and rubbed her arms. “Once. Many years ago.” She had a sudden image of Andrew, of his face turned up to watch her leave on the ferry, holding Catherine in her arms. She’d been so sick on that ferry. Pregnant with Zoe.

“So you know it’s beautiful,” Darcy said. “Good. I’d like to invite you to go there with me. I have to consult with someone in Baddeck for a couple of hours, and I’d love company on my birthday. My treat, of course.”

“You want me to go to Cape Breton with you?”

“Yes. Just for one night. Separate hotel rooms,” he added, seeing the look on her face.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t an especially happy trip for me, the one time I went there.”

“You’d be happy on this trip,” Darcy promised. “The leaves have turned and it’s the perfect time to go.”

“No. I’m sorry. Thank you for asking, but I couldn’t possibly go back there.”

“Because you’re afraid of what you’d find?”

“No. Of what I’d feel,” she said, and began climbing the dune ahead of him.

He caught up easily. “Maybe that’s why you should go back,” he said. “Not because of me or my birthday, as happy as that would make me. But because you haven’t finished with that place. That’s what this trip to Canada is really about for you, isn’t it? Saying good-bye? One thing I discovered after Frannie was gone was that I couldn’t move on until I’d revisited all the places we’d been and thought about the mistakes I’d made during our marriage. I had to forgive myself for them.”

“What mistakes? You sound like you were the perfect husband.” Eve moved away from him, climbing faster.

“No,” Darcy said. “How does that old Springsteen song go? ‘Sister, I won’t ask for forgiveness. My sins are all I have.’ That’s it, right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Eve said. “I only know it’s late, and I need to get back.”

She’d crested the hill and was walking ahead of him on the sandy trail to the car. The tall rushes seemed to grab at her clothes, threatening to halt her progress; she shouldered through them, not caring if the sharp leaves slashed at her cheeks. She needed to get back to Massachusetts. Away from Darcy.

Away from this island.