MAIA

What’s a love child?” Maia asks.

Ayers hits the brakes and they both jolt forward in the seats. She reaches an arm across Maia.

“Sorry, Nut,” Ayers says. “That just surprised me. Why are you asking?” She seems halfway between horrified and amused. This is one thing Maia has noticed about adults: they never feel just one way. Kids, on the other hand, are simpler: they’re angry, they’re sad, they’re bored. When they’re angry, they yell; when they’re sad, they cry; when they’re bored, they act out or play on their phones.

“I overheard someone say it, and I think they were talking about me.”

“Who?” Ayers says. “Who said that?”

Maia doesn’t want to get anyone in trouble. It was Colton Seeley’s dad. He was talking to Bright Whittaker’s father in the parking lot of Gifft Hill and he said something about the “love child of Love City,” and Maia had felt that the words were aimed at her. “Just tell me what it means, please.”

“It means what you’d think it means,” Ayers says. “A child conceived in love.”

“But does it have a negative connotation?” Maia asks.

Ayers laughs. “You know what’s scary? How precocious you are.”

“Tell me.”

“Well,” Ayers says. “I think it’s often used to describe a child whose parents aren’t married. So, way back in the olden days, having children was seen as a biological function to propagate the species. People got married and had children so that mankind survived. Whereas a love child is special. Its only reason for being is love.”

“And so that’s what I am?” Maia asks. “A love child? Because my parents weren’t married?”

“I’ve got news for you, chica. My parents aren’t married, either.”

“They’re not?” Maia says.

“Nope. They’ve been together a long, long time, thirty-five years, but they never got officially married. And guess what? I never think about it. Nobody cares.”

Maia loves that she is still learning new things about Ayers. Ayers is interesting—and Maia’s greatest desire when she grows up is to be interesting as well. She knows that to become interesting, she must read, travel, and learn new things. Maia is pretty much stuck on St. John for the time being, but she does love to read and she watches a fair amount of YouTube, which is how she and Joanie learned to make bath bombs.

“So if you and Mick had a baby, it would be a love child?” Maia asks.

“If Mick and I had a baby, it would be a grave error in judgment,” Ayers says, and she turns into Scoops. “I’m getting the salted peanut butter. What are you getting?”

“Guava,” Maia says. Before she gets out of the truck, she notes that she must be growing up, because she feels two distinct emotions at this moment: She is happy to be getting her favorite ice cream with Ayers. She loves Ayers. And she feels empty—like if someone did surgery and cut her open, they would find nothing inside her but sad, stale air. Her mother is dead.

Maia’s mother, Rosie, is dead. Some days, Maia can’t accept this truth, and so she pretends her mother is on a trip, maybe the trip to the States that Russ was always promising but which never came to fruition. Or, she pretends that Rosie and Russ made it to Anegada, have gotten a beachfront tent at the Anegada Beach Club, and are so taken with the flat white sands, the pink flamingos, and the endless supply of fresh lobster that they have simply decided to stay another week.

Other times, reality is dark and terrifying, like the worst bad dream you can imagine, only you can’t wake yourself up. Rosie is gone forever. Never coming back.

Lots of people offered their support—Huck, obviously, and Ayers. Also Joanie’s parents, especially her mom, Julie. Julie pulled Maia aside to talk to her alone.

“I lost my mother when I was twelve,” she said. “She died of a brain hemorrhage while she was asleep. So as with Rosie, there was no warning.”

Not knowing what to say, Maia just nodded. The no-warning part was important. No-warning was the worst. LeeAnn had died, but she had been very sick, and they’d all had time to prepare. They said good-bye. LeeAnn knew they all loved her.

Maia worries: Did Rosie know how much Maia loved her? Did she know she was the start and end of everything for Maia? Did she know she was Maia’s role model?

Julie continued. “It’s going to be hard for the rest of your life, but it’ll also define who you are. You’re a survivor, Maia.”

There have been plenty of moments when Maia hasn’t felt like a survivor. There have been moments when she wished she’d gone down in the bird with her mother, because how is Maia supposed to go through the rest of her entire life without Rosie? It feels impossible.

“But it’ll get easier, right?” Maia said. Other people had reassured her that the nearly unbearable pain Maia was feeling now—worse than a side stitch, more torturous than a loose molar—would mellow with time. Maia repeated that word, mellow.

“Yes, it’ll get easier,” Julie said. “But certain days will be more difficult than others. Mother’s Day is always tough for me. And when Joanie was born”—here Julie welled up with tears, and Maia wanted to reach out and hug her—“… when I had Joanie, I wanted my mom. I wanted her to see her granddaughter. I wanted her to tell me what to do.” Julie had then taken a deep breath and recovered. “What helped me was looking outward, and thinking about the other people who missed my mom. You’re mature enough for me to suggest that you keep an eye on Huck and Ayers, because they’re hurting, too, and they’re trying to stay strong for you. But you have something they don’t. You have your mother inside of you, half her genes, and as you get older, you’ll likely become more and more like your mother, and that will bring people comfort. It’ll be like getting Rosie back, in a way.”

Maia liked that idea enormously. Her mother was alive inside of her. Maia was her own person, but she was also a continuation of Rosie.

“But don’t put pressure on yourself to be perfect in order to make your mother proud,” Julie said. She lifted Maia’s chin and gave her a very nice smile. “I assure you, Maia Small, your mother was proud of you every single second of every single day, just for being you.”

Maia has never been religious, but now it’s helpful to imagine her mother and her grandmother in the sky, in a place Maia thinks of as heaven, where they lie back on chaise longues, like the ones they used to relax in on Gibney Beach. Maia’s grandmother, LeeAnn, was friends with Mrs. Gibney, and she was allowed to sit in the shade in front of the Gibney cottages whenever she wanted.

“I hope heaven looks like this,” LeeAnn used to say. White sand, flat, clear turquoise water, the hill of Hawksnest and Carval Rock in the distance.

When Maia can keep her mother and grandmother in those chaises in the sky, watching over her, cheering her on, keeping her safe, then she can move—nearly seamlessly—through her days.

She tries to remember her mother in full, fleshy detail, because one of the things she has heard is that once people die, they fade from memory and become more of an idea than a person. Maia and her mother were so connected, so attached, that Maia can’t imagine forgetting her, but she replays certain moments and images again and again, just in case.

Her mother was beautiful—short, trim, perfectly proportioned. She had cocoa skin, darker than Maia’s, and a flash of orange in her brown eyes, which caused people to stare. Her eyes were arresting, Russ said once, meaning they made you stop. Maia didn’t inherit the orange; her eyes are regular dark brown like her grandmother’s. LeeAnn claimed the orange was a Small trait—it meant fire, and the fire meant trouble.

Rosie worked four evenings a week at La Tapa. She was a great server, the kind returning guests requested when they called to make their reservations. Having dinner at La Tapa wasn’t enough of a tradition; they had to have dinner at La Tapa with Rosie as their server—otherwise their trip wasn’t complete. Rosie knew a lot about wine and even more about food, and she liked to hang out with the kitchen crew to see how they prepared things. Rosie was a really, really good cook, and at home she made mostly Caribbean food, recipes she had learned from LeeAnn and that LeeAnn had learned from her mother—conch stew, jerk chicken, Creole shrimp over rice. She put peas in her pasta salad and raisins in her coleslaw just like everyone else in St. John, but Rosie’s versions of these dishes were better because she added a teaspoon of sugar.

Maia is old enough to wonder if her mother had aspirations. She sometimes talked about opening a food truck, but she thought it would be too much work. More than anything in the world, Maia knows, her mother had been passionate about the Virgin Islands—the USVI and the BVI—and when she was working at La Tapa, she was always giving people at her tables excellent tips, such as go to the floating bar, Angel’s Rest, in the East End; don’t miss the lobster at the Lime Inn; there’s yoga on the beach at Cinnamon and a really cool church service on the beach at Hawksnest. She could have been a tour guide, Maia thinks, or a yoga instructor, or owned a food truck, but Rosie had lacked ambition, whereas Maia has ambition to spare. She will need two or three lifetimes to reach all of her goals. Maia doesn’t like to think badly about her mother, though, so instead of believing her mother lacked something, she has decided to categorize her mother as content. She was so happy with her life—in love with Russ, absorbed with Maia, good at her job, and living in a place she adored, with friends everywhere she turned—that she had no reason to make any changes.

Maia tells Huck about her plan for a memorial ceremony out on the water, in the place the bird went down, and he agrees, as she knew he would. Huck has always been Maia’s favorite. Her mother and grandmother loved her because they had to. Huck loves her because he wants to.

Originally, she was only going to honor Rosie, but at the last minute, she chose a bath bomb for Russ as well.

Maia’s feelings about Russ are mixed. She first remembers him as the man with the lollipops—flat, oval Charms pops, strawberry, Maia’s favorite. Then Maia remembers him teaching her to swim at their private beach. Then, when she was nine, he let her decorate her room in his house however she wanted. But there was a part of Russ that made Maia uneasy. He didn’t stay on St. John; he came and went. When he came, Maia’s mother was happy—ecstatic, even. Impossible to bring down! And when Russ left, Rosie was devastated. It broke her every time, she said, and the leaving, the worrying that he would never be back, never got any easier.

Normally when he came, Rosie and Maia went to his villa. They swam in the pool or at the beach, they ate at the house—food Mama fixed or that Miss Paulette dropped off from different restaurants. Russ liked the lobster tempura from Rhumb Lines and the key lime chiffon pie from Morgan’s Mango. They read books and watched movies and played shuffleboard. But they didn’t go anywhere, and once they returned to their own lives, to the house where they lived with Huck, Maia wasn’t allowed to talk about Russ or the villa at all. She had heard Huck and other people refer to Russ as the Invisible Man, and it did sometimes seem to Maia that Russ only existed for Rosie and Maia. It was as if they and Miss Paulette and her husband, Douglas, and the man who came to do the landscaping and service the pool, were the only people who could see him. Maia wondered how Russ got on and off the island. Did he take the ferry, like everyone else? It seemed inconceivable. Maia had asked her mother, and Rosie had said, “Sometimes he takes the ferry, yes. Sometimes he flies in a helicopter. Sometimes his business associates pick him up by boat down on the beach.” The helicopter and the private boat sounded reasonable; Maia could not imagine Russ waiting in line at the ferry dock, or sitting on the top deck, the way Maia liked to, or disembarking in Red Hook. She thought Rosie was trying to make Russ seem like a normal person, when it was quite obvious to Maia that he was not.

When Maia got older and had friends and activities and plans of her own, she started opting to stay at Huck’s when Russ came. But she still wasn’t allowed to talk about him or the villa, or the location of the villa.

I deserve privacy in one area of my life, Rosie would say. I don’t need every damn person all up in my business. And you know that is what would happen.

Maia did know. If the citizens of St. John found out about the huge villa overlooking Little Cinnamon, they would treat Rosie differently; they would ask for favors and loans—especially Rosie’s Small relatives.

Love is messy and complicated and unfair, Rosie would say—but only on the days that Russ left.

The last time Maia saw her mother was midday, New Year’s Eve. Rosie had come home from Russ’s villa, where she had been staying for the past few days, solely to give Maia “the last kiss of the year.” Rosie looked supremely gorgeous, like a goddess, in a new cream-colored sundress (Christmas present from Russ) and a new leather and black pearl choker (ditto). Seeing these gifts made Maia check out her mother’s left hand, but it was still unadorned, which Maia knew meant that, deep down inside, her mother was disappointed. What Rosie wanted from Russ, more than anything, was an engagement ring.

Maia and Joanie hunkered down in Maia’s room, making a list of tropical scents for their nascent bath bomb business. They were also talking about a boy in their class, Colton Seeley, because Joanie was obsessed with him. Joanie had been snapchatting with Colton, using Maia’s phone. Joanie’s parents were strict and protective; they treated Joanie like she was six years old instead of twelve. Joanie had a flip phone, for phone calls only. It didn’t even text.

When Rosie knocked and then entered Maia’s room without waiting for a response, Maia made a noise of protest.

“What?” Rosie said. “You hiding something?”

“No,” Maia said defensively. She had never hidden anything from her mother. There was no reason to: her mother was a very lenient and permissive parent. But Maia didn’t want to give away Joanie’s secret. Joanie only pursued her crush on Colton while she was in the free world that was Maia’s house.

But Joanie seemed eager to tell the truth. “I’m snapchatting with Colton Seeley,” she said. “He’s so hot.”

“Colton Seeley?” Rosie said. “I’ve known that child since he was in his mama’s belly. Let me see what’s so hot.”

Rosie sat on the bed between them and inspected picture after picture of Colton while both Maia and Joanie snuggled up against her. Maia was happy that Joanie felt comfortable admitting her crush to Rosie and proud of Rosie for being the kind of cool mom that her friends could confide in. For those few moments on the bed, Maia’s world was golden.

Then Rosie stood up. She told the girls she was going to “the villa,” shorthand for Russ’s house, and that she was headed to Anegada the next day. So she was there to give Maia the last kiss of the year.

“What if we want to come to Anegada?” Maia asked. She knew she was pressing at a boundary by asking, because Russ didn’t socialize with anyone, not even Joanie. But Maia thought maybe this year would be different.

“Sorry, Nut,” Rosie said. “We’re taking a helicopter.” Rosie had caressed Maia’s cheeks and kissed her flush on the lips. “I love you and I’ll be back late tomorrow night. Happy New Year.” Then she turned to Joanie. “You’re right, Joan, Colton Seeley is a hottie in the making. Bye, girls. Be good.”

Joanie had fallen back on the bed, returning to her rapture over Colton. She didn’t see Rosie peek her head back in the room to mouth to Maia, I love you, Nut.

Love you, mama, Maia mouthed back.

Rosie blew a kiss and was gone.

When Huck tells Maia, as they’re bobbing out on the water that claimed Rosie, that Russ had another wife and other children, sons, Maia is stunned breathless, but on the other hand it feels like Huck is telling Maia something she had already guessed. All Rosie had wanted was an engagement ring. But Russ was already married.

“They want to meet you,” Huck says.

Maia has an adult moment: she wants to meet them because she’s curious. At the same time, she doesn’t want to meet them because she’s scared.

In the end, she decides to meet them. Otherwise, she’ll always wonder. But she has a couple of conditions. She wants Huck there, obviously, but she also wants Ayers there.

“This may be putting Ayers out of her depths,” Huck says.

“I need her,” Maia says. “The two of you are my squad.”

“Joanie is your squad,” Huck says. “But you would never invite Joanie, because she’s not family.”

Maia considers this for a moment. When she tells Joanie that this is happening—she’s meeting her father’s wife and his sons, who are, in fact, Maia’s half brothers—Joanie will be fiendishly jealous. A secret in Joanie’s family is that her father, Jeff, occasionally goes to Greengo’s in Mongoose Junction for carnitas tacos. Joanie has to whisper carnitas tacos so Julie doesn’t overhear.

My father is only pretending to be vegan, Joanie said.

“Ayers is family,” Maia declares. “I need her there.”

“I’ll ask her,” Huck says, but he still seems uneasy.

“I’ll ask her,” Maia says with a martyr’s air. She sends Ayers a long text, the gist of which is that it has been revealed that Russ (the Invisible Man) has a wife and two sons and they just found out about Maia and want to meet her, and Maia would like Huck and Ayers to go with her tomorrow after school.

Kind of like a king needs tasters, Maia says. She’s proud of herself because she just learned about this courtly detail that very morning—the tasters sampled the king’s food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned—and now she is applying it to her own life. Only you won’t die.

I have work at four, Ayers texts back initially. But then, a few seconds later, she says: I switched nights with Tilda. Ask Huck to pick me up at home.

Yay! Maia responds. TYVM! She’s relieved Ayers is going, but she also feels guilty that she has to miss work. Having adult feelings is exhausting, she realizes.

Driving to the villa the next day, Maia is petrified. She’s shaking, a phenomenon she has never experienced before but that is beyond her control. She holds her hand out, palm facing down, and tries to steady it—but to no avail.

“Do you want me to turn around?” Huck asks.

“No,” Maia says with more certainty than she feels. She won’t back away from something because she’s afraid of it.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m nervous, too,” Ayers says.

“And me,” Huck says.

What is Maia afraid of, exactly? Last night, on the phone, Joanie helped Maia break it down. They were taught in school that fear often derives from ignorance. Once you understand a situation, it becomes far less intimidating.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Joanie asks. “They aren’t going to hurt you.”

Maia had written a list:

1. They’re mean.

2. Awkward silence.

3. They don’t like me.

4. They will say unkind things about Rosie. They will call Rosie names. They will say the crash was Rosie’s fault.

Bingo: It’s the last one. Maia can’t bear to hear her mother maligned by people who didn’t even know her. And yet that’s also why Maia has to go. Someone has to defend Rosie’s honor.

Huck makes the turn—he knows where it is without Maia even telling him—and they crawl up the hill.

“Come on, chipmunks,” Huck says, but his heart isn’t in it, Maia can tell. He would probably be okay with the chipmunks quitting altogether.

Finally, they pull into the driveway. The gate has been propped open; that never happened when Russ was here. Of course, the people Russ was hiding from are now inside the house.

Maia takes a deep breath. Ayers is squeezing her hand. “You’re okay,” Ayers says. “You’ve got this.”

When Maia climbs out of the truck, the enormity of what is about to happen strikes her. She runs over to the bougainvillea bordering the driveway and throws up her lunch—fish sandwich. Huck hands her a bottle of water from the fishing trip supply he keeps in the back of the truck.

Tomorrow, she’ll tell Huck she’s becoming a vegan. She’ll accept only peanut butter and jelly for the rest of the year.

That decision made, they ascend the stone staircase.

Before they enter the house, Ayers takes in the view. “It’s so weird,” she says. “This is Little Cinnamon, or close. The house has this view and yet you can’t see it from the road.”

“Only from the water,” Huck says. “I’m sure that was by design.” He strides right up to the slider, knocks on the glass, and opens the door. “Hello!” he says. “We’re here.”

There are three people sitting at Russ’s kitchen table—a woman and two men. When Maia, Huck, and Ayers walk in, they all stand.

One of the men, the really tall, good-looking one, says, “Ayers?”

“Here we are,” Huck says. He strides over to the men and offers a hand. “Captain Huck Powers.”

“Baker Steele,” the tall one says.

Baker: Maia has heard this name before. Then it clicks. Baker is the tourist, Ayers’s tourist.

“Cash Steele,” the other man says. He’s shorter, with a head of bushy blond hair like a California surfer. His face is sunburned, which makes his eyes look fiercely blue.

“This is our friend Ayers Wilson,” Huck says. “And this is Maia.”

The woman steps forward and offers Maia her hand. “I’m Irene,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you, Maia. You’re even prettier than the pictures your grandfather showed me.”

“Oh,” Maia says. “Thanks.” She gives Irene her firmest grip and manages to look her in the eye. She’s old, Maia thinks, way older than Rosie. She’s pretty, though in a mom/grandma kind of way. Her hair is reddish-brown and styled in a braid. She’s wearing a green linen sundress, no shoes.

Baker looks at Ayers. “I didn’t realize you’d be coming.”

“Last-minute decision,” Ayers says.

Irene says, “Do you two know each other?”

The other brother speaks up. Cash. Cool name, Maia thinks. She loves last-names-as-first-names and has long wished her name, instead of Maia, was Rainseford. Or Gage. Maia is boring and soft.

“Baker and I met Ayers when we went to dinner in town,” Cash says. “She works at La Tapa.”

“Guilty as charged,” Ayers says, but her tone sounds forced.

Did Ayers know the tourist was Russ’s son? Maia wonders. Her mind goes one crazy step further: If Ayers and the tourist get married, Ayers will be Maia’s half sister-in-law!

This thought serves as a distraction from Maia’s prevailing emotion, which is one of bewilderment. This is the kitchen of the villa, in some sense Maia’s kitchen, or at least a kitchen where she has spent a lot of time—and maybe as much or more time pretending it didn’t exist. If she opens the cabinet on the far left, she knows that she will find half a dozen cans of SpaghettiOs, which Maia loves but which Huck doesn’t allow at home because he had to eat them cold out of the can in Vietnam. Now, Maia is here with Huck. And Ayers. If Rosie is watching from her beach chaise in heaven, she is very, very upset. Maia is suffused with a sense of disloyalty. She’s betraying her mother—and her father—by being here.

But maybe not. Maybe Russ, anyway, is happy his two families are finally meeting each other. Maybe this was supposed to happen.

Maia studies the three strangers, and she can tell they are studying her.

What do they think? she wonders.

IRENE

The girl is beautiful and she has a grace you can’t discern from a picture. She is light-skinned, her hair gathered in a frizzy ponytail. She has brown eyes, but her nose and smile are all Russ, and more than Russ, they’re Milly. Looking at Maia is like looking at Milly at age twelve, if Milly were half West Indian.

Irene needs to get a grip, offer everyone a drink and put out some snacks, but she is hobbled by thoughts of Milly. When she goes home—which will be very soon, maybe as soon as the weekend—she will go to see Milly. That morning, she decided that she needs to tell Milly the truth: Russ is dead, Russ had a home and a second family down in the Caribbean. Irene lectured the boys about not keeping secrets, and she can’t be hypocritical. Milly needs to know. Milly needs to know, too, that she has a granddaughter who so strongly resembles her.

“What would you like to drink?” Irene asks Maia.

“Ginger ale, please, if you have one,” Maia says, and she places a hand on her stomach. “I’m feeling a little green.”

Poor thing, Irene thinks as she pulls a ginger ale out of the fridge. This defines what it feels like to be thrown for a loop.

Winnie saunters into the kitchen, wagging her tail. She heads straight for Ayers, who bends down to rub Winnie under the chin. Irene isn’t quite sure who Ayers is or why she’s here. She’s a friend of Rosie’s, maybe? If so, she may have some of the answers Irene is looking for.

Cash says to Ayers, “You’ve never been to this house before?”

“Never,” Ayers says. “I didn’t even know where it was.”

“I’d never been here before, either,” Huck says. “Until the other night, when Irene invited me for dinner.”

“Really?” Baker says. “Didn’t either of you wonder…?”

“You’ve been here before, right, Maia?” Irene asks. She catches a warning look from Huck. He told her that under no circumstances was she to grill the child.

“Yep,” Maia says. “I have my own bedroom here, upstairs at the end of the hall.”

Irene knows she’s pushing her luck but she has to ask. “Do you have any idea what Russ did for a living? Who he worked for or what kind of business he was in?”

“Not really,” Maia says. “Money or something. All I know is he was away a lot.”

This last statement makes Irene laugh, but not in a funny ha-ha way. “You mean he was home a lot.”

Maia blinks, uncomprehending.

“At home in Iowa City,” Irene says. “With me. His wife. Us, his family…” She nearly says his real family, but she stops herself. She will not vent her anger at the girl. The girl is innocent.

She wants to ask, Did your mother know about me? Did she know about the woman she was betraying? Did she know about Baker and Cash, Anna and Floyd? Did. She. Know. Irene realizes she can’t ask; Huck will whisk Maia out of here faster than you can say Jiminy Cricket.

However, Maia is intuitive.

“My mother used to tell me that love was messy, complicated, and unfair.”

“Well,” Irene says. “She was right about that.”

“Amen,” Baker says.

“Amen,” Ayers says.

“Amen,” Cash says.

Winnie stands at the sliding door and barks.

AYERS

Thank God for dogs, she thinks. No matter how tense a situation humans find themselves in—and the situation in the kitchen of the Invisible Man’s villa, with his decidedly visible wife and his sons, Baker and Cash, is an eleven out of ten on the stress scale—a dog lightens the mood.

When Winnie enters the kitchen, she comes right over and buries her nose in Ayers’s crotch, her tail going haywire.

Everyone is trying to act normal, to pretend this visit isn’t completely messed up. Irene says she’d like to talk to Huck and Maia alone, and Baker takes the opportunity to invite Ayers outside. Cash follows with Winnie.

“Go away,” Baker says to him. “Please.”

“Cash can stay,” Ayers says. “I’d actually like to talk to you both.”

They wander over to the pool. There’s a shallow entry where they can all sit with their feet in the water. Winnie lies down between Ayers and Cash, and Ayers strokes her head.

“Let me start,” Baker says. “I owe you an apology.”

“Stop,” Ayers says. She marvels that her parents took her to the rice paddies of Vietnam, the red desert of the Australian outback, and the snow-capped peaks of the Swiss Alps, all with the aim of making her “worldly,” and still she has no idea how to negotiate this emotional landscape.

“Ayers is talking now, Baker,” Cash says. “Respect.”

“Thank you,” Ayers says. She bows her head and smells Mick’s scent on her clothes. When she’d gotten off the phone with Cash the afternoon before—You really shouldn’t be interested in either of us—she had flipped out. She had been blindsided. But once that piece clicked, everything else made sense.

Baker and Cash came to Rosie’s memorial lunch on purpose—because they wanted to gather intel on the woman their father was keeping on the side.

Even saying that phrase in her head fills Ayers with fury. Rosie was nothing more to Russell Steele than a side piece, a baby mama, an island wife. What can she think but that Russell Steele is a despicable human being? And yet she has to be careful, because he is Maia’s biological father. The Invisible Man is also the Pirate, which is sort of like finding out that Santa Claus is the Tooth Fairy.

“You’re both liars,” Ayers says. “Like your father.”

Cash holds up his palms as if to protest his guilt, and Ayers pounces. “Neither of you told me who you were at the memorial reception. You let me believe you were crashing.”

“We were crashing,” Baker says.

“And then I bumped into you on the Reef Bay Trail,” Ayers says to Cash. “Did you follow me there?”

“Follow you?” Cash says. “No, that was a coincidence.”

Ayers narrows her eyes.

“I swear,” Cash says. “I’ve never been here before, I’m an outdoors person, I wanted to get out of the house, see something, take Winnie for a walk. Bumping into you was totally random. How could I possibly have followed you?”

Fair enough, Ayers thinks. Maybe it was just really terrible luck. “But you came on Treasure Island because you wanted to ask me questions about Rosie. Admit it.”

“I came on Treasure Island because I wanted to see you,” Cash says. “Because I thought you were pretty—scratch that, I thought you were beautiful, and I thought you were cool. And you invited me.”

“Sheesh,” Baker says.

“And you!” Ayers says. “You were so much worse.”

“I admit, we went to the reception to do some detective work,” Baker says. “But when I saw you, Ayers… I could barely remember my own name. It was love at first sight.”

“You used me,” Ayers says. The sun is directly in her eyes so she squints, which suits her mood. “You say you like me, you say you love me, but both of you lied to me about who you were or weren’t. And the thing was… I knew something wasn’t right. I knew it.” She drops her voice. “I never met your father, but he spent years lying to my best friend. All I can think is not only did he have no scruples, he had no soul.”

“Whoa,” Baker says.

“She’s right,” Cash says. “I offer no excuses for my father. None.”

Ayers wants to land one more punch. “The two of you are just like him. You’re sneaky.”

“I called you and told you the truth,” Cash says.

“You did not,” Baker says. “I did.”

“You did?” Cash says. “I did, too.”

“Too little, way too late,” Ayers says. She never wants to see either of them again, and this really hurts because she liked them both. She’s also worried that she’ll never be rid of them now because they’re Maia’s brothers. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m back together with Mick.”

“No,” Baker says.

“Yes,” Ayers says. “I was with him last night.”

She relishes saying this, even though a part of her is ashamed about taking Mick back so readily. She called him, and he was at her house half an hour later with an order of oxtail stew from De’ Coal Pot, plus a side of pineapple rice, plus one perfect red hibiscus blossom, which he stuck in a juice glass. He’d begged her for another chance. He’d made a mistake and it would never happen again.

Ayers had succumbed, even though she knew it would happen again—just as soon as he hired the next girl who looked like Brigid. But unlike these two, Mick was a known quantity. And he lived here.

Tourists, she thinks, are nothing but heartbreak.

CASH

The bad news is, he can’t have Ayers.

The good news is, Baker can’t have her, either.

She hates them both.

It’s a knockout punch, but Cash admires Ayers’s principles. He would hate them, too, if he were her.

They leave the pool and head back to the kitchen, where Irene, Huck, and Maia are sitting at the table in silence. It feels like they’ve interrupted something, or maybe they came in on the tail end of a conversation.

Huck stands. “We should probably go.”

“But wait,” Irene says. “The ashes.”

“I’m leaving,” Ayers says. “I’ll walk to the bottom of the hill and call my boyfriend to come pick me up.”

“I’ll drive you home,” Huck says. He looks at Irene. “I’ll run Ayers home and then I’ll come back to pick up Maia. Forty minutes. Will that be enough time to do what you have to do?”

“Plenty,” Irene says.

Cash, Baker, and Maia follow Irene down the eighty steps to the private beach. A few minutes later finds the children of Russell Steele, along with the wife he betrayed for thirteen years, tossing chunks and silt into the Caribbean. No one says anything. No one cries.

Irene saves a handful of ashes in the bag. “I’m taking these home for Russ’s mother.” She smiles at Maia. “Your grandmother. She’s ninety-seven.”

“Really?” Maia says.

“And you look just like her,” Irene says.

Cash has tried not to study Maia’s face too carefully—he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable or self-conscious—but he agrees with Irene: there is something about Maia that strongly resembles Milly.

He replays Ayers’s words in his head. I never met your father, but he spent years lying to my best friend. All I can think is not only did he have no scruples, he had no soul.

Cash feels that’s too harsh. He wants to think that Russ was more than just what happened down here. Russ had spent years and years providing for their family in a job he disliked, and he had always been an involved, enthusiastic father. When Cash was little, Russ would hold onto his hands, let Cash walk up his legs, and then flip him over in a skin-the-cat. Two years ago, Russ had handed Cash the keys to two prime pieces of Denver real estate. He hadn’t objected to the name Savage Season Outdoor Supply; he had even come to Denver for the ribbon cuttings. He had believed in Cash more than Cash had believed in himself.

And yet there’s no denying that Russ made a terrific mess of things. The money for those stores had come from… where?

Cash is the first one back up the stairs.

He may feel differently at some point, but for now, he’s glad to be rid of the man.

HUCK

When Huck and Maia are alone with Irene, she says, “I want to talk about money.”

“Maybe you and I should have that talk privately,” Huck says.

Irene ignores this suggestion. “I’m guessing Russ probably gave Rosie support,” she says. “And I just want you to know that I want to continue. Do you go to private school?”

Maia nods. “Gifft Hill.”

“And do you want to go to college?” Irene asks.

“Of course!” Maia says. “My first choice is NYU and my second choice is Stanford. I’m interested in microlending. That’s where you lend a small amount of money to help people get local businesses started. I want to help Caribbean women.”

“Well,” Irene says.

“I’m an entrepreneur,” Maia says. “My friend Joanie and I started a bath bomb business. They’re six dollars apiece, if you’d like to buy one.”

“I’d like to buy several,” Irene says.

“Let’s keep the transactions simple, like that,” Huck says. “I’m perfectly capable of supporting Maia and sending her to college.”

“Of course,” Irene says. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Not offended,” Huck says, though he is, a little. The emotional terrain here is difficult enough without bringing up money, although he understands that Irene is trying to provide reassurance: She isn’t a witch, she isn’t vindictive. Maia will continue to have what she needs.

“I don’t want to impose myself on your life,” Irene says. “But I wanted to meet you, as strange or unconventional as that choice might have been. I want to stay in your life, as little or as much as you want me. Maybe I leave here on Friday and I don’t see you again until you’re on your way to NYU or Stanford. But I want you to know I’m here, and if you ever need anything, I want you to be comfortable asking me. I would be honored if you asked.”

“Thank you,” Maia says.

“You’re leaving Friday?” Huck says.

“I am,” Irene says. “The boys and I will spread most of the ashes today and Maia, I hope you’ll join us, but then I need to get back.”

“What are you going to do about the house?” Huck asks.

“Nothing, for the time being,” Irene says. “I have a lot of decisions in front of me, but, thankfully, they don’t have to be made today.” She reaches over to squeeze Maia’s hand. “I am so glad you came today, Maia. You are a very special person.”

“Thank you,” Maia says. “I try.”

Irene laughs then, for real, and she says to Huck, “You have your hands full with this one.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Huck says.

Their conversation must have been far more pleasant than the one going on outside, because Ayers, Baker, and Cash walk into the kitchen looking like three kids whose sandcastle just washed away.

Huck offers to give Ayers a ride home so that Maia can scatter the Invisible Man’s ashes with Irene and her brothers.

Irene and her brothers. Huck wonders how long it will be until he gets used to the way things are now.

When they reach the north shore road, Huck turns to Ayers. “You okay?”

“I guess,” Ayers says.

“I’m sorry if that was awkward for you,” Huck says. “Maia really wanted you there.”

“I met both the boys this past week,” Ayers says. “I went on a date or two with Baker.”

“Is he the tourist Maia was telling me about?” Huck says.

“He’s the tourist,” Ayers confirms. “I knew better, but I fell for him anyway. And he’s leaving tomorrow.”

“Irene is leaving Friday,” Huck says, and he realizes he sounds wistful.

“I guess it would be easier if we didn’t like them so much,” Ayers says.

Huck nearly clarifies that he doesn’t “like” Irene, at least not in the way Ayers is describing, but then he thinks, Why lie?

“I’ve decided to get a tattoo of the petroglyphs,” Ayers announces.

“One like Rosie had?” Huck asks. Rosie’s tattoo, which she got without permission when she was fifteen—before Huck came on the scene, he would like to point out—was just above her left ankle.

“Yes,” Ayers says. “I used to think I didn’t deserve one because I didn’t grow up here, I don’t have family here…”

“You loved someone deeply here,” Huck says. “And you lost her. I think that makes this home for you.”

“Thank you for saying that.” Ayers is openly weeping. “Would you come with me when I get it?”

“I would be honored,” Huck says.

IRENE

She sits in the same spot on the plane home, next to Cash, with a scant cup of Russ’s ashes in her purse. She has been in the Virgin Islands for seven days and eight nights. She knows more now than she did when she arrived, although far from everything she needs to know. When she gets home, she has to call Ed Sorley, her attorney. She has to let everyone know that Russ is dead. She has to hire a forensic accountant and, most likely, a private investigator.

The Virgin Islands used to be rife with pirates, or at least the lore of those charming swashbucklers, with their skulls and crossbones and their hidden treasure. An aura of lawlessness still pervades the islands: that much Irene has learned. It’s as if the sun has melted away the rules, and the stunning beauty of the water and the islands has dazzled everyone into bliss. The soundtrack says it all: “The Weather Is Here,” “You and Tequila,” “One Love.”

Before she left, Huck had insisted on taking Irene out on The Mississippi again. She knew he had most likely canceled a charter in order to do so. He said he wanted to give her a proper island good-bye.

If I do a good job, you might even find you like it here, he said.

There wasn’t enough time to fish, because Huck had to pick Maia up from school at three, so instead, Huck gave Irene a round-the-island tour. They puttered out of Cruz Bay harbor and headed northeast. Huck pointed out each beach and provided a running commentary.

“First on your right are Salomon and Honeymoon. You’d think Honeymoon would be the nude beach, but you’d be wrong. Salomon is nude, and Honeymoon has water sports.”

Irene couldn’t help herself: She squinted in the direction of Salomon, but it was deserted.

“There’s Caneel Bay, the resort. If we had more time, we could dock and go in for a bottle of champagne.”

“You don’t seem like much of a champagne drinker,” Irene said.

“True,” Huck said. They rounded the point. “On the right is Hawksnest, popular with the locals, although I wouldn’t be caught dead there, and on the left is Oppenheimer, named after Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. He used to own the land. Coming up is Denis Bay, below Peace Hill. My first mate, Adam, calls it ‘Piece of Ass’ beach.”

Irene shook her head and smiled.

“There’s Trunk Bay, our pageant winner, followed by Peter Bay, where all those fancy homes are… and now we are approaching… Little Cinnamon.”

“Little Cinnamon?” Irene said. “Where’s the house?”

Huck had to cut the engine and pull out his binoculars. He studied the hillside for a moment. “There. The outside of the house is meant to blend in with the surrounding bush, but if you look closely and hold the glasses exactly where I have them, you’ll see it.”

Irene accepted the binoculars. She had a hard time finding anything resembling a house, but then she picked out the curve of the upper stone deck. A man and a dog were outside: Cash and Winnie.

They proceeded past Cinnamon to Maho and went around Mary’s Point to Waterlemon Cay (“great snorkeling—we’ll have to do that the next time you come”) and Francis Bay (“buggy”), and all the way around the East End (“nothing out there but a great floating bar”) to Coral Bay. They headed back along the south-facing beaches: Salt Pond (“guaranteed turtles”), Lameshur Bay, Reef Bay, Fish Bay. Irene followed their progress on the map. She was awed by the size of the island and by the homes she saw tucked into crevices and hanging from cliffs.

There were a lot of places to hide in St. John.

Huck guided the boat toward an island called Little St. James. “What do you like on your pizza?” he asked.

“My pizza?” Irene said.

He pointed a few hundred yards away to a sailboat flying a pizza flag. PIZZA PI, the sign said. As they got closer, Irene could see a menu hanging on the mast. It was a pizza boat in the middle of the Caribbean.

“Let’s have a lobster pizza,” she said. “Just because we can.”

“Woman after my own heart,” Huck said. “All the pizzas are made to order, but the lobster is my favorite.” He dropped the anchor, shucked off his shirt, and swam over to place their order.

Irene vowed that if she ever came back, she would bring a bathing suit.

She and Huck devoured the entire pizza, then she lay back in the sun. She was about to doze off when she heard Huck start the engine.

“Are we leaving?” she asked. Her heart felt heavy at the thought.

“We have one more stop,” Huck said.

He drove them due west, pointing out Water Island, “the little-known fourth Virgin,” and then he cut the engine, threw the anchor again, and fitted on a mask and snorkel.

“Back in a sec,” he said.

Irene leaned over the side of the boat to watch his watery form shimmering beneath the surface. At one point he swam under the boat, and just as Irene started to wonder if she should be worried, though she couldn’t picture Huck as the kind of man who would ever need to be rescued, he popped up.

“Got a beauty!” he said.

What kind of beauty? Irene wondered.

He climbed up the ladder on the back of the boat with a brilliant peach conch shell in his hand.

“Oh!” Irene said. The shell was perfect; it looked like something she would buy in a gift shop.

Huck brought out the cutting board that he used to fillet fish and pulled the live conch from the shell and sealed it in a clean plastic bag.

“Maia loves my conch fritters,” he said. He then dropped the shell in a bucket of water and added bleach. “That’ll be clean by the time we dock.”

“You’re giving the shell to Maia?” Irene asked. She thought how wonderful it must be to have a grandfather who produced surprise gifts from the sea.

“No,” Huck said. “It’s for you.”

It turned out Huck was giving Irene more than just a conch shell. With a few flicks of his fillet knife, he transformed the shell into a horn. He held his lips up to the hole he’d just cut, wrapped his fingers into the glossy pink interior, and blew. The sound was far from lovely. It was low, sonorous, mournful. It was the sound of Irene’s heart.

Huck handed Irene the shell. “Take this home,” he said. “And when you need a friend, blow through it.”

“You won’t hear it, though,” Irene said.

“No, but you’ll hear it, and you’ll remember that there’s a tiny island in the Caribbean, and on that island you have a friend for life. Do you understand me, Angler Cupcake?”

Irene nodded. She forced herself to look into Huck’s eyes and she thought back to her last innocent hour, ten days and another lifetime ago, when she was at the Prairie Lights bookstore and noticed Brandon the barista gazing at her dear friend Lydia. Huck was gazing at Irene now in much the same way. She wasn’t an idea or an outline or a mere distraction from a younger, prettier woman.

Huck saw her.

He saw her.

When Irene and Cash land in Chicago, Irene sees she has three missed calls from the Brown Deer retirement community and one voicemail.

“Milly,” Irene says to Cash.

She listens to the voicemail. It’s from today. “Hi Irene, Dot from Brown Deer here. I’m not sure if you’re still on vacation? But I needed to let you know that Milly has lost consciousness and Dr. Adler thinks it’s likely she’ll let go tonight.” There’s a pause; Irene can practically hear poor Dot trying to choose the right words. “I didn’t want to have to deliver this news while you were away, but I also can’t have you not knowing. Thanks, Irene, and I’m sorry. Call any time.”

It turns out that Milly Steele does not let go that night. She holds on until Monday morning. By Monday morning, Irene and Cash have unpacked, thrown their clothes in the laundry, and made it over to Brown Deer to take turns sitting with Milly in case there’s a miracle and she wakes up.

Irene and Cash have also had time to talk. Cash confided that Baker had feelings for the woman, Ayers, who was such good friends with Rosie, but that Cash liked her, too.

“Women always pick Baker over me,” Cash says.

Irene shakes her head. “Baker isn’t a free man yet, and you are. You are every bit as handsome and charming as your brother.” Irene brightens. “If I remember correctly, Ayers seemed quite fond of Winnie. I think you should pursue her.” Irene doesn’t offer any thoughts about how Cash might go about this when Ayers is on St. John and Cash is in the American Midwest.

It just so happens that both Cash and Irene are sitting at Milly’s bedside on Monday morning. It has been an arduous overnight vigil and now the eerie breathing known as the death rattle has set in. It won’t be long now.

Irene is relieved that she has been spared telling Milly the truth about her son.

Because there are no cell phones allowed in the medical unit and certainly none allowed in a room where a ninety-seven-year-old woman is trying to seamlessly transition to the next life, neither Irene nor Cash sees the calls come in from an unknown number with a 787 area code: San Juan, Puerto Rico. The call to Irene’s phone comes in at 8:24 a.m. The call to Cash’s phone comes at 8:26 a.m.

Missed.

Milly passes away at two minutes past ten in the morning. Dot comes in to record the time of death.

“Life well-lived,” she says.

Irene and Cash make the necessary arrangements. Milly’s body will be cremated. Her ashes, along with what remains of Russ’s ashes, will be buried together in the cemetery at the First Presbyterian church once the ground thaws in the spring.

“What do you want to do now?” Irene asks Cash.

“Honestly?” Cash says. “I want to go back.”

Irene nods. She doesn’t have to ask what he means by “back.” She knows.

“Me too,” she says.

At 8:27 on Monday morning, Baker is having breakfast at Snooze in Houston with his school wives: Wendy, Becky, Debbie, and Ellen. They had been very worried about him. Baker had been gone for over a week without warning and they had seen Dr. Anna Schaffer herself delivering Floyd to school and picking him up.

“I knew something was wrong,” Debbie says. “I didn’t want to pry, and Anna isn’t approachable even if I had wanted to pry.”

Baker told his friends that his father died and he’d taken a week with his mother and brother. That’s why they’re all at breakfast. They want to comfort him.

“Your mother lives in Iowa, doesn’t she?” Becky asks. Becky is in HR and remembers every personal detail Baker has ever told her. “How’d you come back with a suntan?” She is also, like any good HR executive, naturally suspicious.

Baker can’t begin to explain that his father was killed in a helicopter crash in the Caribbean, where he happened to own a fifteen-million-dollar villa, keep a mistress, and have a love child. Baker also can’t say a word about the beautiful woman—body and soul—that he fell in love with during his week away.

He can, however, tell them the truth about Anna. They’re going to find out sooner or later.

“I have more bad news,” Baker says. “Anna announced that she’s leaving me.”

“Whaaaa?” Debbie says. “Just as you found out your father was dead?”

“She found someone else,” Baker says. “Another doctor at the hospital.” He waits a beat. “Louisa Rodriguez.”

There is a collective gasp, then some shrieking, then a declaration from Ellen that this is, hands down, the best gossip of the entire school year. Baker gets so caught up talking with his friends that he misses the call that comes in to his phone from an unknown number, area code 787, San Juan, Puerto Rico, at 8:32 a.m.

At 8:34 a.m. on Monday, Huck is dropping Maia off at school. They’re four minutes late, but better late than not at all, which was what Maia was lobbying for. She was tired, they both were, because they’d accompanied Ayers over to Red Hook in St. Thomas the evening before so that she could get her petroglyph tattoo.

The tattoo had taken longer than they’d anticipated, but it was a beauty—an exact replica of the petroglyphs of Reef Bay, left there by the Taino three thousand years ago.

“It’s so cool,” Maia said.

“Don’t even think about it,” Huck said. After the tattoo adventure, he’d treated both of them to dinner at Fish Tails, next to the ferry dock. Ayers had been a little subdued at dinner, as had Huck. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of his malaise. If it wasn’t such a cockamamie notion, he would say he missed Irene. But how could he miss someone he’d only known a week? He wondered if Ayers was suffering from a similar affliction, if she missed either or both of Irene’s sons. She said she was getting back together with Mick. However, she didn’t sound too excited about it.

Noting their glum faces, Maia had reached out for each of them and said, “I want you guys to know I’m here for you if you ever need to talk.”

She had sounded so earnest that both Huck and Ayers had been helpless to do anything but smile.

“What?” Maia said. “What?”

Maia is gathering her things—backpack, lunch, water bottle—when Huck’s phone rings. It’s an unknown number, 787, San Juan, Puerto Rico. It’s probably Angela, the travel agent who sends Huck group charters, which is all well and good. He needs to get his head back into his business.

“Hello?” he says. He shoos Maia out of the truck; she’s dawdling.

“Mr. Powers?” a woman’s voice says. The voice is too young to be Angela’s; she’s a grandmother of fifteen and her voice is raspy from cigarettes and yelling. “Mr. Sam Powers?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Agent Colette Vasco, with the FBI, sir. I’ve just had a call from VISAR in the British Virgin Islands. They were investigating a helicopter crash on January first, a crash in which your daughter was one of the deceased?”

“Yes,” Huck says. Reluctantly, Maia climbs out of the truck. She eyes him through the windshield as she walks to the front gate of the school.

“That investigation has been passed on to us,” Agent Vasco says. “What was initially thought to be a weather-related incident now looks like it involved foul play.”

“Foul play?” Huck asks.

“Yes, sir,” Agent Vasco says. “Any chance you’re available to answer a few questions about your daughter and her friend Russell Steele?”

Huck puts the window down. He needs air. He notices Maia standing at the entrance of the school, staring back at him. She senses something.

Huck sets the phone down on the passenger seat. Agent Colette Vasco can wait. Right now, Huck has to tend to his girl. He is her Unconditional. He is her No Matter What.

“See you at three!” he calls out. “I’ll be right here, waiting.”