Page 32

“Wow. What a life!” Matt said, shaking his head. “Although maybe Maggie mentioned you were doing something like that.”

Maggie was Matt’s wife, another high school friend.

“Does Rose know you’re here?” Matt asked.

Rhett laughed, as though the idea were absurd. “No. We didn’t keep in touch over the years.”

Matt lowered his chin. “You should have seen the guy she married. Handsome, sure, but he was totally wrong for her. At her own wedding, Maggie caught Rose crying.”

Rhett’s heart softened around the edges. That couldn’t be true, could it?

“Maybe she was just nervous,” he suggested.

“Yeah. But they weren’t married long, which shows you something,” Matt said. “But I don’t know. She owns this little bakery up the road, on Washington Street. You should go in, have a slice of cake, catch up. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

“Maybe some other time,” Rhett said, smiling.

Later that night, wrapped in blankets in his hotel room, watching television and waiting for sleep to come, Rhett considered what Matt had said. You should go in, have a slice of cake. But what did Matt know about Rhett and Rose, especially now? Matt and Maggie had gotten together at sixteen and never broken up, not once. It meant that Matt’s advice was moot.

15

Willow’s ears still rang with what Eleanor Pike had told her. “You don’t want to hang around here, ruining people’s lives, do you? Your mother raised you better than that. You’re not that kind of girl.” She felt sick with it, so much so that that night, she couldn’t sleep. At around eleven thirty, she pulled out her phone and tried to call Ralph to tell him what happened. But his phone went straight to voicemail, which left her reeling. What if something happened to Ralph? What if he died, too, and she was left completely alone in the world?

The following morning, Willow got up and went downstairs for breakfast. But the woman who ran it told her, tragically, that their kitchen was down; they had no running water, and the oven was on the fritz. “It means we’re sending you out to breakfast, on us,” she said, smiling. She told her about the Sunny Oak, a brunch place three blocks away, which was expecting her. “Order whatever you want, honey. You look like you need a pick-me-up.”

Willow wasn’t sure what she looked like, as she hadn’t spent any time in front of the mirror that morning. Nervous, she hurried upstairs to check her face and do a little makeup before going to the Sunny Oak.

Once outside, Willow walked glumly through the chilly morning air. Her stomach flipped with hunger. The island seemed eerie and deserted, and Willow had the strangest idea that Eleanor had told everyone to stay away from her. Maybe she’d said, "We need to get this girl out of here and back where she belongs."

But Willow wasn’t sure she wanted to leave Nantucket so easily. She’d come here for answers about her mother, and she’d found none so far, except that everyone was pretty cagey about it. What had happened twenty-five years ago? What was the secret of Willow’s existence?

Willow sat in a booth at the diner, where a cheerful server took her order and brought her a big mug of coffee. Willow had brought her journal, where she’d wanted to write her thoughts and feelings about searching for her mother. But all she did was sit there, watching the wind pull at the red leaves on the oak outside.

Only a few other people sat in the restaurant: an elderly couple who ate eggs so slowly that they seemed to be moving backward, and a guy a little bit older than Willow, who seemed very focused on the magazine he’d spread out beside his coffee. Something about him called to her, although she couldn’t say why. Maybe it was because he was handsome. Maybe it was because she was so achingly lonely that she might have been called to anyone.

When Willow’s eggs and bacon were delivered to the table, the man looked up, and they locked eyes for a moment.

“Those look amazing,” he said. “I regret my order.”

“What did you get?”

“Black coffee with toast,” he said.

Willow winced, and the guy laughed.

“Better luck next time,” Willow said. “What are you reading?”

The guy raised his magazine to show that it was a copy of The New Yorker, which Willow had neglected to read for the better part of five years. She suddenly felt so lackluster, so unworldly.

As though he’d heard her thoughts, he said, “I’m trying to get back into the rhythm of these things. They come every week! How does anyone have the time?”

Willow laughed and admitted she’d had the same problem.

As Willow ate her breakfast, she couldn’t help but sense the man’s eyes on her, as though he were checking up on her or looking for another opening to talk to her. She wiped her lips, praying that she didn’t look like a messy eater. When she’d finished, she sipped her coffee and turned fully toward the man, who was toward the back end of the magazine by then.

“What’s the best thing you’ve read in there so far?” she asked, thinking she could read it later, and maybe they could talk about it if he asked for her number.

It had been so long since she’d wanted someone to ask for her number. What was she doing? Had Eleanor Pike made her insane?