“It’s okay, Sarah. I think this is all for the best. For both of us. We just weren’t ready.” We? She couldn’t believe he had actually said that. He didn’t even blame himself, he was just happy to be free of her, and the responsibilities he had never bothered to face anyway, like their baby.

“You’re not angry?” Sarah was amazed, and hurt.

“Not at all, babe.”

And then a long silence. “Are you glad?”

Another silence. “You love asking those questions, don’t you, Sarah? What difference does it make what I feel? We made a mistake, and your father is helping us out of it. He’s a nice man, and I think we’re doing the right thing. I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble…” Like a bad weekend, or a rotten afternoon. He had no idea what the last year had been like for her. No one did. He was just happy he was getting out of it, that much was obvious as she listened.

“What are you going to do now?” She hadn’t figured out that much for herself yet. It was all too new and too confusing. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go back to New York again. She didn’t want to see anyone, or have to explain anything about the demise of her marriage to Freddie Van Deering.

“I thought I’d go to Palm Springs for a few months. Or maybe Europe for the summer.” He mused, making plans as he talked.

“That sounds like fun.” It was like talking to a stranger, and that made her even sadder. They had never known each other at all, it was all a game, and she had lost. They both had. But only he didn’t seem to mind it.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, as though to an old friend or a schoolmate he wouldn’t be seeing for a while, instead of never.

“Thanks.” She sat staring woodenly at the phone as she held the receiver and listened to him.

“I’d better go now, Sarah.” She nodded in silence. “Sarah?”

“Yes … I’m sorry … thank you for calling.” Thank you for a terrible year, Mr. Van Deering…. Thank you for breaking my heart…. She wanted to ask him if he’d ever loved her, but she didn’t dare, and she thought she knew the answer anyway. It was obvious that he hadn’t. He didn’t love anyone, not even himself, and certainly not Sarah.

Her mother watched her grieve for the next month, and on into August and September. The only thing that had caught her attention in July was when Amelia Earhart disappeared, and a few days after that when the Japanese invaded China. But for the most part, all she could think about was her divorce, and the shame and guilt she felt about it. She grew even worse for a time when Jane’s baby girl was born, but she drove into New York with her mother to see Jane at the hospital, and insisted on driving back to Southampton by herself that night after she’d seen her. The baby was very sweet, and they had named her Marjorie, but Sarah was anxious to be alone again. She spent most of her time now dwelling on the past and trying to figure out what had happened to her. It was much simpler than she thought, actually. She had simply married someone she didn’t really know, and he had turned out to be a terrible husband. End of story. But she insisted somehow on blaming herself, and she became convinced that if she dropped out of sight, and stayed away, people would forget that she existed, and wouldn’t punish her parents for her sins. So for their sakes, and her own, she insisted on literally disappearing.

“You can’t do this for the rest of your life, Sarah,” her father said sternly after Labor Day, when they were moving back to New York for the winter. The legal proceedings were going well. Freddie had gone to Europe as he had said he might, but his attorney was handling everything for him and was cooperating fully with the Thompsons. The hearing was set for November, and the divorce would be final almost exactly a year later. “You’ve got to come back to New York,” her father urged. They didn’t want to leave her there, like a discarded relative they were ashamed of. But as crazy as it was, that was how she saw herself, and she even resisted Jane’s pleas to return when she came out to Long Island to see her in October with the baby.

“I don’t want to go back to New York, Jane. I’m perfectly happy here”.

“With Charles and three old servants, freezing to death on the Long Island Sound all winter? Sarrie, don’t be stupid. Come home. You’re twenty-one years old. You can’t give up your life now. You have to start over.”

“I don’t want to,” she said quietly, refusing to pay any attention to her sister’s baby.

“Don’t be crazy.” Jane looked exasperated with the stubbornness of her younger sister.

“What do you know, dammit? You have a husband who loves you, and two children. You’ve never been a burden, or an embarrassment or a disgrace to anyone. You’re the perfect wife, daughter, sister, mother. What do you know about my life? Absolutely nothing!” She looked furious, and she was, but not at Jane, and she knew it. She was furious at herself, and the fates … and at Freddie. And then she was instantly contrite as she looked at her sister sadly. “I’m sorry, I just want to be alone out here.” She couldn’t even really explain it.

“Why?” Jane couldn’t understand it. She was young and beautiful, and she wasn’t the only woman alive to get divorced, but she acted as though she had been convicted of murder.

“I don’t want to see anyone. Can’t you understand that?”

“For how long?”

“Maybe forever. All right? Is that long enough? Does that make it clear to you?” Sarah hated answering all her questions.

“Sarah Thompson, you’re crazy.” Her father had arranged for her to take her own name back as soon as he filed for the separation.

“I have a right to do what I want with my life. I can go be a nun if I want to,” she said stubbornly to her sister.

“You’ll have to become a Catholic first.” Jane grinned, but Sarah didn’t find it amusing. They had been Episcopalians since birth. And Jane was beginning to think that Sarah was a little crazy. Or maybe she’d come out of it after a while. It was what they all hoped, but it no longer seemed certain.

But Sarah remained firm in her refusal to move back to New York. Her mother had long since picked up her things from the apartment in New York and stored them all in boxes, which Sarah insisted she didn’t even want to see now. She went to her divorce hearing in November wearing a black suit and a funereal face. She looked beautiful and afraid and sat through it stoically until it was over. And as soon as it was, she drove herself back to Long Island.

She went for long walks on the beach every day, even on the bitterest cold days, with the wind whipping her face until it felt as though it were bleeding. She read endlessly, and wrote letters to her mother and Jane and some of her oldest friends, but in truth she still had no desire to see them.

They all celebrated Christmas in Southampton and Sarah hardly talked to anyone. The only time she mentioned the divorce was to her mother, when they heard a news story over the radio about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She felt an unhappy kinship with Wally Simpson. But her mother assured her again that she and the Simpson woman had nothing in common.

When spring came, she looked better again finally, healthier, rested, she had gained back some weight, and her eyes were alive. But by then she was talking about finding a farmhouse on Long Island somewhere, in the remoter parts, and trying to rent it, or perhaps even buy one.

“That’s ridiculous,” her father growled when she suggested it to him. “I can understand perfectly well that you were unhappy over what happened, and needed some time to recover here, but I’m not going to let you bury yourself on Long Island for the rest of your life, like a hermit. You can stay here until the summer, and in July, your mother and I are taking you to Europe.” He had decided it just the week before and his wife was thrilled, and even Jane thought it was a splendid idea, and just what Sarah needed.

“I won’t go.” She looked at him stubbornly, but she looked healthy and strong and more beautiful than ever. It was time for her to go back out in the world again, whether she knew it or not. And if she wouldn’t go of her own accord, they were prepared to force her.

“You will go, if we tell you to.”

“I don’t want to run into Freddie,” she said weakly.

“He’s been in Palm Beach all winter.”

“How do you know?” She was curious, wondering if her father had spoken to him.

“I’ve spoken to his attorney.”

“I don’t want to go to Europe anyway.”

“That’s unfortunate. Because you can go willingly, or unwillingly. But in either case, you’re going.” She had stormed away from the table then, and gone for a long walk on the beach, but when she returned, her father was waiting for her just outside the cottage. It had almost broken his heart to see her grieve over the past year, over the marriage that never was, the child she had lost, the mistakes she had made, and her bitter disappointment. And she was surprised to see him waiting for her, as she came up off the beach, through the tall dune grass.

“I love you, Sarah.” It was the first time her father had ever said that to her, in just that way, and it reached her heart like an arrow covered with the balm she needed to heal her. “Your mother and I love you very much. We may not know how to help you, to make up to you for everything that happened, but we want to try … please let us do that.”

Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him, and he pulled her into his arms and held her there for a long time as she cried on his shoulder. “I love you too, Papa. … I love you too…. I’m so sorry….”

“Don’t be sorry anymore, Sarah…. Just be happy…. Be the girl you used to be before this all happened.”

“I’ll try.” She pulled out of his arms for a moment to look at him and saw that he was crying too. “I’m sorry I’ve been so much trouble.”