“You seemed fine to me,” Quinn said reassuringly, remembering her standing in the pouring rain without a raincoat or umbrella. There had been something devastated in her face when she told him she had Niagara Falls in her kitchen. And now he understood it better. She seemed to have no need to hide what she was feeling, and he suspected that she felt better now. Better enough to come to dinner at least, and he was suddenly glad that Jack had pressed him to invite her. More than anything else, this woman needed friends to distract her. They were like three souls in a lifeboat. And for the moment, Quinn was rowing. And he suddenly decided to share something with her, if only to let her know that she was not alone in her agony, and would survive it.

“My son died twenty-three years ago, in a boating accident,” he confided as he set his fork down and looked at her across the table, as Jack watched them. He had never heard that from Quinn before, and was deeply touched by the admission. The only child Quinn had mentioned to him was Alex, in Geneva. “He was thirteen, and I think I only realized recently how deeply it changed both of us. I withdrew even deeper into my work, and my wife became more introverted and stayed that way. We were both grief-stricken, but when I read her journals, after her death, I understood better how profoundly it altered her. I was busy then, and probably insensitive about it. I'm sure I wasn't much help to her. It was too painful for me to talk about, so I seldom, if ever, did. She wrote some beautiful stories about him.” There were tears in his eyes as he spoke, and he didn't confess to her that he had forced Jane to put away Doug's things within weeks after he died. And the little she had kept unboxed, she had concealed from Quinn in her closet. In a sense, he had forced her to do that, and now that he understood what it had meant to her, he deeply regretted what he'd said and done. He had thought he was doing the right thing for her, for himself, and even for Alex. But now he knew he'd been wrong. He had learned so much about her and himself in the months since she'd been gone.

“It's not a great thing to happen to a marriage,” Maggie said, looking at Quinn. Her eyes bored into his like drills, as though asking a thousand questions. She wanted to ask him how he had survived it, or how his wife had. She still blamed herself for the end of her marriage.

She had always felt that her husband had lacked empathy for the depths of their son's depression, and that perhaps unknowingly, because of it, he had exacerbated Andrew's desperation. And because of that, she had never forgiven Charles for Andrew's death, and he knew it, whether she said it or not. He in turn felt she should have been able to stop it. Their final year together had been one of relentless silent accusation, until they could no longer stand each other. And no matter what they did to each other or themselves, nothing would bring their son back. Although she was devastated when Charles left, she felt he had made the right decision for both of them. In the end, their marriage had been as dead as their son. Charles had given her the best settlement he could, in the form of the house he had paid for her to buy, to escape the one where their son died, and he had given her enough money to live on for the next few years. Eventually, she'd have to go back to teaching. But for the moment, she was still hiding, as Quinn was. He understood that much about her. She had wrapped herself in a cocoon, to protect herself from the realities and blows of life. She needed time to heal, and was giving herself time to do it, which seemed sensible of her. But when she wasn't talking or even sometimes when she was, her eyes looked agonizingly sad to Quinn.

“You've been through a lot of trauma,” Quinn said softly, and she nodded. She had no need to deny it, nor did she want to portray herself as a victim. In spite of the injuries she'd sustained, Quinn had a sense that she was both brave and strong.

“A lot of other people have been through trauma,” she said sensibly, “the counseling work I do reminds me of that. Suicide is the second biggest killer of kids in this country. We have a long way to go before most people understand that. Andrew tried it twice before the last time.”

“Was he on medication?” Quinn sounded sympathetic and concerned.

“Sometimes. He wasn't always willing to stay on it. He was pretty clever about pretending to take it, and then not. He didn't like the way it made him feel. It either made him feel anxious, or too lethargic. I hear a lot of that on the hotline.” Quinn admired her for the volunteer work she was doing. She was a nice woman, and it was easy to see why Jack liked her. She was open and honest and not afraid to show her vulnerability. Talking to her reminded Quinn that there were others who were suffering as much as he was. He told her about Jane then. The years he had worked too hard and too much, been away most of the time, his retirement, her sudden illness, and death.

“It was all over before we knew it.”

“How long has it been?” Maggie asked sympathetically.

“Nine months. She died in June. I traveled for the first five months. I've been back since November. I came back to put the house in order, and sell it this spring.”

“And then what will you do?” she asked with interest. She noted that he had opted for the geographic cure, as they called it in counseling. And she didn't want to tell him that it didn't work. At some point, wherever he was, he was still going to have to face the fact that she was gone, and however he had failed her, or felt he had, whether accurate or not. Most important of all, he was going to have to forgive himself, just as she had to forgive herself, and even Charles, for Andrew's death. Unless he could, Quinn would never outrun the agony he was still feeling.

“I'm building a sailboat in Holland,” Quinn explained to her, and told her about the months he had spent on the Victory that fall, and his decision to buy Bob Ramsay's boat and complete it. “I'm going to sail around the world for a while, maybe forever,” Quinn said with a look of relief, as though he was sure that on the boat, he would no longer have to face his own demons. She could have told him different, but didn't. She knew better. But the boat he described to her sparked her imagination, and she smiled with pleasure.

“She sounds like a beauty,” Maggie said with a look of admiration and nearly envy.

“Do you sail?” Quinn seemed surprised.

“I used to. I grew up in Boston, and spent my summers on the Cape. I loved to sail as a kid. I haven't in years. My husband hated boats, and Andrew never liked them much. It's been a long time.”

“Jane and my daughter didn't like sailing either, especially after my son died. I had a boat years ago, when we first moved out here. But I was too busy to use it. I sold it the year after Doug died. This is going to be a rare opportunity for me to indulge my passion.” He smiled at both of them. Jack was enjoying the exchange between them, glad that he had encouraged Quinn to invite Maggie to dinner. More than they knew, or even he did, they had much in common. And they were each in need of companionship and friendship. They both spent too much time alone, and had too many painful memories to dwell on. A night like this did them both good.

“A hundred and eighty feet of ketch is a lot of passion,” Maggie teased him. “That must be very exciting,” she said as her eyes danced.

“It is, and it will be. She'll be finished in September.” He offered to show her the plans then, and they pored over them sitting at the table, as Jack cleared the dishes, and then returned to the table to join them. It was a particularly nice evening, and much to Quinn's surprise, the Friday night dinner was even more pleasant as a threesome. Maggie had definitely brought something to it, despite her heartfelt confessions. But everyone's spirits seemed to lift as Quinn described the boat in its most minute detail. Maggie asked all the right questions. She was extremely knowledgeable about sailboats, and knew of all the most important builders and naval architects and designers. Her extensive knowledge impressed Quinn considerably. And after he put the plans away, Jack suggested a game of liar's dice, which was what he and Quinn usually did at the end of their Friday evenings. Maggie laughed at the suggestion, and looked amused.

“I haven't played in years,” she warned, and managed to beat them both at least once each, and then Quinn took over. He was the expert among them, and usually beat Jack as well. They had a good time nonetheless, and it was after midnight when Maggie finally left them and went home. She was scheduled to be on the teen suicide hotline at one o'clock, and she was in surprisingly good spirits.

Jack only lingered for a few minutes after she left. “She's a nice woman,” he said, smiling at Quinn. “She's had a tough time. He was her only kid, and the guy who does her gardening says she found him.” She hadn't told them that. “The husband doesn't sound like a great guy for leaving her after all that,” Jack said, although she had described him charitably. She was a good woman, and a pretty one, and deserved to have had someone who stuck by her. It was hard for Jack to imagine the trauma they'd been through.

“People do ugly things to each other in those circumstances,” Quinn said wisely. “Jane probably should have left me too. Thank God, she didn't. I wasn't very sensitive to her needs then. All I could think of was how I felt to have lost my son. I thought if I didn't talk about it, the pain would go away, instead it just went underground and ate at us both.” But he had seen clearly in Jane's journals that she understood, not only her grief but his, and had allowed him to mourn in the way he needed to, on his own. She had carried the full weight of her solitary grief on her own shoulders, not unlike Maggie when she lost her son.