A baffled expression crossed Antoinette’s face; her brow wrinkled. “You found me?”

“Apparently so.”

Antoinette blinked, confused. “Apparently so,” she repeated. She put a hand on the sofa beneath her in an attempt to push herself upright.

“Don’t get up,” Kayla said. “I’m not staying.”

“Do you have a gun?” Antoinette asked.

“A gun?”

“Don’t you want to kill me?”

Kayla laughed. “Sort of, yeah. But I don’t want to kill what’s inside you.”

Antoinette relaxed; she rubbed her stomach. “It’s a girl, Kayla.”

Tears sprang to Kayla’s eyes, and she stared into the fire. “A girl, huh?” She began to cry, unsure of how to feel. On the outside, things seemed to have gone back to normal, but inside of Kayla, everything had changed. The things that money couldn’t buy- a happy marriage, good kids, loyal friends-floated in the air around Kayla like snowflakes. At one time, she’d had them all, but now they were gone, and in their place was this news. A baby, after all. A baby girl. Kayla wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath, but when she turned back to Antoinette, she broke down again.

“Why the hell did you… and Val… she didn’t tell me… she accused me…”

“I made Val promise,” Antoinette said. “I swore her to secrecy.”

“But the two of you are supposed to keep secrets with me, not from me.”

“We wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me?”

“Protect Theo,” Antoinette said. “He can’t know about this. It will only set him back, Kayla. He needs to move forward. You know I’m right about that. Please don’t tell him.”

“He’s heartbroken,” Kayla said.

“So am I,” Antoinette said. “At least he has me to blame. I have to blame myself. I do, you know- accept the blame for everything. I will feel guilty for the rest of my life.”

“Good,” Kayla said. If Jacob Anderson had taught her anything, it was that guilt was the worst that life had to deal out. And Antoinette deserved the worst. “You hurt a lot of people. You hurt me.”

“I know, Kayla. I’m sorry.”

Kayla stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She and Antoinette looked at each other for a long moment-Kayla really looked. Her friend dressed in white for the first time, the frizzy hair, the swollen belly-a woman she’d never understood, but had loved anyway. Kayla wondered what Antoinette saw: A wife? A mother? A friend?

“I have to tell Theo,” Kayla said. “There’s no way I can keep this from him.”

“You can’t tell him,” Antoinette said. “He deserves a second chance-at love, at a family. Once he’s older.”

“Yes, but…”

“Kayla,” Antoinette said. “Twenty years ago we made a promise to keep each other’s secrets safe from the rest of the world. That includes Theo.”

“He’s going to find out sooner or later,” Kayla said.

“Then let it be later. Promise me he won’t hear it from you.”

Kayla nodded and warm tears spilled down her cheeks. “Will you raise her well?” Kayla said. “This little girl of ours?”

“I will,” Antoinette said. “This is my second chance. I waited a long time for this, Kayla.”

“I didn’t know you wanted a second chance,” Kayla said.

“That was my confession,” Antoinette said. “I want a second chance. Please.”

Kayla didn’t know how to respond, and she sensed she never would.

“Merry Christmas,” Kayla said. She walked back to the door and stepped out into the cold, bright day. When she turned around, Antoinette’s eyes had fallen closed once again and Kayla watched her deep breathing resume, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm as perfect and steady as the waves of the ocean.

Kayla walked all the way back to Vineyard Haven; several cars stopped to offer her a ride, but she declined. She was in a trance of sorts. She replayed the conversation over and over and had to quell the desire to return and bombard Antoinette with what remained: her anger, her questions, her remorse. But those things were rapidly losing importance, and in their place, Kayla felt a growing sense of freedom. It was over. Complete. Ending not with a death at all, but with a life. Her granddaughter’s life would be the last Night Swimmers secret, the secret that would bind her to Val and Antoinette even if she never saw them again. The hardest secret to keep.

Forgive me, Theo, Kayla thought. Because I am a mother, too, I understand.

…

As Kayla waited for the ferry to Nantucket, she thought about the little girl who would be entering the world soon, a little girl connected to Kayla’s rife, and to her husband, and to her son, and to her dear friend. This little girl changed things, transformed them. Kayla hoped Antoinette would raise the baby to be strong and wise and yes, sensitive, like her grandmother. Maybe someday Antoinette would tell her the story about Night Swimmers, about three women who shared secrets that they couldn’t share with anyone else. Maybe when this baby grew up, she would have female friends of her own. To be friends with another woman was difficult, Kayla thought, and painful and complicated. But when a friendship between women was good, it had a sacred, shining power. Kayla gathered up memories of this power-and there were many-as she stepped onto the ferry and headed for home.

Acknowledgments

My deep and unending gratitude to:

My agent, Michael Carlisle, who is a safe place for me in the chaotic world of New York publishing, and Jennifer Weis, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, who knows commercial fiction like nobody else.

Jeff Allen, of the Nantucket Fire Department, for his detailed descriptions of open water rescue.

The women in my rife who have taught me about friendship. (You know who you are.)

Clarissa Porter, for reminding me that I had a literary mind even when I was up to my elbows in baby food, and Mimi Beman, of Mitchell’s Book Comer, for her enthusiastic support of my work.

Heather Osteen Thorpe, always my first reader.

My mother, Sally Hilderbrand, few my roots and my wings.

Most of all, thank you to the men in my life, or should I say, the men who are my life: my husband, Chip Cunningham, and our shining star, Maxwell.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ELIN HILDERBRAND lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her eight previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.