That night, Daria sat at the picnic table on the Sea Shanty porch with Chloe and Shelly, eating cold roasted chicken and potato salad for dinner. No one was talking much; neither Chloe nor Shelly was finished with her grieving. And although Daria knew the timing was poor, she had to bring the subject up.

“There’s a rumor going around that Father Macy might have killed himself,” she said halfway through the meal.

Chloe looked up from the chicken breast she had barely touched.

“I’ve heard some rumblings to that fact,” she said, her voice flat.

Daria looked at Shelly, who kept her gaze fastened on her plate.

“Shelly?” Daria prompted.

Shelly looked up.

“What?”

“I know you thought that might happen. That Father Macy might commit suicide.”

Chloe looked surprised.

“You did?” she asked Shelly. “What would make you think that?”

Shelly shrugged and poked at her potato salad with her fork.

Daria looked at Chloe. “About a week ago. Shelly was upset, and she told me she thought Father Macy might kill himself,” Daria explained.

“I thought she was… I thought she’d misinterpreted something he’d said. Now I’m not so sure.”

Shelly began to cry. She pushed her plate away and pressed her napkin to her eyes.

“I knew he was going to do it,” she said.

“I should have done something about it.”

Daria leaned forward, her elbows on the table.

“Why on earth did you think he was going to do that?” she asked.

Shelly sat back on the bench, her nose already red from crying.

“He said he was upset with himself,” she said.

“He said he was a… sinner.”

“A sinner?” Daria repeated.

“What did he mean by that? Did he say why he thought he was a sinner?”

Shelly shook her head. “He always talked like a puzzle to me. I was never sure what he meant about things.” She picked up her fork again and poked it into the potato salad. “He asked me if I thought it was wrong to kill yourself, and I said that I thought it was. And he said, that he thought God would forgive a suicide if it was done to save somebody else.”

Daria and Chloe exchanged looks of confusion on their side of the table.

“Who would he be saving?” Daria asked.

“I think you must have misunderstood him.”

Chloe slipped off her side of the bench and moved around the table to sit next to Shelly. She rested her hand on her younger sister’s arm, and Daria saw tears brimming in Chloe’s eyes.

“I think Daria’s right, honey, and you misunderstood what Father Sean was saying,” she said.

“So, I think that what you just told us has to stay between the three of us. Understand? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and if you were to spread it around, I’m afraid it would just fuel the fire right now.” Chloe pressed her lips together, her glistening eyes fixed on the picnic table. “The thing we need to keep in mind is that Sean was a good man. Maybe he did do something that would make him a sinner in the eyes of the Church, but not in the eyes of God, and that’s what counts. God could never think of such a person as a sinner. So, maybe you got confused in what you heard, or maybe Sean himself was confused by what he was thinking or feeling. Either way, we need to keep what he told you in this house. Okay?”

Shelly nodded, and Daria could see that she was relieved to have told them what she knew and that she’d been comforted by Chloe’s words.

Chloe stood up, leaning over to give Shelly a hug.

All three of them looked up at the sound of a car door slamming.

Across the cul-de-sac, Grace was walking from her car toward the front door of Poll-Rory. Daria wondered if she had a clue what was waiting for her inside that cottage. She fervently hoped Rory could get to the bottom of the game she was playing.

Chloe looked down at Daria, who had not yet told her what she knew about Grace.

“And how about you, sweetheart?” Chloe said to her, nodding in the direction of Rory’s cottage.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now,” she said. At Chloe’s disbelieving look, she repeated to herself with a smile.

“Really, Chloe,” she said.

“I’m fine.”

Rory let Grace into the cottage. He’d been both dreading and looking forward to this moment since his talk with Daria the day before. Grace greeted him with a smile, obviously unaware that she had been unmasked. What truly lay beneath that mask, he couldn’t say, but he planned to find out in the next few minutes.

She stood inside the cottage door, and she must have seen the seriousness in his face, because her smile quickly faded.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You and I need to have a talk,” he said.

The apprehension in her eyes was instantaneous. “What about?” she asked.

He walked into the living room, and she followed him, but remained standing when he sat down in a chair.

“I know you’re not really separated,” he began, “and I know you had a child who was killed in a plane crash in April.”

Grace let out her breath. Shutting her eyes briefly, she sat down on the sofa. “How do you know all that?”

“Did you know that Daria was one of the EMTs involved in trying to rescue your daughter?” he asked.

The color drained from her face so quickly that he was certain she had not known. She probably knew nothing about Shelly’s involvement, then, either.

“I had no idea,” she said.

“Well, she was,” Rory said.

“And the fact that she wasn’t able to save your daughter really distressed her. It got bad enough that she quit being an EMT, and she was so upset about it, that she decided to track down your daughter’s family to speak with them about it. So, she went to Rodanthe and talked to your… husband.”

“Oh my God…” “And I guess your husband mentioned you, and Daria put two and two together and realized that you and the pilot’s mother were one and the same person.”

Grace lowered her head to her hands.

“Oh, Rory, I’m so sorry. This must all seem insane to you. I had no idea Daria was involved in that accident. That’s just a crazy coincidence. I lied about not having children because I didn’t want to talk about Pamela. It’s too painful to talk about. She was my baby.” Grace began to cry in earnest,

and Rory felt the hard edges of his heart begin to soften.

“And I only partly lied about being separated,” she said. “Daria said you live on the same property as your husband.”

Grace nodded.

“I live above the garage,” she said.

“I’d live somewhere else, if I could afford to. But right now, I can’t. If Eddie doesn’t know we’re separated, then he’s in denial.”

Her lower lip trembled, and Rory knew that Daria was mistaken about Grace’s ulterior motives. This was a woman who had recently lost a child, and she obviously did not have support from her husband in grieving for that child. Plus, she’d recently had a serious illness.

He could only imagine the emotional pain she’d been suffering. So she’d gone a little crazy. He’d been crazy after his separation, and that had not been coupled with the loss of a child. His throat tightened at the thought of losing Zack.

He moved to the sofa, sitting down next to her, close to her.

“I have one more question I need an answer to,” he said.

She pressed her lips together and nodded, waiting.

“What kind of illness did you have?” It was time he knew. He was tired of her secrets and evasiveness.

She swallowed hard and a look of panic came into her eyes.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” She stood up, swaying, and he stood, too, holding her arm to steady her.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and she walked unsteadily toward the bathroom.

He waited what seemed like a long time, and was about to check on her when she emerged from the bathroom, holding a wet washcloth to her throat. He stood up. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She offered a wry laugh.

“Oh, I’m just great,” she said, taking her seat again.

He held her hand on his knee, not caring whether she wanted him to, not caring if she had a husband, or if she had lied to him. Her palm was clammy and cool. She pressed the washcloth to her forehead with her other hand, then lowered it to her lap.

“I had heart surgery just before Pamela died,” she said, drawing away a bit to look at him.

“I have a condition called Marfan’s syndrome.

It’s hereditary and can sometimes affect the heart. Pamela had it, too. She’d just been diagnosed with it, although she hadn’t had any obvious symptoms—until the seizure she had on the plane. That’s why the plane went down. My husband always pushed her to fly. ” She suddenly looked angry.

“If it hadn’t been for him, she would have taken up some normal hobby, like softball or… a musical instrument, or something. And she’d still be alive.” She closed her eyes tightly, and the tears started again.

“I’m sorry, Rory,” she said.

“When I lied to you that first day on the beach, I didn’t know I was going to become friends with you. Or that I’d even see you again. And once the lie was out…”

“Shh.” He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him, and she did not resist. She wept against his chest, tangled up in her lies and grief. He was not certain what impact all those lies would have on their relationship. All he knew was that, right now, she needed a friend. He was more than willing to play that role.

Daria and Chloe arrived home from work at the same time, when the sky above the ocean was pewter-colored and cloudless and there was no hint of menacing weather.

“Did you hear about the hurricane headed this way?” Daria asked as she and Chloe walked onto the Sea Shanty’s porch.

“No,” Chloe said.