But she didn't touch Possum. She knelt down at his side and took his hand.

"Shall we sit here with Possum for a bit and watch the sunrise?"

It was a question that did not need an answer. They sat with Possum as a solitary lobster boat churned its way across the channel and the buoy bells sounded, Beverly with Possum in his lap, and the deep and lasting impression of Lottie's hand on his.

Rose had promised Meredith she would finish the book reorganization in the library. Robert did not notice when she slipped out of the cottage and headed to the east shore. She was relieved that she had managed to shake him for a bit. Yesterday, just after he arrived, he had shown her the other two springhouses on the island; the meadow hidden on the far side of the west shore; the old stone wall built far before the leisure class made their way in steamboats to Little Lost. And yesterday evening as she read, wrapped in a blanket, in a green rope hammock, he picked up his guitar just before sunset and played (hauntingly) from the porch. She was flattered by his attention, and rueful. Right time, right place; wrong guy.

She heard the banging before she went through the library door. There was Max, building new shelves.

"Morning," said Max.

"Morning," said Rose.

She got to work. There really were a lot of good books here. It must have been heartbreaking to see so many of them wrecked by the leak. She leafed through the sticky pages of an old one on Maine seabirds. It made her want to see a puffin.

She and Max worked in comfortable silence, other than the hammering. She salvaged quite a few more Maine volumes, and she was ready to start shelving when suddenly the door banged open. The girl who walked in was wild-eyed. She spotted Rose. "Is Max here?" she said. It was almost an accusation. Rose looked at her blankly. "Oh, sorry," said the girl. "Where are my manners? Kitty van Straaten." She extended her hand.

The hammer banged. Hard.

"Max!" The handshake didn't happen. This girl Kitty headed straight for Max. She was going to either throw him down on the floor of the library and ravish him or hit him with the hammer. Rose shrank back.

Max kept hammering.

"Max, stop! I need to talk to you!"

He didn't stop.

"We can't talk if you keep doing that. Don't keep doing that!"

He kept doing it.

Kitty was so angry she was shaking. I know you're furious but please don't mess up my books, Rose thought. She didn't mess up Rose's books. Instead, she swept up Max's brown paper bag of nails, tore it open, and threw the bag across the floor. Hundreds and hundreds of nails went everywhere.

Then she left.

The hammering stopped. Rose wasn't sure whether to stay or go. Max started picking up the nails, one by one.

"You from New York?" he asked.

It seemed an irrelevant question under the circumstances. "Yes-Brooklyn," she said. "Let me help." She started sweeping up the nails with her hands.

"I'll do that," he said. "There's a lot of rich bastards down there, aren't there?"

That was a little bit of a shock. Did he think she was a rich bastard?

"Some."

"Good, then she'll have her pick," said Max. "Or she'll just end up with one they pick for her."

Rose didn't say anything for a while. Kitty must live in New York, Rose thought. Max was picking up the nails deliberately, one by one. "Wouldn't want to miss one, since the islanders are paying for these."

Whoa.

Rose wanted to put her arms around him. "Love's hard," she said.

Max said nothing.

Rose left the library a little while after that, her books unshelved. She thought about Max and his problems, and about her own, too. The attentions of Robert SanSouci, rather than leading Rose away from her husband, drew her to him. She wasn't what Robert thought she was: she loved the cottage, but she didn't want to move in there with him, as he seemed to think she did. She missed the twins desperately, and she missed Fred. She just wanted things to be simple and easy again. She wanted to connect with him without always putting the twins first.

Not to mention, he would love to be here for the lobster bake.

She got up very early the next morning, with the crows. It was too early to go down to the ferry, so she listened to them argue for a while. Ben would have liked hearing them. They were loud. She wondered what they were saying, because they were definitely saying something.

She was fully awake now. The crows might as well have been inside the house, they were so noisy. Maybe they were telling her to go down to the seven thirty ferry and drive into town to send Fred an e-mail to come up in time for the lobster bake tonight. There was a lot one could read into a series of caws.

Rose crept out of bed and went down the hall to the bathroom. Beverly was usually awake at dawn-she could hear him padding about his turret room-but she could easily avoid seeing him. Only Lottie could deal with Beverly in the morning. She slipped some clothes on, not even thinking about a shower or coffee, and went into the kitchen. She had gone to bed early last night, when the kitchen was still a mess from dinner. Now it had all been cleaned up. Was it the fairies? Or possibly Jon?

There was a note on the kitchen table in what she thought must be Jon's handwriting. It was an invitation, or a command: You are cordially invited to attend a celebration of the life of POSSUM.

on Sunday, the twenty-third of August, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

Please RSVP below.

Jon and Lottie had already signed up. Caroline, too. Rose smiled, and signed her name with the stubby pencil next to the invitation. It turns out Jon was a good guy, even though from the way Lottie had described him before they got to Maine, she'd thought he would be a monster. Not a monster, but an unfeeling prick. He certainly had the capacity to be an unfeeling prick-ambitious lawyer, status conscious; plus, he was tall-but he was more like a kid than a grown man. He followed Lottie around like a Labrador. He and Lottie were having fun and Ethan was easy to have in the cottage. The place needed kids. Ethan spent all day with a passel of island boys and girls and was too exhausted to wake during the night. Plus, Jon seemed to like doing dishes. As she headed out the back door she noticed some changes to the cottage decor. Now the multitude of dusty pillows on the windowsill in the little west sitting room had been removed too-gone with the curtains, Rose supposed. Without the clutter of the motley cushions, the deep amber of the old wood shone in the morning light.

Rose was relieved that she got out of the house without seeing any of her fellow housemates, especially Robert. She took a deep breath of the spicy, clean air. In the stillness of the morning, she could see the spiderwebs of the night before, the dew on the grass. There were a few other islanders heading down to the early boat. Some of them she had met at the hat party and to those she nodded hello. There was a garrulous group of trim older women in shorts and running shoes going over to the mainland for their early morning walk.

"Can you join us for our walk?" one of them asked. Rose could not remember her name.

"Thank you. Not today," Rose said.

"Maybe tomorrow," said the walker. "We'd love to have you."

Rose was touched by the unerring politeness and genuine generosity of these tough old New England birds-not just the early morning walkers, but the much older women who were taking boats back and forth, hauling carts of groceries up and down hills. It was like a conveyer belt: towheaded kids to harried blond parents to ash gray tennis-playing grandmothers. Did they just go on forever?

"I don't see why renters would want to walk with you, Susan." This was said by an imposing woman sitting in a corner of the ferry. She wore crisp white pants and a cotton sweater, with pearls. Was this the woman who'd stolen Caroline's strawberry-rhubarb pie? "She won't know anyone you're talking about. And she'll be leaving before you know it." Rose took her place inconspicuously on the ferry's upper deck. There always had to be a bad fairy in the mix, and this lady was it.

The woman called Susan untied the ferry from the dock and it backed out into the channel. Max was not driving it today. It was a high school kid who did the seven thirty run: Warren.

The water was glassy and the wind was still, and they were over on the mainland before Rose could really settle into any thoughts, except that she had yet to see a seal. She got off, walked up to the car, was massively relieved that she had remembered to leave the car keys in her bag, and drove into town before she lost her resolve.

Fred really should have e-mailed her by now. Maybe he'd decided to surprise her, and was already on his way. She looked at her phone as she drove-no bars till she was right down in Dorset Harbor. There were only a few cars parked in the lot near the library, so she had her pick of spaces. She turned in to a spot that faced the water, still not quite over the fact that there was always a parking space, and almost always a parking space with a killer view.

Under the portico of the library she checked her phone. No texts and no messages from Fred. Never mind-she wanted him here, Lottie saw him here, he would love it here, they would be themselves here. It took her six drafts, then she texted: Hi sweetheart. It's me. Could you come up to Maine? Maybe today even? If you start now, you'll be here in time for the lobster bake tonight. Hopewell Cottage, Little Lost Island, Maine. Love you, Rosie xx

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The little notebook that held several generations' worth of recommendations for putting together the perfect lobster bake was on the mantelpiece, where it had lain for many years. Robert leafed through it. The handwriting was familiar to him, not because it evoked any member of his own family, but because he had looked in the book so many times thinking how marvelous it would be if he ever had a cottageful of friends who together might make an event like this occur.

And now he did.

Robert had taken the Whaler into the Harbor very early that morning to get the supplies they would need. He'd taken his orders right from the notebook; his father's cousin was apparently the authority. Robert recognized the name signed at the end of the entry titled "Lobster Bake for Hopewell Cottage-USE THIS ONE. July 1993."

He did not have any recollection of having met Jim Sprague, but he had every confidence that Jim Sprague had known what he was doing. He had used Jim Sprague's shopping list as his own that morning: Lobsters-one each unless they're soft-shell, and in that case up to two each Corn-people say they can only eat one ear but get at least two apiece Potatoes-Chris brings new potatoes down from his root cellar, so use those if you can. Otherwise get them at the market. Half a pound apiece.

Onions-Deeda is no fan of onions and says they're not traditional but people eat them so get one apiece.

Steamers-nowadays you're supposed to check the red tide levels with the Coast Guard but we just rake them up at Harrop Point Beach.

Robert had got the potatoes and corn from the farm stand in Dorset. He grudgingly bought onions, too, though like Deeda (another cousin?) he didn't think they belonged. He had remembered butter, too, which Jim Sprague had not included in the ingredients list but which featured later in the narrative. Or recipe, rather.

The fog had already burned off, and the radio-and the sky-told him the good weather would hold all day. After reading the booklet over and over last night, he figured he could just about do the whole thing by himself, but it would be so much better if they joined in and did it together.

This was about Rose, of course.

Rose was married, yes. And she came with kids, whom, granted, he had yet to meet. So it was complicated. But she had filled the cottage with her friends and changed the look and feel of it and everything now seemed possible. It could be like this every summer. He could take possession of the place. The lobster bake would be the place to start.

He imagined Jon would be the one to help on this. He was a guy who'd like to show off. They could show off together-Jon for Lottie; Robert for Rose. Robert put the feisty lobsters in the fridge and left the other food in the cart on the back boardwalk. He wondered if Jon was up yet.

Robert made coffee with the new pot Jon had bought in the Harbor; he liked being up with the birds. It was something he rarely did in New York (no birds). In Maine he woke up and smelled the coffee.

He took the coffeepot out onto the front porch and consulted the lobster bake notebook again. There were a lot of opinions as to how to go about this ritual. Many people had weighed in on the issue. Men, mostly, from the look of the handwriting. There were instructions for an all-island affair-150 lobsters! Three hundred ears of corn! That was not what he was after today. An intimate cottage lobster bake: just enough to impress. He flipped through the pages.

Start early. Don't leave it all till late in the day because for one thing you'll be tired and for another you won't get the fire hot enough and that's the whole trick of it. Hopewell has the best spot for a bake right down on the little beach with the sea glass. Pick a day when the wind is from the south so you don't get the bugs blowing in from the mainland. A day with just about no wind is good too. The fire can blow.

"Will this be a mistake?" Robert said aloud.

"Will what be a mistake?" Jon asked. He had padded onto the porch without Robert's noticing.

"The lobster bake."

"We're doing it ourselves, right?"

"I thought we'd give it a try," said Robert. "My ancestors had a lot of ideas on the subject. I've done it once or twice here but I didn't know there was an instruction book at the time." He'd tried one for a bunch of early-music people the first year he came up to the house. They had pretty much winged it, and the fire hadn't been hot enough, so nothing got thoroughly steamed. They ended up boiling the corn on the stove and ditching the sandy potatoes.

The ill-suited Arlene insisted he do a lobster bake for her friends from the city, but when they were attacked by mosquitoes that bit through even their black leggings, Robert ended up bringing everything inside for what was ultimately a rather somber meal.

"Everybody's going to have ideas on the subject," said Jon. "Even if they've never done this before. What do they say in there?"

Robert handed him the book. "This part I've done," he said. "I picked up the lobsters in town this morning. And the other food too. Then he says to start early. It's only eight thirty, so I think we're good so far."

"What about the wind?" asked Jon.

"I don't think we're getting much wind today. The water was pretty still this morning."

"'Dig yourself a pit on the beach above the high tide mark. You don't want to start your fire and then worry about the water coming too close to it,'" Jon read. "Smart. 'Be generous with the pit. You'll be digging in sand so it won't be much work. Two foot by four foot should do it for a cottage crowd.' This whole thing is, like, a day's work."

"We're doing work?" asked Rose.

Robert wasn't prepared for this new version of Rose. She was glowing. Had she been up for a morning swim? Or a run? She looked exhilarated, and Jon told her so, flashing his signature smile her way.

Why don't I have a smile like that? Robert wondered. His was so tentative, reserved.

"What have you been up to this early in the morning?" Jon asked.

Rose sat on the swing glider and beamed at them both. "I've been on a secret mission," she said, "more or less because Lottie said I had to. Let's hope she's right. I think she might be." She smiled at Robert, her pale Wyeth eyes bright. "What are you two plotting out here?"

"We're plotting the lobster bake," said Jon. "It's a gigantic amount of work."

"An activity for all of us," said Robert.

"We have to dig pits and make fires and throw seaweed on top of burning coals or something."

"It's going to be a production," Robert added.

"I love a production," said Rose, and she touched him gently on the shoulder. He wanted to feel it all through his body but he only felt it on his shoulder. "Weren't you going to show me the old bathhouses today, Robert? I want to see as much of the island as I can." She seemed to be hugging an idea close to her-Robert continued to hope that it was to stay here on the island. To get to know it, intimately, and to stay forever, with him.

Rose should love this event, Robert thought. He didn't have Jon's smile and he wasn't her husband, obviously, but he had this cottage and he knew (vaguely) how to put together a lobster bake. He imagined her eyes shining as he raked the embers of the fire. "You can do anything, Robert," she'd say. In his dreams.

"We need a galvanized tub," she said. She was now reading the directions too. "'Next year I would start the fire at two p.m. and cook the pot until the seaweed on top has changed color to the ochre yellow color it gets when it's cooked.' Whoever wrote this wasn't color-blind."

"Do we have all this stuff?" Jon asked Robert. "A tarp? Seaweed? You have to soak the tarp in water."

"The tub is under the house. The tarp, too. They should be, at least. If they're not, the whole thing is off. I should have checked." He wished Jon would go away and he and Rose could plan this together. "There's a diagram here, I think." He flipped the pages. "Here you go."

"'If you put eggs on top and they cook, check the tub after one hour!!' What does that even mean?"

"It's a test for doneness," said Robert. "If the eggs are hard-boiled, the whole meal is cooked. But I actually think it's easier just to let it steam for an hour and twenty minutes or so. At the end you put a pot of butter on the very top. It melts fast."

Jon had continued to flip through the lobster bake notebook. "I think we need to start hunting and gathering now. This is a lot of shit."

Robert wanted Jon's help but he didn't want him to take charge. "I suggest we look around under the cottage and get all the stuff together. I already checked the tide chart on the dock, and low tide is at five thirty-seven tonight."

"We'll need to eat early, though, so we can get to Caroline's play. Eight o'clock curtain."

Robert had yet to meet Caroline. He didn't give her too much thought. Rose had described her as an out-of-work actress. He sympathized: the life of a performer was not completely in one's own control. She was probably the brassy type who sang show tunes with too much vibrato and did a lot of stretching.

"Everything will be cooked to perfection by five thirty. And we'll have plenty of beach. The water has been going way out the past couple of days."