Lottie noticed Rose's shoulders getting closer and closer to her ears. She desperately wanted to pour oil on the troubled waters of the kitchen but was not exactly sure how. Maybe if she got started on the lobsters . . .

She approached the writhing bag. "I'll do the lobsters," she said. "Do you just dump them in as is or-"

"You most certainly do not just dump them in as is," said Beverly. Rose practically bashed into him as she took the carrots from the fridge. "And Rose, no need to peel those as long as you wash them well, even in this water."

"Thanks, Beverly. I have actually prepared a carrot in my life."

He lifted the lid on the great lobster pot. "There's not enough water here. It will boil away before the poor creatures are dead. Add some more, please, and where's the top of the pot?"

Lottie pointed. "There?"

"That's the lid, not the top."

She wordlessly handed him the top of the pot.

"You steam lobsters," she said.

"I steam lobsters, apparently," said Beverly.

"None for me," said Rose. "I'll just have the salad."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Beverly.

"Shall I help?" asked Caroline, gliding down the stairs. "No one's picked the wildflowers for the table. Lovely drink, Lottie."

Beverly expertly located a pair of scissors in the overcrowded kitchen drawer and wielded them in the direction of the lobsters.

"You're not going to cut them up?" asked Lottie, both fascinated and horrified.

"I'm going to cut off the rubber bands," said Beverly. "You don't want to steam the rubber bands as part of your food," he told her, sounding incredulous that she had not thought of that already. He pried off the rubber bands with the rusted dull scissors. The lobsters were lively, flipping their tails, stretching their claws. "These look like they came out of a trap this morning."

Lottie looked away. As Beverly dropped the poor struggling creatures in the pot, she thought she heard them trying to claw their way out. "Do lobsters feel pain?"

"Lobsters feel nothing." Beverly adjusted the heat. "Electric," he said, and sniffed.

"I'd rather like a drink of water," said Caroline. "Do we drink this brown stuff?"

"There's water in the cooler in the pantry, Caroline," said Lottie.

"Which Lottie replenished from the spring earlier," said Rose.

"Thank you kindly," said Caroline. "Oh, but this is almost gone," she said, trying the cooler and finding nothing but a drop of water from the spring. "Did someone use it all?"

"I believe Lottie used it to boil the water for you for the lobsters that no one asked anyone else about," said Rose. Lottie wondered if she'd realized her small dig was lost in her syntax. "Why don't you get us some more?"

"Oh, I'm happy enough with the vodka for the moment," said Caroline. "Was it Grey Goose, Lottie?"

"Excellent tasting skills," said Lottie.

"Also, I don't think I should take the privilege of fetching the springwater from you. I know how much you enjoy the spring."

Caroline must have spied Lottie down at the springhouse earlier that day: she had done a small interpretive dance after she drew the water. She had wanted to feel like a wood nymph, and it had worked.

Rose was snipping chives with vigor. "All ready," she said after she'd tossed them into the salad. "I guess we'll have a feast tonight."

Beverly tasted Rose's carefully made vinaigrette. "It could use a bit of a kick," he said. "No need for a dressing to be anemic."

Caroline tasted it too. "Umm, yes. More salt, at least."

"I'll set the table, shall I?" asked Lottie. "Caroline, flowers would be lovely."

"Did you get any wine on your peregrinations?" asked Caroline. "A glass of white would be delicious just now, don't you think?"

"There's a bottle in the fridge," said Rose. "If you'd like to open it."

"Where in the fridge?" Caroline asked.

"Oh, for God's sake," said Rose.

Caroline leaned into the refrigerator, her flawless profile silhouetted by the light. "Oh," she said. "Chardonnay." And she closed the refrigerator door.

"It's French chardonnay," said Rose, taking it out herself.

"Still," said Caroline, pregnantly. "I'll have that last drop of water. Lottie, will you go down to the spring again tomorrow?"

"I love the spring."

Rose's attempt to open the bottle of French chardonnay ended when the elaborate corkscrew broke the cork.

"You'll need to tell me when the lobsters are done," said Beverly. "They'll want to be thoroughly red, but of course I'm color-blind."

CHAPTER TEN.

Dinner did not get much better for the entire first week. Caroline would have skipped it entirely, but she was ravenous every evening and there was nowhere else to eat on Little Lost. And now she'd have to face yet another one. Tonight would be especially bad, she thought, as it had rained the entire morning and it was still raining now, in the early afternoon. Added to that, they had missed the fabled market boat on Monday-a floating farmers market!-as Lottie had misread Robert's handwriting and mistaken his European-style 1 for a 7, insisting it came on Monday nights and not Monday afternoons. That put everyone in a bad mood.

She'd gone through all the books on her iPad and couldn't download any more. Plus, like an idiot, she'd forgotten her charger, and apparently she'd have to drive to Bangor to get another or wait four days for FedEx, which only delivered to the island sporadically.

Acting like a regular person was not that much fun.

There were plenty of books to read in the cottage, but none of them really engaged her. No juicy Victorian novels. Either they were hoary old volumes like Flower Stories for Little Minds or they were leftover paperbacks from the seventies-Trinity, or a biography of Betty Grable.

The sound of the rain on the roof was hypnotizing, and Caroline was almost ready to close her eyes for a nap up in her turret room when she noticed something else about the boards in the ceiling. There was a rectangular outline cut through the wood. It could be a patch in the ceiling, or it could be another way to the third floor-a secret way for the most enterprising of the boys. As she studied it carefully, she thought it looked like a trapdoor with one of those folding staircases. There was no rope pull, but no lock, either. She decided to investigate.

Caroline got up from her bed and made an inspection. If she climbed up on the chair right below it she could pull the door down. She stepped up, teetering a bit.

Even with the added height she wasn't quite tall enough to reach, so she grabbed a couple of thick volumes from the bookshelf. With the Armed Forces Hymnal under one foot and The Thorn Birds under the other, she could just get a grip on the unfinished wood. It was hard to do without a pull of some kind. She imagined there was a tool that would hook into the gap between the door and the ceiling, but she had no such tool. She had only her nails and her curiosity. They worked. She pulled down the door.

Caroline was half-expecting a cascade of dust, but the door was well oiled, and it and its hidden stairs came down neatly. She realized that perhaps the reason there was no rope pull was not that the attic was old and unused, but rather because its owner did not want anyone going up there.

There are such things as locks, even in Maine, Caroline thought, and started up the steps.

The rain was much louder here, almost deafening, really. It could have been oppressive if it didn't sound so comforting. Caroline craned her neck and looked around the room in the dim light.

She didn't know what she was expecting, but not this. It wasn't really an attic at all-it was an entire third floor, very open and surprisingly airy and light. She took in the overstuffed sofa with its faded chintz, the pale braided rug, the starched white curtains, the ancient leather trunks promising antique treasure. And so many guitars and stringed instruments hanging on the walls. Whose room was this? Hers now. Separate from all the others and made to fit her perfectly.

She felt not like the madwoman in the attic but like Goldilocks. This was just right.

It only took about three days for Rose's sleep schedule to change utterly. No sooner had the sun's rays finally left the sky and the stars shone their brilliant pinpricks of light than Rose sought her soft eiderdown and fell into a deep sleep. She still felt bad about the first night, with the lobsters. Now that she was waking with the dawn the house was finding its own rhythm, and everything started to melt away.

Lottie woke early too. They got into the habit of picking up Beverly's shopping list, which perfectly complemented Max's fresh produce and fish, and taking it into town as the little IGA opened its doors. Only once had they left the car keys in the cottage and found themselves in the parking lot on the other side with no way to get into town. "A rookie mistake," said one of the islanders, though he said it with good humor. "I'll be your ride, if you like." Rose was beginning to accept, if not rely on, the kindness of the strangers here.

Generally, they were back on the eleven o'clock ferry, in time to spend the late morning picking out sea glass on Sea Glass Beach, which was what the islanders in fact called it, before the tide came in. That left them free to watch a bit of Little Lost tennis in the afternoon-Lottie had introduced Rose to her island friends-and then to get ready for dinner in the evening. Then another glorious sunset and the day would have flown by. Considering they did next to nothing all day, the first week went quickly. Even so, it took Rose that long to register that she was truly away.

Before they did their shopping in the mornings, loading the groceries in canvas bags to make boarding the ferry easier, they took themselves to the West Dorset Public Library. It was a sweet little structure that looked like a humble wooden Greek temple, but it had sadly been "improved" inside and lost most of its architectural character. Still, the librarians were friendly and the Internet was strongest here, even out under the portico, where they sat before the library opened at eight thirty. Lottie was on the brick steps, absorbed in texting on her phone, when the librarian came by and unlocked the doors. Rose wasn't much of a texter, so she waited till she could use the one free terminal to check her e-mail. There was no message from Fred.

She considered. No news was good news, supposedly. It meant the twins were fine. It meant there was nothing to worry about. It meant Fred wasn't interested in how she was.

Should she write him? Would it make it worse to say, "I'm away from you and I love it here"? Could she say, "Wish you were here," and mean it?

She wondered what Lottie would say about the idea of asking Fred to come to Maine. Even just for a weekend. Actually, she didn't have to wonder. She knew.

"He wants to be with you, Rose," Lottie replied when she broached the subject. "Why would he not? You're beautiful-"

Rose shook her head.

"No, you are beautiful. This whole state suits you. Probably in Park Slope you look kind of tough and severe because you have to keep your guard up. But here you can let your guard down."

Lottie's compliments were always hard to take.

"I look better too. Jon will like that."

"Jon?"

"I'm going to ask him up. Oh but wait, I forgot to tell him about his shirts."

She texted quickly, talking as she typed.

"I feel so different here. It doesn't seem right that I have all this and he doesn't have any of it. I think he'll come. He'll come for Caroline Dester, but he'll stay for me."

Rose glanced at her screen again, in case anything had come in from Fred.

"I told him the ferry schedules," said Lottie. "This is what his mother wanted for us, anyway." Lottie had gone into painstaking detail on the trip up about who would be watching Ethan and when. Her mother-in-law was her staunchest ally, apparently. "She wanted us to be alone. Her husband had a wandering eye too."

Rose wished Fred's mother were so wise.

She stared a long time at her Gmail. Maybe she had missed something. There were lots of messages from the poetry e-mail lists she was on, and a few from her sister asking questions about the twins and what her nanny needed to know for when they arrived. Not a word from her husband.

"We've got to get back, Rose," Lottie said. "We'll miss the ferry."

Rose pressed Refresh one more time, just to make sure she missed nothing.

A boldface message appeared: From Robert SanSouci.

She leaned in closer to read it.

Hope you are in fine fettle & enjoying Little Lost. I will be in nearby Brooklin for a visit with a friend on August 19 & would like to come across on the last ferry to pay a visit and pick up one of my instruments there if it is not too inconvenient for you, Lottie, et al. Horseshoe Beach is lovely & not so easy to find without a native guide & interpreter. I would like you to see it.

Regards, Robert.

What to make of this?

"Rose, come on."

"I'm coming, Lottie."

She hesitated, and was lost. Did she write him back and say come, come? Did she bar him from his own house? Should she consult with the others?

"Rose-the ferry!"

Her hands hovered over the keyboard.

Come, she wrote. It was all she had time to say.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Jon opened the bathroom door to the heavy heat of August in New York. The bedroom air conditioner was jacked up too high: but it was the only room in the house that was cool. His feet stuck to the bathroom tiles. He was already starting to sweat. He turned the shower on, let the water run cool, and got in. The lukewarm stream sluiced down his scalp. At least he had a full head of hair. Women liked his hair.

The phone rang but Jon couldn't bring himself to get out of the shower to answer it. Probably one of the Happy Circle moms. They were constantly calling and they were all sexless, like Lottie was now. The moms left messages about who had an ear infection, whose babysitter hadn't come in on time, what party was where. How was he supposed to keep all this straight? Even with Ethan gone to his parents-thank God they'd come through for once-Jon was still hearing from the moms way too much. The one he wanted to hear from was Carla.

He turned up the water hotter and reached for the soap.