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Willow filled her lungs and told herself to remain calm. Maybe she owed Ralph more than she thought. After all, he had been there for her in so many ways. He’d attended her ballet recitals. He’d celebrated her birthday. He’d adored her at every turn.

“The thing is,” Willow continued, “my mother’s name was redacted from the file. I don’t understand why.”

Ralph furrowed his brow. “Maybe they wanted to protect her.”

“Who?” Willow asked.

Ralph sipped his wine and thought it over. “There’s something off about my Nantucket cousin. She seems to have some kind of quiet power on the island. I can’t explain it. But it’s a question I’ve returned to many times over the years. Why was Eleanor in charge of adopting out someone’s baby? Why wasn’t that through a proper channel?”

Willow’s pulse raced. “You didn’t ask, I guess.”

“No.” Ralph sighed. “But your mother was so happy over the years. I think that’s something we need to focus on, Willow. You made your mother happier than anything and anyone, even me.”

“Yes. But she’s gone now,” Willow breathed.

Ralph closed his eyes.

“I need answers,” Willow said. “I know those answers are like a bandage to an open wound. I know they won’t fix the fact that Mom is gone. But I need to know where I came from. I need to know why my biological mother’s name was covered up.”

What she didn’t want to tell Ralph was that ever since Donna’s diagnosis, Willow had felt out of place in the world. She didn’t feel like she belonged anywhere, especially as Donna’s memories dried up. Maybe, if she uncovered the truth behind her adoption and who her mother truly was, she would find relief. Perhaps if she figured out precisely how and why Nathaniel Hawkins had wronged her birth mother, she could figure out her life’s purpose.

Maybe it was stupid, but in the devastation after Donna’s death, it was the only thing left to do.

8

Nantucket Island

Summer 2000

That first night at Steve’s party, Rose couldn’t go home until four fifteen in the morning.

By then, the high rollers were either sleeping in beach chairs or too far gone to need anything else. Even the guy who’d fixed her a drink, the handsome curly-haired twenty-something who’d made her feel like she belonged, had gone up to bed, citing exhaustion. Before she left, Janice gave her the tips she’d made for the night, which added up to more than three hundred dollars. She rolled up the bills and put them in her purse, her head pounding. Had it been worth it? She supposed it had.

Lucky for Rose, her mother didn’t wake up when she got back. But at ten, only a few hours after she’d drifted to sleep, her mother pounded on her door and told her it was time for church. Rose groaned into her pillow, then called out, “I got home late!”

“Doesn’t matter to me! Church starts at eleven,” her mother said.

Rose got out of bed, rubbed her eyes, then hurried to the shower to wash the horrible smells from last night off her. Rose’s brother was already awake, sipping coffee on the sofa, half-dressed in his Sunday best. Rose’s mother and father were arguing about something in the kitchen. It was clear her mother expected them all to walk to church together.

Growing up here in Nantucket meant that Rose knew everybody, and that everybody on Nantucket knew her, down to her bones. It meant very little privacy. But as Rose walked to church with her brother and parents, she reasoned that nobody she saw that morning knew anything about the party she’d worked at last night. They didn’t know of the cruelty that lurked within those circles. And they didn’t know that she’d made fifty dollars an hour plus more than three hundred in tips. Money was a kind of power she’d never had before.

To Rose’s surprise, Rhett was at church with his parents. He eyed her from the third pew, his hair combed, his shirt pressed. He gestured for them to meet after, and she mouthed, “Okay,” remembering how sure she’d been the other day that it was over between them. Now that she’d “seen the other side,” as it were, she wasn’t sure she wanted to break things off.

Her heart pumped with love for him.

After they sang the last hymn, Rose told her mother she’d be home by twelve thirty for lunch, then hurried outside to meet Rhett. They walked to the pier in silence. Rose’s exhaustion from the party blurred her vision.

“How was last night?” Rhett asked finally.

“It was weird, I guess.” Rose slid her tongue along her teeth. “It’s the best money I’ve ever made, but it’s also the worst I’ve ever felt.”

“You shouldn’t let those people make you feel like that,” Rhett said.

“I don’t know if I have another option,” Rose offered.

Rhett’s eyes darkened. A seagull swooped overhead, its reflection in his pupils. But just as soon as he opened his lips to speak, just as soon as he prepared to say whatever it was he’d wanted to say, a girl cried out down the boardwalk. “Rhett!”

Rose and Rhett turned to watch as Heather skipped toward them. Heather was in Rhett’s grade at school, a newly graduated senior, and also worked the front desk at Rhett’s work. She was pretty and long-legged, with sand-colored hair. When she reached them, she stopped and pulled her hair behind her ears, then said, “I thought that was you. But I couldn’t believe it. After last night, I figured you’d be out of it. I figured you’d be in bed all day long.” She giggled.