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“Here’s to that,” Rhett said, raising his glass.

“And here’s to your newfound freedom,” Rose said.

They studied one another. Rose reminded herself not to get lost in her first love’s eyes. She reminded herself not to get swept up in a story that was only a story. Rhett would leave Nantucket soon, and Rose would be needed here, for the bakery, and for Maxine.

A rogue thought came then: Eleanor Pike had told her to come over after work. But Eleanor Pike could wait. This felt more important, somehow.

“Do you want to see my sailboat?” Rhett asked then, surprising her.

“More than anything.”

After Rhett paid for their wine, they walked to the harbor. It was much darker, and thunder boiled the water in the distance. Still, the water remained calm for the time being, and they stepped gently onto his boat. Rose sat down, trying to imagine what it was like for Rhett to live and work on this boat for months at a time. Down below was the berth. He stood on the top step and beckoned for her to follow. “It’s my humble abode,” he said. “I think I have more wine down here.”

Rose hesitated. Was she really going to follow Rhett Baldwin into the belly of his sailboat? She needed to consider her aching heart. She needed to consider that bad things might happen if she let herself fall for him.

But she went downstairs anyway.

Rose was surprised at how large the berth was. There was a separate room with a bed, a kitchenette, a small table, and a bathroom. It was a tiny apartment, but it was entirely livable.

“It’s perfect,” Rose said.

Rhett laughed. “It’s a mess. Sorry about that.” He popped a bottle of red, poured two glasses, and they sat at the table in the warmth, listening as the rain came down. When she said nothing, Rhett snapped his fingers and hauled snacks from the cabinet: peanuts and crackers, plus the baked goods Rose had given him today. Rose laughed.

“I’m sorry I don’t have real food right now,” he said. “I need to go shopping.”

But Rose didn’t mind. “It feels like we’re teenagers again.”

“It really does.” Rhett chewed a few peanuts and gazed at her. “Listen. I need to tell you something.”

Rose’s mouth went dry, so she filled it with wine and told herself that anything he told her, she could handle. “Okay.”

Rhett stood again and moved to the shelf at the far end of the kitchen, where a folder sat. “I met someone the other day. I took her photograph. And ever since, I’ve felt like I needed to show it to you. That’s why I came by, I guess. I don’t know.” He chewed his lower lip, then added, “There were plenty of reasons I wanted to come see you. But I was afraid.”

Rose didn’t know what to say. Pressing her hands against the table, she watched as Rhett opened the folder and retrieved a single photograph, which he placed before her.

For a moment, Rose thought she was seeing an old picture of herself. It was a woman in her mid-twenties, dark-haired and secretive, sitting at the harbor. But the jacket she wore was nothing Rose had ever owned, and the way she did her makeup was nothing Rose ever would have done.

Suddenly frightened, Rose leaped from her chair, and it crashed beneath her.

“What am I looking at?” she breathed. But of course, the answer swelled from the back of her mind. She knew who this was. The young woman couldn’t be anyone else.

Rhett seemed unable to speak. Arduously, he picked up the chair and ushered Rose back into it. Then he sat across from her and kept looking down at the photograph.

“It was like looking at a ghost,” he said.

Rose closed her eyes, remembering that year of her pregnancy, her senior year. She remembered dropping out and spending every day indoors, waiting for the baby to be born. She remembered being driven at night to Eleanor Pike’s place, where they told her what had been arranged and how “free” she would be after she’d given up the baby. “Nobody will know,” Eleanor Pike had told Rose and her mother. “It will be as though it didn’t happen.”

But so many years later, Rose knew that it very much had happened, that it had never felt like something that hadn’t. She’d had to carry her strange love for her daughter, a daughter she’d never known.

Finally, she opened her eyes again to find Rhett looking at her.

“I had a baby,” Rose finally said, her voice a whisper. “I had a baby, and I gave her away.”

17

Nantucket Island

June 2001