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wrong?”
    â€œNothing,” Dabney said quickly. Nina Mobley was Dabney’s closest friend, but Dabney could never tell her that an email from Clendenin Hughes had just popped onto her screen.
    Dabney gnawed on one of her pearls, as was her habit when she was deeply concentrating, and now she nearly bit clear through it. She was aware that millions of people across the world were receiving emails at that moment, a good percentage probably upsetting, a smaller but still substantial percentage probably shocking. But she wondered if anyone anywhere on the planet was receiving an email as upsetting and shocking as this one.
    She stared at the screen, blinked, clenched the pearl between her teeth. It was grainy, which was how one judged authenticity. Hello. Hello? Not a word for twenty-seven years—and then this. An email at work. Hello. When Clen had left for Thailand, email hadn’t existed. How had he gotten her address? Dabney laughed. He was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist; finding her email address wouldn’t have presented much of a challenge.
    Hello.
    Dabney’s finger tapped the mouse lightly, a tease. Would she open the email? What would it say? What could it possibly say after twenty-seven years of silence?
    Hello.
    Dabney could not open the email. She, who never smoked and rarely drank hard liquor, wanted a cigarette and a shot of bourbon. The only thing that would have stunned her more than this was an email from her mother.
    But her mother was dead.
    Hello.
    Dabney felt like she was being electrocuted right down to her bone marrow.
    Nina was at her own computer, sucking on her gold cross, a bad habit that had traveled by osmosis across the four feet between their desks.
    Nina said, “Dabney, really, what is it?”
    Dabney let her pearls fall from her mouth; they thumped against her neck like they were made of lead. She had not been feeling right for weeks, maybe as long as a month, and now her body was really going haywire. An email from Clendenin Hughes.
    Dabney forced a smile at Nina. “The weather this weekend is going to be perfect!” she said. “We are going to have guaranteed sun .”
    â€œAfter last year,” Nina said, “we deserve it.”
    Dabney said, “I’m going to run to the pharmacy for a frappe. Do you want anything?”
    Nina furrowed her brow. “Frappe?” She glanced at the wall calendar, theirs each year courtesy of Nantucket Auto Body. “Is it that time of the month again already?”
    Dabney wished she wasn’t so predictable, but of course predictability was her trademark. She only got a frappe once a month, the day before her period was due, which was still ten days off.
    â€œI just feel like it today for some reason,” Dabney said. “Do you want anything?”
    â€œNo, thank you,” Nina said. She gave Dabney an extra beat of her attention. “You okay?”
    Dabney swallowed. “I’m fine,” she said.
    Â Â 
    Outside, the atmosphere was festive. After four cold, punishing months, spring had arrived on Nantucket. Main Street was teeming with people wearing yellow. Dabney spied the Levinsons (Couple #28), whom she had introduced ten years earlier. Larry had been a widower with twins at Yale and Stanford, Marguerite a never-married headmistress at a prestigious girls’ boarding school. Larry wore a yellow cashmere sweater and a pair of Kelly-green corduroy pants, and Marguerite was in a yellow poplin blazer, holding the leash of their golden retriever, Uncle Frank. Dabney adored all dogs, and especially Uncle Frank, and Larry and Marguerite were one of her “couples,” married only because she had introduced them. Dabney knew she should stop and talk; she should rub Uncle Frank under the muzzle until he sang for her. But she couldn’t fake it right now. She crossed the street to Nantucket Pharmacy but did not go inside. She headed down Main Street, through