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Spending the summer in Rhode Island would be her
dream
—and she could do it, she could. Okay, so she wasn’t a fast writer—in fact, she was actually something of a
struggling
writer—but she could work nights and weekends to make up for it. She could do what Natalie wanted done. She knew she could. Didn’t she do all those things for Otis?
    Otis. Oh, dear. Otis wanted her to work through the end of July. She couldn’t just quit. She owed it to him. He was a friend.
    But Otis was
retiring
. After July, he wouldn’t be her employer at all. He was abandoning her. Okay. Not abandoning her. Setting her free. So what if she left a few weeks earlier? What harm would that do? He had stopped taking in new work. All that was left was to finish the old. She could work extra hours until she left, and he could get the rest done after that.
    Tess would love Asquonset. The vineyard lay midway between the Asquonset River and the Atlantic, and she would love both. She would love the tennis court right there on the grounds—Olivia had seen it in photographs. Tess would love the Great House. And Natalie—she would
adore
Natalie. Natalie was the quintessential grandmother. She was the quintessential
great
-grandmother.
    Room and board in the Great House. Olivia would die for that.
    And a handsome stipend, too? She wondered how Natalie defined that. If the stipend was truly handsome, it might go a long way toward hiring tutors for Tess. A truly handsome stipend would come in really handy.
    Jared was gone for good, and Olivia’s mother remained among the missing—these two harsh facts of life were now softened by Natalie Seebring’s invitation.
    All right. So it wasn’t
exactly
an invitation. But the end result was the same.
    I want that job,
Olivia thought.

Three
 
    O LIVIA SLEPT FITFULLY . She wanted the Asquonset job, wanted it with a passion that grew as the hours passed. It wasn’t the most realistic thing to set her heart on, she knew. There were scores of people more qualified than she, people who could write easily and had formal training—not that she doubted she could do the job. She
could
. She was
sure
that she could. And where there was a will, there was a way. Besides, she had something the others lacked: she already loved Asquonset. Plus, thanks to the photographs, she knew the people and even part of the story.
    But would Natalie choose her?
    When she finally slept, Olivia dreamed that she got the job. She was still at it the next morning, daydreaming while she got Tess dressed and fed and out of the house. Even as she walked with the briefcase and its precious contents under her arm and her daughter by her side, her thoughts were miles away.
    The air was still, the Cambridge streets narrow and close. By the time they reached the school yard, she was fantasizing about open fields and ocean breezes.
    â€œMom?” Tess looked up at her—beautiful Tess, the top of herhead chest-high to Olivia, her hair neatly combed, her freckles soft on her freshly scrubbed face, her slim body still prepubescent. Her glasses were clean and perched high on her nose. She looked to Olivia positively angelic—except for her expression, which fell somewhere between timidity and distaste. “What do I tell Mrs. Wright?”
    Mrs. Wright. Lord. Olivia had forgotten about that—repressed it, no doubt. Tess’s school problems were an ongoing ordeal. The night’s escape to Asquonset had been sweet.
    Tell her we have a solution,
Olivia thought, quickly back in the midst of the mess.
Tell her you’ll be having a tutor five days a week this summer. Tell her I want you moving into fifth grade with the rest of your class. Tell her, sweet child, that next time she wants to reach me, she should get off her duff and pick up the phone.
    â€œTell her,” Olivia said with restraint, “that I’m calling her this morning to set up an appointment. I’ll meet