Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Susan Wiggs 2017

Cover design and illustration by Alan Dingman © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Susan Wiggs asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008151324

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008151331

Version: 2017-09-28

Dedication

For my husband, Jerry: For all the journeys we’ve made, for all the moments of inspiration, for getting lost on lost byways, for endless rambles and flights of imagination, for knowing that the greatest journey in life is the one that takes you home. You’re the best adventure I’ve ever had.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1: Bethany Bay

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Part 2: The Var

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part 3: Bethany Bay

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part 4: Bellerive

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Part 5: Aix-en-Provence

Chapter Seventeen

Part 6: The Var

Chapter Eighteen

Part 7: Switchback

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Susan Wiggs

About the Publisher

PART 1
Bethany Bay

Thank you for all the Acts of Light which beautified a summer now passed to its reward.

—LETTER FROM EMILY DICKINSON TO MRS. JOHN HOWARD SWEETSER

One

Of the five steps in developing film, four must take place in complete darkness. And in the darkroom, timing was everything. The difference between overexposure and underexposure sometimes came down to a matter of milliseconds.

Camille Adams liked the precision of it. She liked the idea that with the proper balance of chemicals and timing, a good result was entirely within her control.

There could be no visible light in the room, not even a red or amber safelight. Camera obscura was Latin for “dark room,” and when Camille was young and utterly fascinated by the process, she had gone to great lengths to practice her craft. Her first darkroom had been a closet that smelled of her mom’s frangipani perfume and her stepdad’s fishing boots, crusted with salt from the Chesapeake. She’d used masking tape and weather stripping to fill in the gaps, keeping out any leaks of light. Even a hairline crack in the door could fog the negatives.

Found film was a particular obsession of hers, especially now that digital imagery had supplanted film photography. She loved the thrill of opening a door to the past and being the first to peek in. Often while she worked with an old roll of film or movie reel, she tried to imagine someone taking the time to get out their camera and take pictures or shoot a movie, capturing a candid moment or an elaborate pose. For Camille, working in the darkroom was the only place she could see clearly, the place where she felt most competent and in control.

Today’s project was to rescue a roll of thirty-five-millimeter film found by a client she’d never met, a professor of history named Malcolm Finnemore. The film had been delivered by courier from Annapolis, and the instructions inside indicated that he required a quick turnaround. Her job was to develop the film, digitize the negatives with her micrographic scanner, convert the files into positives, and e-mail the results. The courier would be back by three to pick up the original negatives and contact sheets.

Camille had no problem with deadlines. She didn’t mind the pressure. It forced her to be clearheaded, organized, in control. Life worked better that way.

All her chemicals waited in readiness—precisely calibrated, carefully measured into beakers, and set within reach. She didn’t need the light to know where they were, lined up like instruments on a surgeon’s tray—developer, stop bath, fixer, clearing agent—and she knew how to handle them with the delicacy of a surgeon. Once the film was developed, dried, and cured, she would inspect the results. She loved this part of her craft, being the revealer of lost and found treasures, opening forgotten time capsules with a single act of light.

There were those, and her late husband, Jace, had been among them, who regarded this as a craft or hobby. Camille knew better. One look at a print by Ansel Adams—no relation to Jace—was proof that art could happen in the darkroom. Behind each finished, epic print were dozens of attempts until Adams found just the right setting.

Camille never knew what the old film would reveal, if it hadn’t been spoiled by time and the elements. Perhaps the professor had come across a film can that had been forgotten and shoved away in the Smithsonian archives or some library storage room at Annapolis.

She wanted to get this right, because the material was potentially significant. The roll she was carefully spooling onto the reel could be a major find. It might reveal portraits of people no one had ever seen before, landscapes now changed beyond recognition, a rare shot of a moment in time that no longer existed in this world.

On the other hand, it might be entirely prosaic—a family picnic, a generic street scene, awkward photos of unidentifiable strangers. Perhaps it might yield pictures of a long-gone loved one whose face his widow longed to see one more time. Camille still remembered the feeling of pain-filled joy when she’d looked at pictures of Jace after he’d died. Her final shots of him remained in the dark, still spooled in her camera. The vintage Leica had been her favorite, but she hadn’t touched it since the day she’d lost him.

Working with film from complete strangers suited her better. Only last week, a different storage box had yielded a rare collection of cellulose-nitrate negatives in a precarious state. The images had been clumped together, fused by time and neglect. Over painstaking hours, she had teased apart the film, removing mold and consolidating the image layers to reveal something the camera’s eye had seen nearly a century before—the only known photograph of a species of penguin that was now extinct.

Another time, she had exposed canned negatives from a portrait session with Bess Truman, one of the most camera-shy first ladies of the twentieth century. To date, the project that had gained the most attention for Camille had been a picture of a murder in commission, posthumously absolving a man who had gone to the gallows for a crime he hadn’t committed. Write-ups in the national press gave her credit for solving a long-standing mystery, but Camille considered the achievement bittersweet, knowing an innocent man had hanged for a crime while the murderer had lived to a ripe old age.

Touching the digital timer, she scarcely dared to breathe as she prepared to launch the special alchemy of the darkroom.

The moment was interrupted by a ringing phone, located just outside the door. She couldn’t have a phone in the darkroom, due to the keypad that lit up when it rang, so she kept the volume turned on loud to hear incoming voice mail. Ever since her father’s cancer diagnosis, her pulse jumped each time the phone rang.

She waited through several rings, chiding herself for panicking. Papa’s disease was in remission now, though his doctors wouldn’t say how long the reprieve might last.

“This is Della McClosky of the Henlopen Medical Center, calling for Camille Adams. Your daughter Julie has been brought into the ER—”

Julie. Camille ripped open the door of the darkroom and snatched up the phone. The film can clattered to the floor. Already, fear thudded through her. “This is Camille. What’s Julie doing in the ER?”

“Ma’am, your daughter has just been brought by ambulance to the ER from her surf rescue class at the Bethany Bay Surf Club.”

Ice-cold terror. It took her breath away. “What? Is she hurt? What happened?”

“She’s conscious now, sitting up and talking. Coach Swanson came with her. She got caught in a riptide and aspirated some water. The doctor is checking her out.”

“I’m on my way.” She lunged for the back door, scooping her keys from the hook as she leaped down the porch steps to her car. There was no thought. No planning. Just action. When you get a call that your kid is in the ER, there can be no room for thinking. Just the deepest fear imaginable, the kind that gripped like a steel band around her chest.

She hurled herself into the car, started it up, and tore down the driveway, her tires spitting an arc of crushed oyster shells in her wake. She roared around Lighthouse Point at the end of her road. The rocky shoals there had been guarded for a century by the sentinel overlooking the bay.

The car radio was on, broadcasting a surf report at the top of the hour by Crash Daniels, owner of the Surf Shack. “We are getting our first taste of summer, people. The whole Delmarva Peninsula is basking in temperatures in the mideighties. The oceanside looks rad. Bethany Bay is totally off the hook …”

She snapped off the radio. Panic about her daughter demanded total focus. Surf rescue class? What the hell was Julie doing in surf rescue? She wasn’t even taking that class, an optional PE credit offered to ninth graders. Camille had forbidden it, even though Julie had begged. Far too dangerous. The tides on the ocean side of the peninsula could be deadly. There was no satisfaction in being right. Julie got caught in a riptide, the nurse had said. A surge of horror filled Camille’s throat, and she felt like puking.

“Easy,” she told herself. “Deep breath. The woman on the phone said Julie is conscious.”

Jace had been conscious, too, moments before she had lost him forever, five years before, when they were on a romantic second-honeymoon getaway. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about that now. That was the reason she had refused to sign the permission slip to allow Julie to participate in surf rescue. She simply couldn’t survive another loss.

There had been a time when Camille had led a charmed life, cheerfully oblivious to the devastation that could strike without warning. Throughout her idyllic childhood in Bethany Bay, she’d been as wild and carefree as the birds that wheeled over the watery enclave at the edge of the Atlantic. She herself had excelled at surf rescue, a rigorous and physically demanding course all high schoolers were encouraged to take. In this community, surrounded on three sides by water, safety skills were mandatory. Thanks to the popularity of the beach, with its pipeline waves rolling in, local youngsters were trained in the art of rescue using special hand-paddled boards. It was a time-honored tradition at Bethany Bay High. Each May, even when the water was still chilly from the currents of winter, the PE department offered the challenging class.

At fourteen, Camille had been clueless about the dangers of the world. She’d shot to the head of her group in surf rescue, ultimately winning the annual competition three years in a row. She remembered how joyful and confident the victory had made her feel. She still remembered reveling in the triumph of battling the waves under the sun, laughing with her friends, intoxicated by the supreme satisfaction of conquering the elements. At the end of the course, there was always a bonfire and marshmallow roast on the beach, a tradition still observed by the surf rescue trainers so the kids could bond over the shared experience. She wanted that for Julie, but her daughter was a different girl than Camille had been.

Up until five years ago, Camille had been an adrenaline junkie—surfing, kiteboarding, attempting harrowing rock and mountain climbs—anything that offered a dangerous rush. Jace had been her perfect partner, every bit as keen as she for the thrill of adventure.

Those days were long gone. Camille had been remade by tragedy, cautious when she used to be intrepid, fearful when she used to dare anything, restrained when she used to be unbridled. She viewed the world as a dangerous place fraught with hazards for those foolish enough to venture out and take a risk. She regarded everything she loved as fragile and apt to be lost as quickly as Jace had been.

Julie had processed the death of her father with the stoic innocence of a nine-year-old, quietly grieving and then accepting the fact that her world would never be the same. People had praised her resilience, and Camille had been grateful to have a reason to put her life together and go on.

Yet when Julie brought the permission packet home and announced she was taking surf rescue, Camille had flatly refused. There had been arguments. Tears. Stomping and flinging on the bed. Julie had accused Camille of trying to sabotage her life.

With a twinge of guilt, Camille knew her own fears were holding her daughter back, but she also knew they were keeping Julie out of harm’s way. Yes, she wanted the same kind of fun and camaraderie for Julie that she herself had found in high school. But Julie would have to find it through tamer pursuits. Apparently she had found a way to join the surf rescue class, probably with the age-old trick of the forged permission slip.

There were few forces greater than the power of a fourteen-year-old’s determination when she wanted something. A teenager would stop at nothing in order to get her way.

Camille should have been more vigilant. Instead of becoming so deeply absorbed in work, she should have kept a closer eye on her daughter. Maybe then she would have noticed what Julie was up to, sneaking off to surf rescue instead of dodgeball or study hall or some other tame substitute for the course on the beach.

When Jace was alive, he and Camille had both made sure Julie was a strong swimmer. By the age of eight, she’d learned about the way a riptide worked, and how to survive if she happened to get caught in one—tread water, stay parallel to the shore, and don’t fight it. Camille could still remember Jace explaining it. The riptide would come back around in three minutes, so there was no need to panic.

These days, panicking was Camille’s specialty.

Keeping her eyes on the road, Camille groped in her bag for her phone. Her hand bumped up against the usual suspects—wallet, pen, checkbook, hair clip, comb, mints. No phone. Shoot, she had forgotten it in her rush to get to the hospital.

The hospital, where her wounded daughter had been taken while Camille was holed up in her darkroom, ignoring the world. With each negative thought, she pressed her foot harder on the accelerator, until she realized she was going fifty in a thirty-mile-per-hour zone. She refused to ease up. If she got pulled over, she’d simply ask the police for an escort.

The word please echoed over and over in her head. She begged for this to not be happening. Please. Please not this. Please not Julie.

Fourteen, smart, funny, quirky, she was Camille’s whole world. If something happened to her, the world would end. I would simply end, thought Camille with rock-solid certainty. I would cease to exist. My life would be kaput. Over. Sans espoir, as Papa would say.

The coast road bisected the flatlands embraced parenthetically between the teeming mystery of the Chesapeake Bay, and the endless, vast expanse of the Atlantic. Fringed by sand dunes filled with native bird rookeries, the bay curved inward, framing the crashing Atlantic and forming one of the best surf beaches on the eastern seaboard. It was there, on this stunningly beautiful sugar-sand beach that drew tourists every year, that Julie’s accident had occurred.

Camille accelerated yet again, on the home stretch. Five minutes later, she careened into the parking lot of the medical center. The place held both distant and recent memories for her. She leaped from the car, hitting the ground at a run.

“Julie Adams,” she said to the woman at the reception desk. “She was brought in from surf rescue.”

The receptionist consulted her screen. “Curtain area seven,” she said. “Around to the right.”

Camille knew where that was. She ran past the memorial wall—the Dr. Jace Adams Memorial Wall, which never failed to pierce her heart with remembrances.

She missed Julie’s father every single day, but never more sharply than when she was scared. Other women could turn to their husbands when disaster struck, but not Camille. She could turn only to the sweetest of memories. In the blink of an eye, she had found and lost the love of her life. Jace would remain forever in the shadows of her memory, too distant to comfort her when she was terrified.

Which was pretty much all the time.

She hastened over to the curtain area, desperate to see her daughter. She caught a glimpse of curly dark hair, a delicate hand lying limp. “Julie,” she said, rushing to the side of the wheeled bed.

The others present parted to let her near. It was a singular nightmare to see her daughter hooked up to monitors, with medical personnel surrounding her. Julie was sitting up, a C-spine collar around her neck, several printed bands on her wrist, an IV in her arm, and an annoyed expression on her face. “Mom,” she said. “I’m okay.”

That was all Camille needed to hear—her daughter’s voice, saying those words. Her insides melted as relief unfurled her nerves.

“Sweetheart, how do you feel? Tell me everything.” Camille devoured Julie with her eyes. Did she look paler than usual? Was she in pain? Not really, Camille observed. She was wearing her annoyed teenager face.

“Like I said, I’m okay.” Julie punctuated the statement with a classic roll of the eyes.

“Mrs. Adams.” A doctor in seafoam-green scrubs and a white lab coat approached her. “I’m Dr. Solvang. I’ve been taking care of Julie.”

Like a good ER doc, Solvang went calmly and methodically through the explanation. He looked her in the eye and offered short, clear statements. “Julie reports coming off her rescue board when she was trying to knee-paddle around a buoy during a speed drill. She got caught up in an undercurrent. Julie, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled.

“You mean a riptide?” Camille glared at the coach, who hovered nearby. Hadn’t he been watching? Wasn’t avoiding riptides the first lesson of surf rescue?

“Apparently, yes,” said the doctor. “Coach Swanson was able to bring Julie to shore. At that point, she was unresponsive.”

“Oh my God.” Unresponsive. Camille could not abide the image in her head. “Julie … I don’t understand. How did this happen? You weren’t even supposed to be in surf rescue.” She took a breath. “Which we’ll talk about later.”

“Coach Swanson brought her in and performed CPR, and the water she’d aspirated came up. She came around immediately and was brought here for evaluation.”

“So you’re saying my daughter drowned.”

“I got knocked off my board, is all.”

“What? Knocked off? My God—”

“I mean, I fell …” Julie said, her eyes darting around the curtain area.

“The contusion should heal just fine on its own,” Dr. Solvang said.

“What contusion?” Camille wanted to grab the guy by his crisp white lapels and shake him. “She hit her head?” She touched Julie’s chin, looking for the injury amid Julie’s dark salt-encrusted curls. There was a knot at her hairline above one eye. “How did you hit your head?”

Julie’s glance skated away. She lightly touched the damp, saltencrusted hair above her temple.

“We’ve done a neural assessment every ten minutes,” said the nurse. “Everything is normal.”

“Weren’t you wearing a safety cap?” Camille asked. “How did you get a contusion?”

“Mom, I don’t know, okay? It all happened really fast. Do me a favor and stop freaking out.”

Surliness was a new thing with Julie. Camille had started noticing it earlier in the school year. At the moment, her surliness was a hopeful sign. It meant she was feeling normal. “Now what?” Camille asked the doctor. “Are you going to admit her?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No need. The discharge papers are already being prepared.”

She melted a little with relief. “I need a phone. I dashed out of the house without mine, and I need to call my mother.”

Julie indicated her Bethany Bay Barracudas team bag. “You can use mine to call Gram.”

Camille found it and dialed her mother.

“Hey, you,” said Cherisse Vandermeer. “Did school get out early today?”

“Mom, it’s me,” said Camille. “Using Julie’s phone.”

“I thought you would be buried in your darkroom all day.”

The darkroom. Camille had an “oh shit” moment, but thrust it away in favor of the more immediate matter.

“I’m at the hospital,” Camille told her. “Julie was brought to the ER.”

“Oh, dear heavenly days. Is she all right? What happened?”

“She’s okay. She had an accident in surf rescue class. Just got here myself.”

There was an audible gasp. “I’ll be right over.”

“I’m all right, Gram,” Julie said loudly. “Mom’s freaking out, though.”

Now Camille heard a deep, steadying breath on the other end of the line. “I’m sure it’s going to be all right. I’ll see you there in ten minutes. Did they say what—”

The call dropped. Cell-phone signals were iffy this low on the peninsula.

For the first time, Camille took a moment to look around the curtain area. Principal Drake Larson had shown up. Drake—her ex-boyfriend—looked utterly professional in a checked shirt and tie, knife pleats in his pants. But the rings of sweat in his armpits indicated he was anything but calm.

Drake should have been perfect for her, but not long ago, she’d admitted—first to herself, then to Drake—that their relationship was over. He still called her, though. He kept hinting that he wanted to see her again, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by turning him down.

She’d tried for months to find her way into loving Drake. He was a good guy, gentlemanly and kind, nice-looking, sincere. Yet despite her efforts, there was no spark, no heart-deep sense that they belonged together. With a sense of defeat, she realized she was never going to get there with him. She was ready to close that short and predictable chapter of her utterly uninteresting love life. Breaking it off with him had been an exercise in diplomacy, since he was the principal of her daughter’s high school.

“So when my daughter was being dragged out to sea in a riptide, where were you?” she demanded, pinning Coach Swanson with an accusatory glare.

“I was on the beach, running drills.”

“How did she hit her head? Did you see how it happened?”

He shuffled his feet. “Camille—”

“So that’s a no.”

“Mom,” said Julie. “I already told you, it was a stupid accident.”

“She didn’t have my permission to be in the program,” Camille said to the coach. Then she turned to Drake. “Who was in charge of verifying the permission slips?”

“Are you saying she didn’t bring one in?” Drake turned to the coach.

“We have one on file,” Swanson said.

Camille glanced at Julie, whose cheeks were now bright red above the cervical collar. She looked embarrassed, but Camille noticed something else in her eyes—a flicker of defiance.

“How long has this been going on?” she asked.

“This was our fourth session,” said the coach. “Camille, I’m so sorry. You know Julie means the world to me.”

“She is my world, and she nearly drowned,” Camille said. Then she regarded Drake. “I’ll call you about the permission slip. All I want is to get my daughter home, okay?”

“What can I do to help?” Drake asked. “Julie gave us all quite a scare.”

Camille had the ugly sense that the words tort liability and lawsuit were currently haunting Drake’s thoughts. “Look,” she said, “I’m not mad, okay? Just scared out of my mind. Julie and I will both feel better once we get home.”

Both men left after she promised to send them an update later. The discharge nurse was going down a list of precautions and procedures when Camille’s mother showed up. “The X-ray shows her lungs are completely clear,” the nurse said. “As a precaution, we’ll want to have a follow-up to make sure she doesn’t develop pneumonia.”

“Pneumonia!” Camille’s mother was in her fifties, but looked much younger. People were constantly saying Camille and Cherisse looked like sisters. Camille wasn’t sure that was a compliment to her. Did it mean she, at thirty-six, looked fifty-something? Or did it mean her fifty-something mom looked thirty-six? “My granddaughter will not come down with pneumonia. I simply won’t let it happen.” Cherisse rushed to the bed and embraced Julie. “Sweetheart, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks, Gram,” Julie said, offering a thin, brief smile. “Don’t worry. I’m ready to go home, right?” she asked the nurse.

“Absolutely.” The nurse taped a cotton ball over the crook of her arm where the IV had been.

“Okay, sweetie,” said Camille’s mom. “Let’s get you home.”

They both helped unstick the circular white pads that had been connected to the monitors. Julie had been given a hospital gown to wear over her swimsuit. Her movements as she got dressed were furtive, almost ashamed, as she grabbed her street clothes from her gym bag. Teenagers were famously modest, Camille knew that. Julie took it to extremes. The little fairy girl who used to run around unfettered and unclothed had turned into a surly, secretive teen. “You don’t need to wait for me,” Julie announced. “I can dress myself.”

Camille motioned her mother out into the waiting area.

“I’m ready to go,” Julie said, coming out of the curtain area a few minutes later. She wore an oversized “Surf Bethany” T-shirt and a pair of jeans that had seen better days. There was a plastic bag labeled Patient Belongings that contained a towel, headgear, glasses, and a rash guard. “And just so you know, I’m not going back to school,” she added, her narrow-eyed expression daring them to contradict her.

“All right,” said Camille. “Do we need to stop there and get your stuff?”

“No,” Julie said quickly. “I mean, can I just go home and rest?”

“Sure, baby.”

“Want me to come?” asked Camille’s mother.

“That’s okay, Gram. Isn’t this your busy day at the shop?”

“Every day is busy at the shop. We’re getting ready for First Thursday Arts Walk. But I’m never too busy for you.”

“It’s okay. Swear.”

“Should I come in later and help?” asked Camille. She and her mother were partners at Ooh-La-La, a bustling home-goods boutique in the center of the village. Business was good, thanks to locals looking to indulge themselves, and well-heeled tourists from the greater D.C. area.

“The staff can handle all the prep work. The three of us could have a girls’ night in. How does that sound? We can watch a chick flick and do each other’s nails.”

“Gram. Really. I’m okay now.” Julie edged toward the exit.

Cherisse sighed. “If you say so.”

“I say so.”

Camille put her arm around Julie. “I’ll call you later, Mom. Say hi to Bart from us.”

“You can say it in person,” said a deep male voice. Camille’s stepfather strode over to them. “I came as soon as I got your message.”

“Julie’s okay.” Cherisse gave him a quick, fierce hug. “Thanks for coming.”

Camille wondered what it was like to have a person to call automatically, someone who would drop everything and rush to your side.

He gathered Julie into his arms, enfolding her in a bear hug. The salt air and sea mist still clung to him. He was an old-school waterman who had a fleet of skipjack boats, plying the waters of the Chesapeake for the world’s tastiest oysters. Tall, fair-haired, and good-looking, he’d been married to Cherisse for a quarter century. He was a few years younger than Camille’s mom, and though Camille loved him dearly, Papa owned her heart.

After the bear hug, he held Julie at arm’s length. “Now. What kind of mischief did you get yourself into?”

They walked together toward the exit. “I’m okay,” Julie said yet again.

“She got caught in a riptide,” Camille said.

“My granddaughter?” Bart scratched his head. “No. You know what a riptide is. You know how to avoid it. I’ve seen you in the water. You’ve been swimming like a blue marlin ever since you were a tadpole. They say kids born out here have webbed feet.”

“Guess my webbed feet failed me,” Julie muttered. “Thanks for coming.”

In the parking lot they parted ways. As Julie got into the car, Camille watched her mother melt against Bart, surrendering all her worries into his big, generous embrace. Seeing them caused a flicker of envy deep in her heart. She was happy for her mother, who had found such a sturdy love with this good man, yet at the same time, that happiness only served to magnify her own loneliness.

“Let’s go, kiddo,” she said, putting the car in gear.

Julie stared silently out the window.

Camille took a deep breath, not knowing how to deal with this. “Jules, I honestly don’t want to stifle you.”

“And I honestly don’t want to have to forge your signature on permission slips,” Julie said softly. “But I wanted this really bad.”

She’d been blind to her daughter’s wishes, she thought with a stab of guilt. Even when Julie had pleaded with her to take surf rescue, she’d refused to hear.

“I thought it would be fun,” Julie said. “I’m a good swimmer. Dad would have wanted me in surf rescue.”

“He would have,” Camille admitted. “But he would have been furious about you going behind my back. Listen, if you want, I can work with you on surf rescue. I was pretty good at it in my day.”

“Oh, yay. Let’s homeschool me so people think I’m even more of a freak.”

“No one thinks you’re a freak,” said Camille.

Julie shot her a look. “Right.”

“Okay, who thinks you’re a freak?”

“Try everyone in the known world.”

“Jules—”

“I just want to do the class, Mom, like everyone else. Not have you teach me. It’s nice of you to offer, but that’s not what I want, even though you were a champ back in your day. Gram showed me the pictures in the paper.”

Camille remembered the triumphant photo from the Bethany Bay Beacon years ago. She had big hair, railroad-track braces, and a grin that wouldn’t quit. She knew taking the course was not just about the skills. Surf rescue was such a strong tradition here, and the group experience was part of the appeal. She remembered the end of the course, sitting around a bonfire and telling stories with her friends. She remembered looking around the circle of fire glow, seeing all those familiar faces, and there was such a feeling of contentment and belonging. At that moment, she’d thought, I’ll never have friends like this again. I’ll never have a moment like this again.

Now she had to wonder if she was robbing her own daughter of the same kind of moment.

“Your mom let you do the class,” Julie said. “She let you do everything. I’ve seen the pictures of you surfing and mountain biking and climbing. You never do any of that stuff anymore. You never do anything anymore.”

Camille didn’t reply. That had been a different life. Before. The Camille from before had grabbed life by the fistful, regarding the world as one giant thrill ride. She had thrown herself into sports, travel, adventure, the unknown—and the greatest adventure of all had been Jace. When she’d lost him, that was when after began. After meant caution and timidity, fear and distrust. It meant keeping a wall around herself and everything she cared about, not allowing anything or anyone in to upset her hard-won balance.

“So, about that permission slip,” Camille said.

Julie lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m sorry.”

“If I wasn’t so scared by the accident, I’d be furious with you right now.”

“Thanks for not being furious.”

“I’m going to be later, probably. My God, Julie. There’s a reason I didn’t want you to take the class. And I guess you found out today what that reason was—it’s too dangerous. Not to mention the fact that you shouldn’t be sneaking around behind my back, forging my signature—”

“I wouldn’t have done it if you’d just let me take the class like a normal kid. You never let me do anything. Ever.”

“Come on, Jules.”

“I kept asking, and you didn’t even hear me, Mom. I really wanted to do the course, same as you did when you were my age. I just want a chance to try—”

“You took that chance today, and look how that turned out.”

“In case you’re wondering, which you’re probably not, I did great at the first three sessions. I was really good, one of the best in the class, according to Coach Swanson.”

Camille felt another twinge of guilt. How could she explain to her daughter that she wasn’t allowed to try something Camille had been so good at?

After a few minutes of silence, Julie said, “I want to keep going.”

“What?”

“In surf rescue. I want to keep going to the class.”

“Out of the question. You went behind my back—”

“And I’m sorry I did that, Mom. But now that you know, I’m asking you straight up to let me finish the class.”

“After today?” Camille said, “You ought to be grounded for life.”

“I have been grounded for life,” Julie muttered. “Ever since Dad died, I’ve been grounded for life.”

Camille pulled off the road, slamming the car into park alongside a vast, barren salt meadow. “What did you say?”

Julie tipped up her chin. “You heard. That’s why you pulled over. All I’m saying is, after Dad died, you stopped letting me have a normal life because you keep thinking something awful is going to happen again. I never get to go anywhere or do anything. I haven’t even been on an airplane in five years. And now all I want is to take surf rescue like everybody else does. I wanted to be good at one thing.” Julie’s chin trembled and she turned away to gaze out the window at the swaying grasses and blowing afternoon clouds.

“You’re good at so many things,” Camille said.

“I’m a fat loser,” Julie stated. “And don’t say I’m not fat because I am.”

Camille felt ill. She’d been blind to what Julie wanted. Was she a terrible mother for being overprotective? Was she letting her own fears smother her daughter? By withholding her permission to take surf rescue, she’d forced Julie to go behind her back.

“I don’t want to hear you talking about yourself that way,” she said gently, tucking a strand of Julie’s dark, curly hair behind her ear.

“That’s right, you don’t,” Julie said. “That’s why you’re always busy working at the shop or in your darkroom. You stay busy all the time so you don’t have to hear about my gross life.”

“Jules, you don’t mean that.”

“Fine, whatever. I don’t mean it. Can we go home?”

Camille took a deep breath, trying not to feel the places where Julie’s words had dug in. Was it true? Did she throw herself into her work so she didn’t have to think about why she was still single after all these years or why she harbored a manic fear that something awful would happen to those she loved? Yikes. “Hey, sweetie, let’s do each other a favor and talk about something else.”

“Jeez, you always do that. You always change the subject because you don’t want to talk about the fact that everybody thinks I’m a fat, ugly loser.”

Camille gasped. “No one thinks that.”

Another eye roll. “Right.”

“Tell you what. You’ve been really good about wearing your headgear and your teeth look beautiful. Let’s ask the orthodontist if you can switch to nighttime only. And something else—I was going to wait until your birthday to switch your glasses for contacts, but how about you get contacts to celebrate the end of freshman year. I’ll schedule an appointment—”

Julie swiveled toward her on the passenger seat. “I’m fat, okay? Getting rid of my braces and glasses is not going to change that.”

“Stop it,” Camille said. God, why were teenagers so hard? Had she been that hard? “I won’t let you talk about yourself that way.”

“Why not? Everybody else does.”

“What do you mean, everybody else?”

Julie offered a sullen shrug. “Just … never mind.”

Camille reached over and very gently brushed back a lock of Julie’s hair. Her daughter was smack in the middle of prepubescent awkwardness, the epitome of a late bloomer. All her friends had made it through puberty, yet Julie had just barely begun. In the past year, she’d gained weight and was so self-conscious about her body that she draped herself in baggy jeans and T-shirts.

“Maybe I do need to let go,” Camille said. “But not all at once, and certainly not by putting you in harm’s way.”

“It’s called surf rescue for a reason. We’re learning to be safe in the water. You know this, Mom. Jeez.”

Camille slowly let out her breath, put the car in drive, and pulled back out onto the road. “Doing something underhanded is not the way to win my trust.”

“Fine. Tell me how to win your trust so I can take the course.”

Camille kept her eyes on the road, the familiar landmarks sliding past the car windows. There was the pond where she and her friends had once hung a rope swing. On the water side was Sutton Cove—a kiteboarding destination for those willing to brave the wind and currents. After a day of kiteboarding with Jace nearly sixteen years before, she’d emerged from the sand and surf to find him down on one knee, proffering an engagement ring. So many adventures around every corner.

“We’ll talk about it,” she said at last.

“Meaning we won’t.”

“Meaning we’re both going to try to do better. I’m sorry I’ve been so buried in work, and—” A horrid thought crash-landed into the moment.

“What?” Julie asked.

“A work thing.” She glanced over at her daughter. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal.” Her stomach clenched as she thought about the project she’d been working on for Professor Finnemore. The moment the ER had called, Camille had dropped everything and burst out of the darkness—thus ruining her client’s rare, found film forever.

Great. The one-of-a-kind negatives, which might have offered never-before-seen images nearly half a century old, were completely destroyed.

Professor Finnemore was not going to be happy.

Two

Every time he came back to the States from his teaching post overseas, Finn made a stop at Arlington Cemetery. He walked between the endless white rows of alabaster markers etched with black lettering, nearly a half million of them, aligned with such flawless precision that they outlined the undulations of the grassy terrain. Somewhere in the distance, a set of unseen pipes was playing—one of the thirty or so funerals that took place here each week.

He paused at a headstone upon which was perched a small rubber bathtub duck. On the back of the toy, someone had written Hi, Grandpa in childish scrawl.

Finn paused before taking out his camera. The messages from little kids always got to him. He shut his eyes and murmured a thank-you to the soldier. Then he photographed the marker and added the memento to his bag. As a volunteer for the Military History Center, he visited Arlington whenever he was in town, recovering items that had been left on headstones. With his fellow volunteers, he helped catalog the items for a database so each remembrance, no matter how small, would be preserved.

Moving on, he made a detour to view the markers of his first bittersweet accomplishment. Working with a group of villagers in the highlands of Vietnam, he’d discovered the crash site of four U.S. soldiers who had gone missing fifty years before. The soldiers—an aircraft commander, a pilot, a door gunner, and a gunner—had been hit with enemy fire, and their chopper had crashed into a mountainside. For decades, the men had been lost. Finn had talked to their families, hearing echoes of his own family’s story. With no way of knowing what had become of their loved ones, there was no place for the grief to go, no closure. It lingered like a fog, impenetrable on some days, lifting on others, but it was always present.

The remains had been interred in a group burial service with horse-drawn caissons and a white-gloved honor guard, while their families looked on, clinging together like survivors from a storm. One of the daughters had written Finn a note of gratitude, telling him that despite the revived grief, there was also a sense of relief that she was finally able to lay her father to rest.

More than a thousand veterans still remained unaccounted for, and his father, Richard Arthur Finnemore, was one of them. For years, Finn had searched for his father’s likeness in the faces of panhandlers outside veterans’ halls, wondering if torture had left him impaired and unable to make his way back to his family.

Finn picked up a small scrap of paper from a marker in Section 60, where the recently fallen were laid to rest. The handwritten note said, I have to leave you here. You should be home playing with our kids and laughing with us. But this is where you’ll stay. Forever. I guess in that sense, I’ll never lose you. Despite the summer heat, Finn felt a chill as he dutifully photographed the marker and added the note to his collection.

Finally, he consulted an app on his phone and located the new marker of a very old casualty—army air forces first lieutenant Robert McClintock. Finn had scoured the countryside around Aix-en-Provence, where he was living and teaching. His research had led him to the crash site of a single-seat P-38 aircraft, piloted by McClintock on a strafing mission against an enemy airfield in 1944. Combing through archives, Finn had discovered that on the day in question, poor weather conditions had impaired visibility. A scrap of news on a microfiche had reported that McClintock’s aircraft had dived through the clouds and seemingly disappeared.

With a group of private citizens, Finn had worked with a recovery team, finding teeth and bone fragments, all that was left of the twenty-one-year-old airman. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory matched three sisters from Bethesda, and last year, Lieutenant McClintock had been repatriated here at Arlington. Finn had not attended the burial, but now he stood looking at the freshly etched marker. Again, there had been letters of gratitude from the family.

He appreciated the kind words, but that wasn’t the reason he did what he did. He let people think he was looking for accolades and recognition in his academic work, because it was easier to explain than admitting that he was really looking for his father.

Standing amid the sea of alabaster headstones, Finn felt a breeze on his neck, redolent of fresh-cut grass and newly turned earth. Where’d you go, Dad? he wondered. We’d all love to know.

The roll of film his sister had found, with his father’s initials on the small yellow can, was the best hope of finding out. The film expert, Camille Adams, was finally going to reveal his father’s last images, taken somewhere in Cambodia decades before.

The thought made him lengthen his strides as he headed for his rental car. Maybe the courier charged with picking up the processed film would be back already. Finn got in and grabbed his mobile phone from the console. It indicated multiple voice mails from the courier company. As he tapped the phone to play the messages, Finn thought, Please, Camille Adams. Don’t let me down.

“You don’t sound happy,” said Margaret Ann Finnemore, her voice coming through the speakers of the rental car.

Finn stared at the road ahead as he drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, heading for the Delmarva Peninsula. Delaware-Maryland-Virginia. He had to cross state lines just to find Camille Adams.

“That’s because I’m not happy,” he said to his sister. “The film was supposed to be ready today, and the courier company can’t even locate the woman responsible for developing it. She totally flaked out on us.

Stopped answering her phone, isn’t reading text messages or checking e-mail.”

“Maybe something came up,” Margaret Ann suggested reasonably. In the Finnemore family, she was known as the reasonable sister.

“Yeah, she blew me off. That’s what came up.”

“She came so highly recommended. Billy Church—the guy at the National Archives—gave her such a strong recommendation. Didn’t he say she’s done work for the Smithsonian and the FBI?”

“He did. But he didn’t say we’d need the FBI to find her. I should’ve called her references instead of just checking her website.” The site for Adams Photographic Services had featured dramatic examples of photos she’d rescued or restored. It had also displayed a picture of Camille Adams, which had caught his attention. She was a beauty, with dark curly hair and faraway eyes—but apparently, no sense of responsibility.

“I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“I don’t need an explanation. I need to see what was on that roll of film, and I need to see it before the ceremony.”

“You couldn’t have sent someone else all the way out there?”

“The courier bailed after waiting around for an hour. Everybody else in the family has a job to do, so I decided to track her down myself.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if there were pictures of Dad?” Margaret Ann sounded wistful. As the eldest of the Finnemore siblings, she had the most vivid memories of their father. Finn had none of his own, which was probably why each surviving photo meant so much to him. “If there are any shots of him, they’d be the last ever taken. We could add them to the display at the White House.”

Finn tempered his expectations. “He shot that roll long before selfies were a thing.”

“Maybe one of his fellow officers or men took a picture of him.”

Finn had about a dozen things he could be doing instead of driving out to the edge of the known world, but he wanted to get his hands on those pictures. He hated the idea of letting his family down. The tightly knit clan consisted of steps and halves in every combination, and somehow it all worked. The somehow was his mom. They all revolved around her wellspring of strength and love.

Tomorrow would have been his father’s seventieth birthday. On the night before Richard Arthur Finnemore had been deployed on a mission to Cambodia, he had kissed his children good night, and then made love to his wife one last time. Nine months to the day after that, Finn was born to a woman who had recently been informed that her husband was missing in action. Sergeant Major Richard Arthur Finnemore had performed an act of heroism, surrendering his position to the enemy in order to protect a group of men involved in a covert operation.

And he had never been seen again.

Tavia Finnemore had managed to put her life back together. In time, she fell in love with a guy who was completely unfazed by the fact that she had three kids. In fact, he had two of his own. They went on to have two more boys together. It was an unwieldy tribe of a family, filled with noise and chaos, pathos and laughter, and most of all, love. Yet all his life, Finn had felt the absence of his father, a man who had died before Finn had drawn his first breath of air. It was entirely possible to miss someone you’d never met. He was walking, breathing proof of that.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said, “assuming the film expert didn’t abscond with the goods.”

“She didn’t abscond. Why on earth would she abscond with an old roll of film? And besides, who says ‘abscond’ anymore, except maybe my overeducated history-professor brother?”

“I hope like hell she didn’t.” Finn had no patience for people who didn’t keep their commitments. If he found the woman—and he fully intended to, even though it meant a two-hour drive from Annapolis—he was going to have some choice words for her.

“Promise you’ll call the minute you find out if she was able to salvage any of the pictures. Oh my gosh, Finn, I can’t believe what’s happening. A presidential Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. For our dad.” Margaret Ann’s excitement bubbled through his phone’s speaker.

“Pretty surreal.” The whole Finnemore-Stephens clan would be in attendance—the family his father had before he was reported MIA, and the family his mother had started when she married Rudy Stephens. More than four decades after the shocking telegram had reached a young woman with two little girls and a babe in arms, his mom was finally getting closure.

Then a thought occurred to him. “Shit. I’m supposed to pick up my dress uniform at the cleaners this afternoon, and here I am driving across the Chesapeake.”

“If you were married again, you’d have a wife to help you out with stuff like that.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Seriously? That’s your rationale for wanting me to remarry? You just set the women’s movement back fifty years.”

“Everyone needs a partner. That’s all I’m saying. You were so happy when you were with Emily.”

“Until I wasn’t.”

“Finn—”

“You’re still ticked off at me for not liking the last one you set me up with.”

“Angie Latella was perfect for you.”

He winced, remembering the painfully awkward setup his sisters had organized. “I don’t get why you and Shannon Rose—and Mom, for that matter—are on a mission to get me married off again. Because the last time turned out so well for me?”

The women in his family were endlessly preoccupied with his love life. They were convinced that his life would never be complete until he found true love, settled down, and started a family. He wasn’t afraid to talk about it. He was afraid because they were probably right.

He wanted the kind of love his siblings had found. He wanted kids. Yet he had no desire to see if his luck would change the second time around. These days, he wasn’t even sure he knew how love happened, and how it felt.

“It’s been three years. You’re ready. And Angie—”

“She was a half hour late, and she had an annoying laugh.”

“That’s code for she didn’t have big boobs and an obsession with extreme sports.”

“Come on. I’m not that shallow.” Christ, he hoped not. His sister loved him, but when she tried to boss him around, he always pushed back.

“Then what about Carla? Now, she has boobs, and she’s a worldclass mountain biker.”

“Daddy issues. And you’re the one who told me a woman with a bad history with her father is a problem waiting to happen. Besides, I live overseas now, remember? Not interested in a long-distance gig.”

“That’s temporary. You’ll be back in the States soon enough.”

He decided now was not the time to tell her his visiting professorship in Aix-en-Provence had been extended. “Can one of your kids pick up my stuff at the cleaners? It’s the one on Annapolis Road.”

“I’ll have Rory pick it up on her way home from work. She goes right by there.”

“Thanks. Tell her there’s a good bottle of wine in it for her.”

“You’re going to turn your niece into a wine snob like you. Remind me again when you have to go back,” Margaret Ann said.

“A week from Saturday. Summer term starts on Monday.”

“Teaching in Provence in summer, you lucky dog.”

“Living the dream.” He said this with a touch of irony. He had once believed he could find the kind of happiness his mom and other members of his family had found. But finding that would mean opening himself up to a new relationship, and he wasn’t so sure he was up for that. Casual sex and no commitment made life simpler. More empty, yes. But simpler.

“What topics?” asked his sister.

“Advanced studies in historical inquiry, and it’s awesome, not boring.”

“And working on your next book?”

“Always.” He was researching a work on World War II resistance fighters. And he was always looking for long-lost soldiers, searching out crash sites and battlefields for remains to restore to families yearning for closure.

She sighed. “Such a tough life.”

“You should come for a visit and see how tough it is.”

“Right. Dragging along my three reluctant teenagers and workaholic husband. I’m sure your archivist girlfriend—what’s her name?”

“Vivi,” Finn said. “And she’s not my girlfriend. Hey, coming up on a tollbooth,” he said, suddenly tired of the conversation. “Gotta go. I’ll call you about the pictures, if there’s anything to report.” He ended the call and drove past the nonexistent tollbooth.

The bridge led him into a whole new world. Refocusing his mind on finding the AWOL film expert, he made his way across to the low, teardrop-shaped peninsula. He’d never actually explored the region, which was odd, since he’d spent so much of his life in and around Annapolis. He’d attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and after five years of service, attained his Ph.D. and became a professor there. Yet this area had always been a mystery to him.

The remote lowlands traversed a place of watery isolation, and the vibe felt entirely different from the pricey suburbs that clung to the western side of the Chesapeake. The road and town names reflected the region’s varied colonial heritage—Native American, Dutch, and English: Choptank, Accomack, Swanniken, Claverack, Newcastle, Sussex.

A series of winding, ever-narrowing roads took him past courthouse towns, fishing villages, and long marshy areas alive with shorebirds. Finally, crossing a narrow neck of land dividing the ocean and the bay, he reached the township of Bethany Bay.

The colonial-era town, with its painted cottages and old-fashioned buildings, had the lived-in look of a seaside village, the landscape and structures battered by wind and weather. Nearly every house had a boat in the yard, a stack of crab pots, and a web of netting hung out for drying or repair. The main street was lined with charming shops and cafés. He passed a waterway labeled EASTERLY CANAL, and a marina filled with pleasure boats and a fishing fleet. Then he followed the beach road along a three-mile crescent clinging to the Atlantic shore.

If he hadn’t been so annoyed at having to drive all the way out here, he might have appreciated the sable-colored sand and rolling surf, the smooth expanse of beach, where pipers rushed along in skinny-legged haste. A few surfers were out, bobbing on the horizon as they waited for a wave. A lone kiteboarder skimmed across the shallows under the colorful arch of his kite. A towering red-capped lighthouse punctuated the end of the beach like an exclamation point.

He was in no mood to savor the small-town charm of the remote spot. He had other things on his mind. Checking the business address on his phone, he came to a clapboard cottage about a block from the lighthouse. Gray with white trim around the small-paned windows, the cozy house had a front and back porch and a chimney on one end. It was surrounded by a picket fence and climbing roses, and a martin house on a tall pole.

He got out of the car, let himself in through the front gate, and promptly stubbed his toe on a garden stone carved with the words J.A. Always in my heart. Grabbing his foot, he let loose with a stream of cusswords he saved only for special occasions. Nothing said “You’re having a bad day” quite like a freshly stubbed toe.

He took a moment to compose himself before approaching the house. Under the brass mailbox was a logo that matched the one on her website—a line drawing of a vintage camera, with the name of her company—Adams Photographic Services.

He saw no car in the driveway. Maybe it was in the garage, an elderly structure with a sliding door on iron rails. He walked up to the front porch and knocked sharply. The air smelled of the sea and blooming roses, and was filled with the sounds of the waves and crying gulls. Two pairs of gardening boots stood on the mat.

He rang the bell. Knocked again. Called her number for about the fourth time and got no answer. Leaning toward the door, he thought he heard a ringtone inside.

“Do not do this to me,” he said to the voice mail. “It’s Finn—Malcolm Finnemore. Call me as soon as you get this message.”

He shoved a hand through his hair as if it would keep him from building up a head of steam. Maybe he could find a neighbor who would know how to get in touch with her.

Damn.

As she turned down the beach road toward home, Camille felt exhausted, her nerves worn thin after the ordeal in the ER. Julie was staring straight ahead, her face expressionless.

“Mom,” Julie said. “You can stop checking me out. They said I’m okay.”

“You’re right, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying. You have a contusion. You’ve never had a contusion.”

“It’s a fancy name for a bump on the head. Jeez.” Julie pointed at the house. “Who’s that guy?”

“What guy? Oh.” Camille turned into the driveway and parked. The guy Julie was referring to stood on her front porch, a phone clapped to his ear as he paced back and forth. He was tall, with a ponytail and aviator shades. His lived-in shorts and dark T-shirt revealed a physique of tanned skin and sinewy muscles. Shoot. Was this the courier sent by Professor Finnemore?

She got out and slammed the car door, and he turned to face her, taking off the glasses. And something unexpected happened—her heart nearly jumped out of her chest, yet she had no idea why. He was a complete stranger. But she couldn’t take her eyes off him. There was something about his stance and the way he held himself. He was just a guy, she thought. A stranger on her porch. There were a few glints of blond hair at his temples, framing gumball-blue eyes and a face that belonged in a Marvel Comics movie—he was that good-looking.

Well, hello, Mr. Courier Guy.

As she came up the walk, his eyes narrowed into a hostile squint. Clearly, he hadn’t felt a similar jolt of attraction.

“Can I help you?” she asked, stepping onto the porch.

He put his phone away. “Camille Adams?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m Finn.” He hesitated. His eyes were now cold and flinty. “Malcolm Finnemore.”

Whoa. She took a second to regroup. This was not how she had pictured the nerdy history teacher. “Oh, uh, Professor Finnemore.”

“I go by ‘Finn.’”

She knew instantly the reason he was here, and why he looked so annoyed. “I missed the courier pickup,” she said. “I had a personal emergency, and—”

“You couldn’t have called? Sent a message?”

Julie came up behind her and mounted the porch steps, a surly expression on her face. “Hey,” she said.

“My daughter, Julie,” Camille said, her face turning bright red. “Julie, this is Professor Finnemore.”

“Glad to meet you.” Julie looked anything but glad. “Excuse me.” She edged past them, pressed the door code, and went inside.

“My personal emergency,” said Camille. Her stomach pounded. She had some explaining to do. “Please, come on in.”

His gaze assessed her, from her unkempt hair to her grubby work garb—stained shirt, cutoffs, flip-flops. Spilled developer staining one ankle. She held the door, feeling utterly self-conscious. Not only had she ruined his film, but she was totally unprepared to meet a client. She was dressed like a slob in her darkroom clothes, hair piled into a messy bun. No makeup. Not showered.

He gave a nod, passing close to her as he stepped through the door. Oh God, she thought, he even smelled good-looking. Ocean air and fresh laundry. And he exuded the kind of effortless grace she observed in the wealthy “come-heres,” as the locals called the summer people and power brokers from D.C. who came for the sand and sea. They tooled around the peninsula in their foreign cars, bringing their friends from the city for sailing trips and shore dinners, or cruising with the skipjack watermen to dredge for oysters while under sail.

Camille knew the type—arrogant, entitled, treating the locals like servants. She suspected he might be one of them.

Her house wasn’t ready for company either. Particularly not for a come-here whose film she’d destroyed.

Everything was just as she’d left it when the phone rang. Her morning mess was everywhere—yesterday’s mail, library books, towels that had yet to be folded, her bikini hung on a doorknob to dry, sand-crusted flip-flops kicked to the side, dishes waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher. Her now-scummy coffee cup sat abandoned on the counter next to her forgotten mobile phone, its screen indicating multiple missed calls.

“So … can I offer you something to drink?” she asked. Lame. She was always so tongue-tied around good-looking men. It was silly. She didn’t even like good-looking men. Probably because they made her uncomfortable. Particularly when she was about to deliver some bad news.

“Thanks, but I’m in a hurry,” he said. “Wondering how the film turned out.”

Of course he was.

Camille placed her keys on the hook by the door. She could hear Julie upstairs in her room, the old floorboards creaking. Julie spent so much time alone lately—or alone with her smartphone and laptop. Her punishment for forging the permission slip was going to be a severe restriction on screen time.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I feel terrible that you had to drive all the way out here.”

“The courier service said no one was here at the pickup time.”

“I got called away.” The sinking feeling dragged her lower and lower. “The film is ruined. And I’m sorry I didn’t have my phone on me and I didn’t get in touch with you.”

He was very quiet. His face was stony, like a gorgeous sculpture. “You mean the film wasn’t viable. It had sat in the can too long?”

Her mouth went dry. He was offering her an out, and for a split second, she considered taking the coward’s route. It would be so simple—she could explain that his film had been spoiled by age and environment, and couldn’t be developed. But that would be a lie. She had rescued film far older than his. Camille was not a liar. She never had been, even when it was more convenient to lie.

Excusing herself, she went down the hall, ducked into her workroom, and found the spooling canister she’d dropped when the hospital called. The film was now a dark ribbon of nothing with tractor perforations on the sides. She paused and looked down the hall, studying her angry visitor. As he stood there in profile, staring out the window at the beach in the distance, she felt that powerful beat of pure, unadulterated attraction again. It was such a singular feeling that she scarcely recognized what it was. It’s nothing, she thought. Nothing but a momentary blip of feeling. A guy with looks like that could inspire even someone whose heart had been broken beyond repair.

Too bad she’d ruined his day for him. With grim fatality, she brought the long black failure back to the kitchen.

“I blew it,” she said, hating the admission as she showed him the dark nothingness. “It was entirely my fault.”

“Seriously?” A tic of irritation tightened his jaw as he eyed the blank film. “I don’t understand. Was the film—”

“It was probably salvageable. But I accidentally let light into the darkroom at a crucial moment, and the light ruined the film.” She considered a longer explanation, but didn’t feel like dragging this stranger through her whole hellish day.

“Damn. Damn it to hell.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

He glared at the film again, and then at her. “Jesus Christ, I needed those pictures.”

She nodded. “I realize that. I feel terrible.”

“Shit. Shit. You’re supposed to be an expert at this. I trusted you—”

“You did, and I’m so sorry.” God, she hated letting people down. He had every right to be pissed.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded, glaring at the empty length of film. “Do you just take people’s irreplaceable film and … what? Destroy it? Damn, I could have done that myself.”

“I was working on it this morning and everything was going fine. I got a call …” She hesitated. She did not want to tell the angry stranger she was a negligent mom. “I dropped everything. Including your film. I feel horrible about it, and … and …”

Something in her voice, a waver of emotion she couldn’t control, seemed to catch his attention. The winter-ice eyes changed. He had a slow, burning way of looking at her. As if his anger might set her on fire.

“You got a call,” he prompted. “You got a fucking call.”

She could barely speak past the lump in her throat, so she nodded. Something melted inside her. She’d just had the most terrifying day. A call from the ER was every mother’s worst nightmare. For Camille, it revived the deep trauma of losing Jace, and now here was this furious stranger. Suddenly the strain of being a widowed single mother overwhelmed her. To go through a day like this without the love, support, and partnership of Julie’s father felt like too much to bear. Julie’s accident, and now this screw-up brought her longburied grief to the surface.

To keep herself from shattering, she went into defense mode. She began to tremble as fear, stress, and then a delayed response of anger swept over her. With shaking hands, she set the film and canister in the sink, struggling to hide her emotions. It was horrifying, this reaction to the stress of the day, and she refused to let a work disaster take her apart.

She braced her hands on the edge of the sink and tried to collect herself. She glanced at her phone. Four missed calls, six new text messages, four new e-mails—all from “M Finnemore.” She whirled around to face him. “I can’t say it enough. I’m sorry about the negatives. I wish you hadn’t wasted your time driving clear out here. And of course there’s no charge for anything.”

She glared at him, trying to hold fast to the anger. Instead, a hot tear slipped out. And then another. The guy stood there, seemingly frozen by anger. Then he spotted some tissues on the counter and handed her the whole box.

“Do you need to call someone?” he asked, indicating her phone. “Your husband …?”

“No husband,” she said through gritted teeth, swiping angrily at her cheeks.

He cut her with a laser glare, as if her lack of a husband inexplicably deepened the offense. “Thanks for nothing, lady.”

Shaken by the encounter, Camille watched him through the window. What an incredible tool. He strode to his car, yanked open the door. Just for a moment, he hesitated, turning back toward the house. His anger seemed to soften into something else—regret, maybe. Could be he realized he was being a tool. Then he swiped at the back of his neck as if something had bitten him there, and climbed into the car.

Julie came down from her room. “That your client?” she asked, watching as he threw the car into reverse and peeled out.

“My client,” Camille said. “My extremely disappointed client.” She used a tissue to give her cheeks another swipe.

“Why disappointed?”

“I ruined his film.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.” A pucker of concern knitted her brow. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Camille took a deep breath. “God, he was pissed.”

“I can tell. Is he single?”

“What? Jules.”

“Just asking. I know how you feel about guys with ponytails.”

Camille felt a flush creeping into her cheeks, because she had already wondered the same thing. Is he single? “I’m done with guys, with or without ponytails.” Maybe she was reading her daughter wrong. “Do you feel bad because Drake and I parted ways?”

Julie’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? No. Having my mom date the school principal was the worst.”

Camille studied her daughter’s face. Julie was so beautiful to her—curly dark hair, bright brown eyes, a sweet saddle of freckles across her nose. Sometimes she recognized a flicker of Jace in Julie, and it made her heart melt. You’re still here, she thought.

“What?” Julie rubbed her cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”

Camille smiled. “No. How’s your head?” She inspected the bump. It was barely visible now, thank goodness.

“Fine. Really, Mom.” She tucked her phone in her pocket. “I’m going out for a walk.”

“You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I saw the discharge papers. They said I can resume all normal activities. I’ll just go down to the lighthouse and back.”

“I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”

“Not helpful,” Julie said, a storm gathering in her eyes. “It’s just a walk.”

Camille hesitated. Julie spent way too much time alone in her room, staring at her phone screen. Anything that got her out of the house was a welcome distraction.

“All right.” Camille didn’t have the energy for a big argument. “But be—”

“I know. Careful.” Julie went out the front door. “I won’t be long.”

Camille watched her walking down the road toward the lighthouse. In that moment, she looked so isolated and lonely in her shapeless clothes. It bothered Camille that none of Julie’s friends had called or come by to make sure she was all right. Ninth graders were not noted for their compassion, but when one of their own was taken to the emergency room, she assumed at least one of them would follow up. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen any of Julie’s friends around in a while.

Three

Julie stepped out onto the ledge of the Bethany Point Light. The lighthouse was still in use, though it was all automated now.

Every few seconds, the beam at the top swung in an arc to encompass the entrance to the bay. Most folks assumed the lighthouse interior was locked up tight, but Julie knew how to climb to the top. She and her friends—back when she had friends—had found an access panel under the stairs at the base of the tower.

Once inside, it was a matter of climbing the winding brick steps to the rim that surrounded the old Fresnel lens. Most kids were too creeped out to climb the cobweb-infested steps, but Julie had persevered, using a broom to clear the way. This was her special place. She came here to be alone, to think, to dream.

As far as she knew, she was the only one who still came here. Her friends had all dumped her, moving on to hang out with the cooler kids. The popular kids. The thin kids. The kids whose moms were not dating the school principal.

With one hand on the railing behind her, Julie leaned over and studied the rocky shoals a hundred feet below. She wondered what it would be like to fall that far. Would there be time to feel scared, or would it all be over in the blink of an eye?

From her vantage point, she could see the beach where this morning’s drama had occurred. In the deep sunset colors of the evening, she could pick out the eddies of the riptide, the one that had nearly carried her away to see her father.

Although it could be nothing but a fantasy, Julie held a vision in her head of where her father was now. He lived in a place that was parallel to the world she knew. It was right next door, yet invisible until she crossed the threshold, leaving the here and now behind and stepping into the new place.

There, Julie would be perfect. She would have friends rather than mean kids making fun of her. She would have boobs, not fat rolls. She would be everyone’s favorite, not some chubby loser.

It worked like this in her mind, anyway. She was probably wrong, but a girl could dream. Sometimes she felt like talking to her mom about it, but she never did. Mom worried about every little thing and she’d find a way to worry about Julie’s dream of paradise.

Plus she would start digging around and she might find out the real reason Julie kept getting in fights with other kids. Above all else, Julie could not allow her mother to find out what had provoked the fights. Because the only thing worse than having kids say her mother had caused her father’s death was having to tell her mother what the kids were saying.

She heaved a lonely sigh, and then watched the colors of the water change as the sun went down behind the east-facing lighthouse. The colors were so rich, they made her heart ache. Maybe that was where her father lived, in a world so beautiful that mere mortals couldn’t bear it.

She stooped and picked up a stray bird feather and held it out in front of her. It looked like the feather of an eastern shorebird, maybe a piping plover. When you grew up at the shore, you learned these things. She opened her fingers and let the feather drift downward, watching it dance on an updraft of wind, then swirl as it made its way to earth. Down, down, down.

She used to be light as a feather. When she looked at old pictures of herself—and there were hundreds, because her mom was a photographer—she was amazed at how cute she had been, like a little fairy. Not anymore. These days she was a fat blob. A fat blob nobody wanted to talk to, except to talk shit about her and tell lies about her mom.

She stooped and picked up a loose brick from the rim of the structure and sent it hurtling to earth. Then she picked up another and did the same, waiting for it to smash on the rocks below.

“Hey!”

The loud voice startled Julie so much she nearly let go of the railing. Her heart pounding, she jumped over the rail to safety.

“What the hell?” yelled the voice in a funny accent. “You almost hit me.”

Oh, good God. She had nearly hit someone with a brick. Then everybody would be calling her a killer, too.

Horrified, she yanked open the door and clattered down the dark, dank-smelling stairs. Maybe she could run away before the someone saw her. Maybe if she ran really fast, the victim of her falling bricks wouldn’t see her.

She pushed at the door at the base of the lighthouse and burst outside. It was nearly dark now. She sprinted over to the break in the fence, threw herself on the ground to crawl under. Before she could escape, she came face-to-face with a worn-out sneaker.

“You almost hit me,” the kid repeated.

She recoiled, scrambling backward and leaping to her feet. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know you were there.” She brushed off her jeans, studying him until recognition struck. “You’re Tarek,” she said. He had enrolled in school fairly recently, along with several of his brothers and sisters. They were a family of refugees, being sponsored by some people in town.

Tarek was in ninth grade, and he was even less popular than Julie. She took a perverse comfort in that. Some of the kids said rotten things about him, like he was a terrorist and stuff. He didn’t seem bothered by the insults; maybe because he didn’t understand.

Or maybe it was because the things he had seen in his homeland were a million times worse than a bunch of dumb kids teasing.

“And you are Julie Adams,” he said.

“That’s me. I didn’t mean to drop anything on you.”

“It is A-OK.”

“The sign says no trespassing,” she pointed out.

“And yet here you are.”

“I’ve been coming here all my life,” she said.

“Does that make you legit?”

“Makes me a native.”

“Makes you a trespasser.”

She shrugged. “Only if I get caught.” She grabbed the chain-link fence and crawled under it, then stood up and turned back to look at him. She felt self-conscious as she brushed herself off again. He was probably staring at her giant fat butt.

He was paying no attention to her at all. He simply opened the gate and stepped outside.

“Hey,” she said, “how did you get that unlocked?”

He turned and snapped the padlock in place. “Very simple. It’s a four-digit combination. I guessed the combination.”

“How’d you do that?”

He gestured at the lighthouse itself. Over the door were the numbers 1824—the year it was established. “Sometimes it is best to start with the obvious.”

Tarek was cool. She liked him. It surprised her that she liked him, because lately she hated everyone. And everyone hated her right back.

“The first time I climbed the lighthouse, I was nine years old,” she said. “One of my mom’s friends told me my dad was up in heaven, so I thought if I climbed to a high place I might be close enough to see him.” After she said this, she felt foolish.

He didn’t seem as if he found her ridiculous. He thought for a moment, then said, “My father is also gone. He was arrested, taken away right in the middle of a class he was teaching, and we never saw him again.”

“That’s terrible.”

He nodded.

“So your father was a teacher.”

“He taught English.”

They sat on a big rock, looking out at the water. The colors of twilight pooled on the surface and melded with the sky. Tarek watched a gull take flight. “I saw what happened to you in surf rescue class.”

Her stomach clenched. “It was an accident.”

“I don’t think so. Unless you would call Vanessa Larson chasing you an accident.”

“It’s a free-for-all during drills,” she insisted, cringing at the memory. Once Vanessa’s dad started dating Julie’s mom, Vanessa had turned everyone against her. At first the teasing had been subtle—digs about Julie’s weight, her braces, her glasses. Then it had caught on, and before long, other kids piled on. Finally, after Julie’s mom broke up with Vanessa’s dad, it became an all-out campaign against Julie.

“You’re a good swimmer,” she said, trying to change the subject. “Where did you learn?”

He was quiet for a moment. “While on my way to Turkey. It was sink or swim.”

She suspected there was a lot more to the story.

“You are a good swimmer, too,” he stated. “That is how I know you didn’t have an accident.”

“Just drop it, okay?” She tried to divert him again. “So are you staying in Bethany Bay for the summer?” Maybe, just maybe, they would hang out.

“No. We are leaving as soon as the school year ends. We are going to Canada to see my grandparents. Their sponsor family is in Toronto.”

Thus killing off her one shot at making a friend.

“What about you?” he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. Summers used to mean endless beach days, bike riding with her friends, staying up late, bonfires and campouts. She had no idea what she’d do with herself this coming summer, other than look at the Internet and wish she had a different life.

“I have to go,” Tarek said abruptly. “See you tomorrow in school, yes?”

“Sure,” she said, the back of her neck prickling at the idea of school. “See you around.”

She took her time walking back home. The house was lonely and empty. There was a note on the counter: Went to pick up Billy at the ferry. We’re going to First Thursday. Want to come?

No, Julie didn’t want to come to the First Thursday walkabout. She might run into the very kids she was trying to avoid. Frustrated, she yanked open the pantry door, looking for something to eat.

Her mom never had chips and cookies in the house anymore. Julie knew it was because she was fat. She didn’t use to be. She poured a bowl of cereal—whole grain, sugar-free—and added plenty of sugar and milk. Then she took it up to her room and stared at her phone while she was eating, looking up kids from her school. Vanessa Larson had the most followers. She immediately attracted attention because she was not only the daughter of the school principal, she was drop-dead gorgeous and had giant boobs.

Julie decided that if she didn’t have to go to school, her life wouldn’t suck so much. Last year, some kid had gotten himself expelled for bringing a Colt .45 to school. Boom—he was gone in a matter of minutes.

Julie didn’t have a firearm to bring to school. She wouldn’t dream of it, even if she did have one. But if she could find a way to never go back to that school again she would grab on to it.

There was homework. She flipped open her binder. She looked at the top page of the binder and recoiled. Someone had drawn a caricature of her, making her look like a hippo in a tutu. The caption read Hungry Hungry Julie.

Julie ripped the page from the binder and crumpled it into a tiny hard ball.

“Screw homework,” she muttered. “Screw everything.”

She had to get away from school. Away from the living hell she endured every single day. She hated school. And school hated her. She had to do something.

“I blew it,” Camille said to Billy Church, stopping on the porch to pick up her mail. She stepped back, holding the door open to let him in. Professor Finnemore’s film lay neglected on the counter. Her head was still spinning from his visit.

“Let me guess,” Billy said, his open, friendly face verging on a smile. “You fixed me a soufflé for dinner and it fell.”

“I only wish it were that simple.”

She poured two glasses of wine—a dry rosé that was the perfect pairing for a summer evening and the end of a rotten day.

“The negatives I was working on are ruined,” she told Billy. “I’m sorry.”

“It happens,” he said. “I told the client not to expect a miracle.”

“No. You don’t understand. I blew it. The film was salvageable. But I dropped everything when the hospital called. I didn’t even think of it.”

“No one’s going to blame you for dropping everything when you get a call to say your kid’s in the ER.”

She smiled. It might have been her first smile of the day. And it was already evening. “He didn’t seem too interested in an explanation.”

“Oh. So he was a dick.”

“Pretty much, yeah. I still feel terrible,” she said.

Billy picked up a handmade holder with sunglasses in it. “You’ve taken up arts and crafts?”

“No. The guy left that behind.” She’d found it after he’d gone, and now she was trying to figure out what to do about it. Offer to mail it, probably. Which meant she’d have to get in touch with him again. Great.

Billy checked the tag on the glasses holder. “Says ‘handmade by Mom.’ Very cute. His mommy still makes him presents.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“Come here, you.” Billy folded her into a hug.

“Thanks,” she said, her words muffled against his shoulder. “I needed this.”

“You need more than a hug, my friend,” said Billy.

“Are you hitting on my mother again?” Julie asked, coming into the kitchen. She put a cereal bowl and spoon into the dishwasher.

Billy stepped back, palms up and out. “Guilty as charged. She’s been rejecting me ever since she turned me down for the eighth-grade dance.”

“Did not,” Camille said. “You were too scared to ask me.”

“Because I knew you’d turn me down. And I did ask you in ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades. Guess I’m a slow learner.”

“I’m sure I had my reasons.” Camille caught his eye, and he winked at her. She knew what he was up to. He had a knack for lightening the mood, not just for her, but for Julie. After the rotten day they’d both had, he was a ray of sunshine. He was the best kind of friend, even when he was teasing her.

“Yes. They were Aaron Twisp, Mike Hurley, and Cat Palumbo.”

“You dated a guy named Cat?” Julie asked.

“I did,” said Camille. “And yes, he was that cool. He was so cool he couldn’t have a normal name. He had long hair, skinny jeans, combat boots, played the bass like a rock god. Whatever happened to him, anyway?”

“Easy enough to find out.” Billy took out his phone and tapped the screen. “Here’s your rock god now.” He showed them a picture of a pale-faced, slightly pudgy man in an ill-fitting shirt and tie. “He works in D.C. for the bread lobby. And his actual name is Caspar.”

That drew a giggle from Julie.

“See?” said Billy. “Somebody in this family likes me.”

“For what it’s worth,” Julie said, “I think she’s crazy to reject you. You’re funny, smart, and you know all the words to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

“Keep going.”

“You’re totally Hemsworthy.”

Billy frowned. “Is that a good thing?”

“As in the Hemsworth brothers. So, yeah.”

He took a sip of wine. “Cool. Now, how about you today? Getting yourself swept out to sea was quite a feat.”

She shrugged. “It happens.”

“Well, just make sure it doesn’t happen again. Except maybe to the douche bag who was rude to your mom today.”

“You got it.”

“Seriously, Jules, you scared the crap out of everyone.” He indicated the picture of Jace and Julie on the mantel. Taken on the beach about five years before, it depicted the two of them posed with their surfboards, squinting into the sun and laughing. “That guy—I bet he’d ground you for life if he knew you got caught in a riptide and let yourself float out to sea.”

“Maybe then I’d finally get to see him again,” Julie stated.

Camille’s blood turned to ice. “Don’t ever say that, Julie. Oh my God, do you hear yourself?”

Julie’s chin came up. “According to you, he’s the greatest thing that ever walked the earth. But he seems so far away, like I never really knew the guy.”

The comment worried Camille. How could she keep his memory alive for her daughter? Julie had been so young when she’d lost her dad.

“Well, I knew him,” Billy said, going to the bar cart and taking out a bottle of Don Julio, “and even though I begged your mom to wait for me during college, do you think she listened? No. She had to go and meet Dr. Dreamboat, and boom. Nobody else had a chance.”

“That’s because he was the love of her life, and when she lost him, the world came to an end,” Julie recited, all too familiar with the story.’

Billy measured out two generous shots. “I was jealous as hell of him, but I never resented the guy, because he gave you to the world, Jules.”

Camille’s heart ached as it always did when the subject of her late husband came up. She’d met him when she’d gone to the ER with a dislocated shoulder from a rock-climbing mishap. A few months later, she was married to the doctor who had helped her that day. She had every expectation of a lifetime of adventure with Jace. No one had counted on the spectacular manner of his demise, or its far-reaching effects. Since the accident, she wanted nothing to do with adventure. She wanted—she needed a safe, predictable existence.

“Lecture over?” Julie asked.

“Sure, why not?” Billy said. “Who’s your mom seeing these days?”

Camille was in the middle of swigging down the tequila, and she nearly choked on it. “Hey,” she objected.

“Mom never talks about the guys she dates,” Julie said.

“That’s because she broke so many hearts,” Billy said. “Mine included.”

“Knock it off.” Camille gave him a friendly slug. “I’ve dated, what—three guys? Four?—since Jace. It’s not like I haven’t tried. But it never works.”

He shot her a wounded look. “So is there another old flame in the picture?”

“All my flames are old. It’s the only kind I have. Is there such a thing as a new flame?”

“She’s not seeing anybody,” Julie chimed in. “She stopped seeing my school principal, thank God.”

“Why thank God?”

“Because it was so awkward. It messed with my head, you know?”

“No. But I’ll take your word for it. What about the dogcatcher?”

“Duane. And he’s not a dogcatcher.” Camille bristled. “He’s an animal control officer. We only went out once. Turned out he was not as loyal as the dogs he rescues.”

“And the one before that? Peter? The super-handsome one.”

Another one-date wonder. “He got all weird and Catholicky on me.”

“Catholicky? Is that even a word?”

“He took some of the doctrines a bit too literally.” Privately, Camille believed he simply didn’t like using a condom. Reason enough to show him the door.

“And what about that guy who Tindered you?”

“Mom. Please tell me you’re not on Tinder,” Julie begged.

“I’m not on Tinder.”

“Your grandmother signed her up,” Billy said.

“Your grandmother is still in trouble for pulling that stunt,” Camille said.

He poured a shot of club soda for Julie, then added a squeeze of lime. “My mom still thinks tinder is something you take camping.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Camille suggested. “Tell us about your week so far. Have you whipped your department into shape at the National Archives?”

“Not even close. The budget gets slashed every time somebody in Congress cuts a fart. When it comes to funding historical treasures, it’s a mummy-eat-mummy world.” He slammed back his tequila shot. “I laid a nasty rumor about Rutherford B. Hayes to rest. And I sent Gerald Ford’s college senior thesis and his football helmet back to Michigan, his home state.”

“What was the ugly rumor about President Hayes?” asked Julie.

“That he took up with a saloon gal named Mary Chestnut. His political enemies made it up.” Billy put the glasses in the sink. “What say we go to the village and grab a bite, then walk around and look at First Thursday.”

“I don’t really feel like it,” Julie said. “But thanks.”

“I should stay home with Julie,” Camille said.

“Wrong answer. You should both come with me.”

“No, thanks,” Julie said. “I’d rather hang out here.”

“You used to love First Thursday. You can see all your friends, let them know you’re okay.”

“Mom,” Julie cut in. “I said no thank you.”

Camille stepped back, stunned by her daughter’s vehemence. “Ah. The queen has spoken.” She turned to Billy. “We’ll just hang out here.”

“No,” he said. “I’m taking charge. You’re coming with me. And Julie can stay home and Snapchat or Instagram with her friends, or whatever it is they’re all doing.”

“Good plan,” Julie said, sending him a grateful look.

Camille felt torn. She really, really wanted to get out for a bit. She really, really wanted a cocktail at the Skipjack Tavern. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Positive. I’ll be even more okay once you quit worrying.”

“I’ll never quit worrying.”

“We’re leaving.” Billy handed Camille her bag. Then he ushered her out the door. “Let’s walk to the village,” he said. “The weather is fantastic.”

The promise of summer filled the evening air. The lingering warmth of the day emanated from the brick sidewalks, and sunset colors glinted off the canal and the bay. The air smelled of the coming season—blooming honeysuckle, cut grass, and the rich, lively odor of bounty from the sea. The sky was beautifully clear, and the laughter and conversation that bubbled from the crowd in the village were filled with energy.

Founded by Dutch and English settlers three centuries before, Bethany Bay combined the old-world charm of both cultures. The squared-off, gabled rooflines and old colonial homes blended with the seascape surrounding the town. It was an authentic snapshot of a place that had been treated kindly by time, retaining the character of the past in its very soul.

First Thursday was a bustling event, with locals coming out to socialize, and the come-heres taking in the small-town charm. Visitors from the cities—D.C., Dover, Bethesda, even New York and north Jersey—had escaped early for the weekend. Bethany Bay was not as popular as Rehoboth and Annacock, an unfortunate name for a lovely town, but for those who made the extra effort to reach the remote spot, the rewards were many. Development was held at bay by the fact that the entire region was surrounded by a wildlife preserve, and the inner core of the village consisted of listed and registered structures.

The sound of an ensemble playing under the gazebo on the village green added a festive touch to the evening. Fairy lights surrounding the gazebo and hanging from the cherry and liquidambar trees created an irresistible atmosphere.

The seaside town was the backdrop of her childhood, a cocoon where she felt safe. A refuge. The place where she had made her life in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy.

Yet sometimes it felt like a walled fortress with her stuck inside, unable to escape.

Just for a short while, the small-town festivities took her mind off Julie. She and Billy dropped into various shops and galleries that lined the main street. The art ranged from borderline kitsch to sophisticated originals to purely magical. At the Beholder, owned by her mother’s best friend, Queenie, they munched on almond toffee and checked out the latest offerings—nature scenes printed on copper or aluminum. The gallery occupied what had once been a customs house, dating back to the eighteenth century. The light-flooded hall and grand hearth created the perfect setting for displaying art.

“They’re mesmerizing,” Camille said to Queenie. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Queenie’s young assistant shamelessly flirting with Billy, which was no surprise. He was the kind of good-looking that made a bow tie and horn-rimmed glasses sexy, and women went nuts for him. “I’m not the only one being mesmerized.”

“He’s quite a catch. Your mother and I often wonder why the two of you never—”

“I’d like to meet the artist,” Camille broke in.

“Of course,” said Queenie. “I was hoping you’d stop by tonight. You and Gaston have something in common.”

“Gaston. He’s French?”

“From Saint-Malo. You’re going to love him.” Taking Camille by the hand, she towed her through the milling crowd to a slender, sandy-haired guy in a striped T-shirt and thin neck scarf. “Gaston,” said Queenie. “This is Camille, my best friend’s daughter.”

He looked up, and when he saw her, his eyes flared wide, making her glad she’d decided to shower and put on makeup before coming out tonight. “Hi,” he said, extending his hand. “Very happy to meet you.”

Camille could tell he was struggling with his English, so she answered him in French. “Your pictures are truly beautiful,” she said. “Congratulations on this amazing show.”

A smile lit his face. “You’re French, too?”

“My father is. He raised me to speak his native language.”

“He must be from the south,” Gaston said. “Provence? I can hear it in every word you speak.”

The southern part of France had a dialect and cadence all its own, comparable to the unique sound of people from the Chesapeake region, a blend of accents and archaic terms.

“All right, you two. Stop being so foreign and cliquish,” Queenie said.

“We are foreign,” Gaston said with a wink.

“Camille works in photography, too,” Queenie said. “Did she tell you?”

Camille could smell matchmaking a mile off. Her mom and friends and half sisters abhorred a single woman’s status the way nature abhorred a vacuum. Sometimes it seemed her mother had recruited the whole town to find her a boyfriend. For no reason she could fathom, her thoughts strayed to Malcolm Finnemore. The ticked-off client. Not boyfriend material.

“Sorry,” she told Gaston in French. “She always tries to throw me together with random men.”

“Not to worry,” he said, also in French. “I’m an artist. Everybody knows it’s dangerous to hook up with an artist.” He grinned and reverted to English. “So. You like photography.”

“Yes.”

“She specializes in old film and prints,” Queenie said. “I keep trying to get her to do a show here at the Beholder.”

One of Queenie’s assistants came over. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “We’ve got a buyer for the big landscape.”

Queenie went straight into action. She pressed her hand against Gaston’s elbow and steered him to the large piece that dominated what had once been the mantel over the hearth.

Camille took the opportunity to pull Billy away from the puppyeyed shopgirl, and they went back out into the street.

“Hey,” said Billy. “She was cute.”

“All twenty-year-olds are cute.”

He sent her a fake-resentful look. “Since when are twenty-year-olds too young for me?”

“We’re thirty-six,” she reminded him.

“In that case, you should take me up on my offer to marry you. I’d make an honest woman of you.”

“Where to next?” she asked, ignoring the suggestion. “Ooh-La-La?”

“Lead on,” he said. “I haven’t seen your mom in a while. Plus, Rhonda always serves those little crab croquettes. They taste like an angel farted in your mouth.”

“No wonder I’d never marry you. You’re too obnoxious.”

“Let’s get over there before the angel farts are gone.”

The shop looked bright and twinkly and inviting, as always. Located in a vine-clad brick building that used to be a milliner’s shop a century before, it had twin display windows facing the street. As always, the display was gorgeous, a blend of beach style and continental chic. Despite the kitschy shop name, Camille’s mother had exquisite taste, and her half sister, Britt, had a keen eye for design.

Cherisse filled the place with supremely interesting things—unique home goods, sommelier tools, glass rolling pins, printed toile curtains, Clairefontaine writing paper and pens that felt just right in the hand. Camille had practically grown up in the boutique, listening to Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg while helping her mom display a set of crystal knife rests or a collector’s edition of Mille Bornes or the Dutch bike game of Stap op.

In the 1990s, the first lady was photographed in the shop, buying a fabulous set of Laguiole cutlery, and business kicked into high gear. Socialites from D.C. and even a couple of celebrities became regular customers. There were write-ups in national magazines, travel articles, and shopping blogs touting the treasures of Ooh-La-La, designating it as a must-visit destination.

Camille owed her very existence to the shop. Although she never realized it growing up, her parents had married for reasons of coldblooded commerce. Her father, Henry, was looking for a marriage path to citizenship. Cherisse, who was fifteen years younger, needed a backer for the shop she’d always dreamed of opening. They both wanted a child, desperately. Desperately enough to believe their shared desire for a home and family was a kind of love. What they eventually had to admit—first to themselves privately, then to each other, and finally to Camille—was that no matter how much they loved their daughter, the marriage wasn’t working for them.

When Camille was eight years old, they sat her down and told her just that.

Their divorce was, as the mediator termed it, freakishly civilized. After a couple of years, Camille adjusted to dividing her time between two households. A few years after the divorce, Cherisse met Bart, and that was when Camille finally learned what true love looked like. It was the light in her mother’s eyes when Bart walked into a room. It was the firm touch of his hand in the small of her back. It was a million little things that simply were not there, had never been there, between her mom and dad.

She was grateful that her parents got along. Bart and her father were cordial whenever they encountered each other. But despite their efforts, the decades-old breakup of her family felt like an old wound that still ached sometimes. When she thought about Julie, she wondered which was harder, to have your family taken apart by divorce, or to lose a parent entirely.

Cherisse, at least, had thrived in her new life. She and Bart had two girls together, Britt and Hilda. Ooh-La-La annexed the building next door, turning it into its sister property, Brew-La-La, the best café in town. All through her high school years, Camille had minded the shop while her two younger half sisters played in the small garden courtyard.

These days, Camille worked behind the scenes with the bookkeeper, Wendell, an insatiable surfer and skateboarder who financed his passion by keeping the books. Despite his shaggy hair and surfer duds, he was smart, intuitive, and meticulous. The sales staff consisted of Rhonda, who was also an amazing cook, and Daphne, a transplant from upstate New York with a mysterious past.

Britt was the resident merchandiser and display designer. Cherisse was in charge of “flying and buying.” Two times a year, she went to Europe to find the lovely offerings that had put the shop on the map. Before losing Jace, Camille used to accompany her on buying trips, soaking in the sights of Paris and Amsterdam, London and Prague. It was a mother-daughter treasure hunt, those unforgettable days.

After Jace died, Cherisse urged Camille to come along on trips the way she used to, but Camille refused. She never flew anywhere. Just the idea of setting foot on a plane sent her into a panic. She never again climbed a mountain or rode a trail, rafted on a river, surfed a wave, or flew on a kiteboard. Other than routine commutes to D.C. for work, she didn’t go anywhere. These days, she regarded the world as a dangerous place, and her job was to stay put and keep Julie safe.

She had failed miserably at that today. She vowed not to make that mistake again.

Rhonda greeted them at the shop entrance with a tray of her legendary crab croquettes.

“I’m never leaving you,” Billy said, helping himself to three of them.

“Promises, promises,” said Rhonda. “Come on in, you two. We’re having a great night. The tourist season is about to kick into high gear.”

Camille’s mother was in her element, greeting visitors, treating even out-of-towners like cherished friends. Billy made a beeline for her. “Hello, gorgeous,” he said, giving her a quick hug.

“Hello yourself,” she said, her face lighting up. Then she noticed Camille. “Glad you came after all. How’s Julie doing?”

“She shooed us both out of the house,” Camille said. “She’s okay, Mom. Thanks for showing up at the hospital. I was a mess.”

“You were not. Or did I miss something?”

You missed me having a meltdown in front of Malcolm Finnemore, Camille thought, but she simply said, “I’m all right now.”

Billy surveyed an antique table displaying a polished punch bowl in the shape of a giant octopus. “The shop looks great, as always.”

“Thanks. Did you see Camille’s new prints? I can’t keep them in stock. I’ve sold four of them already tonight.” She gestured at a display of the three newest prints, matted and framed on a beadboard wall.

The center image was one Camille had rendered from an old daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe. Printed on archival paper, the portrait had a haunting quality, as elusive and scary as his poems. Next to those prints were examples of Camille’s own work. She almost never took pictures anymore, so these were from years before. She’d used a vintage large-format Hasselblad, capturing local scenes with almost hyperrealistic precision.

When Jace was still alive, Camille had been a chaperone on one of Julie’s school trips to the White House. It had been one of those days when shot after shot seemed to be sprinkled with fairy dust, from the dragonfly hovering perfectly over a pond in the Kennedy Garden, to a frozen moment of two girls holding hands as they ran along the east colonnade, framed by sheer white columns.

“I love these,” said a browsing tourist. “That’s such a beautiful shot of the White House Rose Garden.”

“Here’s the artist,” Billy said, nudging Camille forward.

“It’s very intriguing,” the woman said. “It looks as if the picture was taken at some earlier time.”

“They’re from six years ago. I was shooting with an antique camera that day,” Camille said.

“My daughter has a great collection of old cameras,” Cherisse said. “She does her own developing and printing.”

“Well, it’s fantastic. I’m going to get this one for a good friend who loves old photographs, too.” She smiled, picking up the Rose Garden print.

Camille was flattered, and she felt a wave of pride. She wished Jace had lived to see this. “Maybe this hobby of yours will turn into something one day,” he used to tell her.

“… on the back,” the woman was saying.

“Sorry,” Camille said. “What was that?”

“I wondered if you could write a message on the back,” she said. “To Tavia.”

“No problem.” The woman seemed a bit quirky, though perfectly nice. Camille found a pen and added a short greeting and her signature to the back of the mat.

“Let’s go drink,” Billy said after she finished. “I can watch you get hit on at the Skipjack.”

“Good plan,” she said, making a face. Guys didn’t hit on her, and he knew it.

She and Billy made their way to the rustic tavern, a nineteenth-century brick building near the fishing pier. The crowd here was friendly and upbeat, spilling out onto the deck overlooking the water.

“Is it just me,” Billy murmured, scanning the crowd, “or do we know at least half the people here?”

“The perks of growing up in a small town,” she said.

“Or the drawbacks. There are at least two women here I’ve slept with. Should I say hi, or pretend I don’t see them?”

“You should order a drink for me, and pick up the tab because I’ve had a rotten day.” Camille stepped up to the bar. “I’ll have a dark-and-stormy,” she said to the bartender.

“Camille, hi,” said a woman, coming up behind her.

Camille tried not to cringe visibly. She knew that voice, with its boarding-school accent and phony friendliness. “Hey, Courtney,” she said.

Drake Larson’s ex-wife wore a formfitting neoprene dress and a stiff smile. Years earlier, she’d been one of the come-heres, the kind that used to make Camille feel self-conscious. Camille was never as cool, as polished, as sophisticated as the kids from the city. One of the reasons she had worked so hard to excel at sports was to find a way to outshine the come-heres.

“I didn’t expect to see you out tonight,” Courtney said. “Vanessa told me your Julie had a terrible accident this morning.”

“She’s fine now,” Camille said, wishing she didn’t feel defensive.

“Well, that’s good to know. I can’t imagine leaving Vanessa after she suffered a head injury.”

“How do you know she hit her head?”

Courtney looked flustered. “That’s just what Vanessa heard. So, Julie’s all right, then, since you’re here drinking with some guy.” She eyed Billy, who was paying for the drinks.

“Julie is fine, and Vanessa is welcome to give her a call,” Camille said.

“I’ll pass that along,” Courtney said. “Vanessa’s busy tonight, though. She and her friends are by the gazebo, listening to the band. Maybe you could text Julie and tell her to join in.”

“Julie decided to stay home,” Camille said.

“You know,” Billy broke in, “just chilling out and being awesome.”

“I see. Well, I suppose she’s reached that awkward stage,” Courtney said, taking a dainty sip of her dirty martini.

Billy regarded her pointedly. “Some people never outgrow it.”

Courtney sniffed, either ignoring or missing the dig. “Kids. They change so quickly at this age, don’t they? Vanessa and Julie used to be such good friends, but lately they don’t seem to have much in common.”

“Is that so?” Billy asked.

“Vanessa is so busy with cheerleader tryouts. Is Julie going out for cheerleading, too?”

Julie would rather have a root canal, thought Camille.

“Julie doesn’t like being on the sidelines,” Billy said.

“She should try cheerleading,” Courtney said. “She has such a pretty face, and the practice is really good exercise. The drills are a great way to get in shape.”

Camille could feel Billy starting to bluster. She gave him a nudge. “Our drinks are ready.”

As they took their cocktails to the deck outside, Camille overheard Courtney boasting to someone else about Vanessa’s latest achievement. She knew she shouldn’t let the woman’s remarks get under her skin, but she couldn’t help it, especially when she looked across the way at the village green and saw a group of kids dancing and having fun. Perky blond Vanessa was the life of the party. Julie didn’t seem to belong anymore. And Camille had no idea how to fix it.

Four

Camille walked home, feeling slightly better after the village social time and two dark-and-stormies. Julie’s light was on upstairs, and Camille could see her through the window, staring at her computer screen, which seemed to be her main channel for socializing these days. Camille hoped the self-isolation was just a phase. She intended to restrict Julie’s screen time, but at the moment she didn’t feel up to a fight.

She let herself in and put down her things. The film was still in the sink along with the shot glasses. She tidied up, trying to shake off the residue of the day. So she’d lost a client. It happened, and now it was done, and the world had not come to an end.

Thanks for nothing. Finnemore was a jerk, she thought, blowing up at her like that. Sure, she’d let him down, but that was no reason for him to rip into her the way he had. Good-looking guys thought they could get away with being mean. She was mad at herself for being attracted to him, and for letting his temper tantrum bug her.

A car’s headlights swept across the front of the house, and crushed shells crackled under its tires. She glanced at the clock—nine P.M.—and went out onto the porch, snapping on the light. Her heart flipped over. Mr. Ponytail Professor was back.

“Did you forget something?” she asked when he got out of the car.

“My manners,” he said.

What the …? “Pardon me?”

“Do you drink wine?” he asked.

“Copiously. Why do you ask?”

He held out a bottle of rosé, the glass beaded with sweat. “A peace offering. It’s chilled.”

She checked the label—a Domaine de Terrebrune from Bandol. “That’s a really nice bottle.”

“I got it from a little wine shop in the village.”

She nodded. “Grand Crew. My father was one of their suppliers. He’s retired now.”

“He was in the wine business, then.”

“He owned an import and distributing firm up in Rehoboth. And why are we having this conversation?”

“I came back to apologize. I got halfway across the bridge and started feeling bad for yelling at you, so I turned around and came back.”

She caught herself staring at him like a smitten coed with a crush on her professor. She flushed, trying to shake off the gape-mouthed attraction. “Oh.” An awkward beat passed. “Would you like to come in?” She held open the door.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

In the kitchen, she grabbed some glasses and a corkscrew. What was he doing back here? “Actually, you did forget something—your sunglasses.” She handed them over.

“Oh, thanks.” He opened the wine and poured, and they brought their glasses to the living room and sat together on the sofa. He tilted his glass toward her. “So … apology accepted?”

She took a sip of the wine, savoring the cool, grapefruity flavor of it. “Apology accepted. But I still feel bad about your film.”

“I know. You made a mistake. I should have been more understanding.” He briefly touched her arm.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t such a jerk. She stared at her arm where he had touched it. Why was this stranger, whose one-of-a-kind film she’d ruined, taking care of her? Watching him, she tried to figure it out. “I’ve never screwed up a project like that,” she said.

“So what happened?”

“Everything was going fine until I got a phone call from the local hospital that my daughter had been brought in by ambulance. I dropped everything and ran out the door.”

“The girl I met earlier? Oh, man. Is she all right?”

“Yes. Yes, Julie’s fine. She’s upstairs now, online—her favorite place to be.”

“So what was the emergency?”

“She was in a surf rescue class—most kids around here take it in ninth grade. She hit her head and got caught in a riptide.” A fresh wave of panic engulfed Camille as she pictured what could have happened.

“Thank God she’s okay.”

Camille nodded, hugging her knees to her chest. “I was so scared. I held myself together until … well, until you showed up. Lucky you, getting here just in time for my meltdown.”

“You should have said something earlier. If I’d known you rushed off because you got a call about your kid, I wouldn’t have been such a tool.” He offered a half smile that made her heart skip a beat.

At least he acknowledged that he’d been a tool. “Well, thanks for that, Professor Finnemore.”

“Call me Finn.”

She took another sip of wine, eyeing him over the rim of her glass. “You look like a Finn.”

“But not a Malcolm?”

“That’s right. Malcolm is totally different.”

He grinned, flashing charm across the space between them. “How’s that?”

“Well, buttoned down. Academic. Bow tie and brown oxfords.”

He laughed aloud then. “You reduced me to a cliché, then.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Want to know how I pictured you?” Without waiting for an answer, he rested his elbow on the back of the sofa and turned toward her. “Long dark hair. Big dark eyes. Total knockout in a red striped shirt.” He chuckled at her expression. “I checked out your website.”

Oh. Her site featured a picture of her and Billy on the “about us” link. But a knockout? Had he really said knockout? He was probably disappointed now, because on this particular night, she didn’t look anything like the woman in that photo.

“You look just like your photo,” he said.

Wait. Was he coming on to her? No. No way. She should have looked at his website. Did history professors have websites?

She saw something flicker across his face, an expression she couldn’t read.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You can look me up on your phone. You know you want to.”

She flushed, but did exactly that, tapping his name on the screen. The information that populated the web page surprised her. “According to these search results, you’re a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former intelligence officer. You’re now a professor of history at Annapolis, renowned for tracing the provenance of lost soldiers and restoring the memories to their families. You’re an expert at analyzing old photos.”

“Then we have something in common. If you ever come across something mysterious in a picture, I can take a look.”

She couldn’t decide if his self-confidence was sexy or annoying. In the “personal” section of the page, it was noted that he had been married to “award-winning journalist Emily Cutler” for ten years, and was now divorced. She didn’t read that part aloud.

“I’m renowned? You don’t say.” He shifted closer to her and peered at the screen.

“I don’t. Wikipedia says. Is it accurate?”

“More or less.” He grinned. “I don’t know about the ‘renowned’ part. I’ve never done anything of renown. Maybe choosing this exceptional wine. Cheers.” He touched the rim of his glass to hers and took a sip. “So your father was in the business.”

“He’s an expert. Grew up in the south of France.”

“Then we have something else in common. I’ve been working in France. Teaching at Aix-Marseille University in Aix-en-Provence.”

“Papa was born in that area—a town called Bellerive. It’s in the Var—do you know it?”

“No, but I’ve driven along the river Var, and down to the coast. It’s fantastic, relatively unspoiled by tourists,” he said. “Vineyards, lavender, and sunshine. Do you visit often?”

“I’ve never been.”

“Seriously? You have to go. No one’s life is complete until they’ve gone to the south of France.”

She didn’t want to discuss the matter with him. “Then I’ll have to make sure I live for a very long time.”

“I’ll drink to that.” He surveyed the tall glass case across the room. “You collect cameras?”

“I do. I started taking pictures as soon as I figured out what a camera was, and then I found an old Hasselblad at a flea market that turned out to be a treasure. I taught myself photography with it. That got me interested in the old ones.”

Camille could not remember the first time she’d held a camera in her hands or the first time she’d peered through an eyepiece, but the passion she felt for taking pictures felt new every day. Her passion had died with Jace, and she hadn’t photographed anything since. “I figured out how to restore a camera mostly by trial and error. Lots of error. Lots of late nights bent over a magnifying work lamp, but I love it. Billy’s father worked in the film industry, developing daily rushes, and when we were kids, he showed us the old techniques and equipment to process expired film.”

“So are those pictures your work?” He indicated the two unusual, angular shots of the Bethany Point Light.

“One of them is. I found some old, undeveloped film in a camera, which is pretty much my favorite thing, coaxing images back to life. That shot was taken during a storm in 1924, and I found it so striking that I replicated it myself.” Then she blurted out, “I don’t take pictures anymore. I work in the darkroom on other people’s pictures.”

Her gaze flicked to the vintage Leica in its glass case by the fireplace mantel. It had sat there for five years. No one but Camille remembered the last time she’d used that camera—to take a picture of her husband, moments before he died. She had put the camera away and never touched it again. There was still film in the Leica, a partially exposed roll she had shot that day. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to develop it.

Several beats of silence passed. She didn’t know why she’d admitted that to this guy. Maybe because she missed it. She used to take pictures, wandering for hours on her travels, a favorite camera thumping against her sternum. She used to disappear into the act of capturing an image, exposing its secrets, freezing a moment. That was all in the past. These days she didn’t go anywhere. She’d photographed Bethany Bay so many times she was numb to its charms and beauty.

“From what I can tell, you’re really talented,” he said. “Why’d you stop taking pictures?”

“Busy with other things, I suppose.” She couldn’t decide how much to elaborate, because she didn’t really know what this was—a social call? An apology? “Mostly contract work in digitizing services.”

“So you work with Billy Church—he’s the guy who referred me to you?”

She wondered about the way he asked the question. Was he curious about whether or not she was available? No. Guys like him didn’t wonder about the status of women like her.

“We’re associates,” she said. “We grew up together here in Bethany Bay. There’s not a lot of money in doing this, so we both have day jobs. Billy is with the National Archives, and I’m the co-owner of a shop in town.”

“You have a shop?”

She nodded. “My mom started a boutique years ago, and we’re partners now.” She noticed that he hadn’t moved his arm from the back of the sofa. “I really wish I could have helped you today,” she added.

“It was a long shot.”

“I specialize in long shots.” She eyed him, wishing fervently that she really did look more like her website photo instead of a worried mom whose day had unraveled. “Did you have an idea of what might be on the film?” She assumed it was something related to his work as a history professor.

He was quiet for a few moments. She started to feel awkward again. Should she not have asked?

He took a swallow of wine. “The initials on the film roll?”

“RAF,” she said, recalling the writing on the yellow-and-black barrel. “Royal Air Force?”

“Richard Arthur Finnemore. My father.”

“Oh. Old family photos?” She winced. In her experience, the most poignant projects were the personal ones. People brought her their mysterious canisters of found film, desperate for one last glimpse of a departed loved one, or an almost forgotten time of life. Restoring those memories gave her a sense of mission, even though, when she showed the results to the client, it often led to tears.

Finn set down his wineglass. He pressed the tips of his fingers together. He had good hands, strong hands, not the sort of soft, manicured hands she pictured for a university professor. “We think it was the last roll he shot before he was listed as missing in action in Cambodia.”

She took a moment to digest this. “Missing … You mean he was fighting in the Vietnam War?”

“He wasn’t fighting, but he was there with a strategy and comm team when he was captured. An intelligence officer and communications specialist.”

“Didn’t the war end in 1973?”

“The Paris peace ended the conflict in Vietnam that year. The cease-fire did not apply to Cambodia and Laos, so the losses there didn’t stop. So my father … he never came back. And I never met him. My mom was pregnant with me when he left.”

She set down her glass and turned slightly to look at him, seeing a different man than the angry stranger who had come blustering into her life this afternoon. What a horrible irony for a soldier to reach the end of a war, only to go missing while the others went home.

Now she realized it was probably no coincidence that Finn’s specialty was finding lost soldiers. Yet he’d never found his own father. “It must have been a nightmare for your family. That’s so sad. Finn, I’m sorry. Even more so now that you’ve told me the provenance of the roll.” She tried to imagine what might have been on that film—the last images Richard Finnemore had shot. “Do you have any other undeveloped film? I mean, I’ve given you no reason to trust me, but if there’s something else, anything, I’d be happy to help.”

He shook his head. “That’s it. My oldest sister found it in a box of his things that’s been in storage for about forty years.”

“Please tell your sister—and all your family—how sorry I am.”

A text message appeared on his phone screen, and he glanced at it. “Speaking of family. That’s my mom telling me to get a haircut tomorrow.”

She wanted to tell him to keep the ponytail. It was wildly sexy. Instead, she asked, “What’s the occasion?”

“My father’s going to be awarded the Medal of Honor.”

“The Medal of Honor. Isn’t that—doesn’t it have to be awarded by the president?”

He nodded. “It’s a White House ceremony.”

“That’s amazing. Finn, what an honor for your family. And I hate myself all over again for letting you down. I wish I could say I’ll make it up to you, but those pictures are lost.”

He offered a fatalistic shrug. “When the ER calls about an emergency with your kid, you get to drop everything.” Then he placed his hands on his knees. “I should probably get going. Big day for my family coming up.”

She walked with him to his car, making sure he had his sunglasses. “Thanks again for the wine,” she said.

“I’ll call you,” he said, turning toward her when they reached the car.

“What?”

“You know. On the phone.”

“Why?”

“So we can make a plan.”

“A plan?” Camille was talking like a monosyllabic idiot.

“We could go to dinner or something. I’m around for a few more days …”

“You mean, like a date?”

“Not like a date. Just a date.”

Her heart flopped over in her chest. “Probably not a good idea.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“No, but—”

“Skittish, then?”

She smiled. “Right.”

“That’s okay. I’m a lot nicer than I was earlier today. I’ll call you.” He touched her arm. Not in a sexual way. Yet just that brief, casual touch ignited something in her that felt very sexual, taking her completely by surprise.

“Finn, don’t call me, okay? Don’t ask me on a date. I’m … I wouldn’t be good company.”

“How about you let me be the judge of that?”

“Don’t call,” she said again. “Sorry again about the film. Drive carefully.”

Five

Ever since Camille’s parents had divorced, she’d spent each Friday night having dinner with her father, unless he was away on business. What had started as a way to keep their relationship growing had turned into a cherished tradition—family time, even when they were just a family of two. Each Friday after school, she would go to her father’s house and they would make dinner.

She and her father spoke French together. Henry and Cherisse had agreed from the start that Camille should learn both languages, and she had grown up seamlessly bilingual. The rest of their weekends together were spent tending his extensive garden, going to the shore when the weather was fine, or touring the sights of Washington, D.C. Together, she and Henry had visited each one of the Smithsonians, the National Zoo, all the monuments and parks and fountains. He took her to Paris for two weeks every summer, and they stayed at a homey little pension on rue Bachaumont. During the week, Papa would meet with wine vendors, and Camille would explore the fascinating city with her host family.

After Julie came along, she had only added to the fun. She and her grandfather—she called him Papi, like a French kid—had a special bond. The two of them lit each other up, and always had. Thanks to Henry, Julie now spoke excellent French. He read her all the books Camille remembered reading as a child—Babar, Astérix, Le Petit Prince, Mon Petit Lapin—and they laughed themselves silly over the zany French movies he brought back from his travels. He was the father figure Julie had lost, and he reveled in the role.

There were two rules of Friday-night dinner, and the rules never varied. First, they had to speak French and listen to Papa’s music selections. And second, they had to cook together at home. No sending out for pizza or getting a corn dog at the Tastee-Freez.

The promise of summer lingered in the evening air when Camille and Julie arrived for their weekly visit. They found Henry in the garden, gathering greens for the salad. His straw hat and gardening clogs might have looked funny on anyone else, but on Camille’s father, they only made him seem more French.

“Ah,” he said, setting down his basket. “There you are, my lovelies.” He gave them each a hug and three kisses, one on each side and a third for good measure in the French way. “It’s such a fine evening, I thought we would have our aperitif on the patio. We can make socca on the grill.”

“Sounds perfect.” Camille set down her bag, grateful to have reached the end of a trying week. Socca was comfort food—a simple flatbread made of chickpea flour baked on a grill with caramelized onions and finished with flaky salt.

“I bet you’re the only guy in town who owns a socca pan,” Julie said in French, taking down the flat copper pan that hung near the outdoor grill.

He set it over the flame. “And you are the only young lady in town who knows what socca is. I learned to make it by watching the street vendors in Nice when I was about your age. I need a few snips of rosemary.”

Julie went to the flourishing bed of herbs to find it.

“What can I do?” Camille asked.

“Take the salad greens inside and give them a wash. And bring the wine when you come. There’s a bottle of Apollinaris for Julie.”

She picked up the basket and headed inside. The kitchen smelled amazing—something simmering in wine. Her father had bought the historic colonial house the year he’d married her mother. Bearing a historical plaque, it was a classic of architecture peculiar to the shore, once known as a “big house, little house, colonnade, and kitchen.” The original dwelling had begun life centuries before as a simple home—the little house. As the family and fortune grew, the colonnade and kitchen were added, and finally the big house, a two-story structure with three lovely bedrooms upstairs. There was a porch set on an east–west axis to catch breezes from the shore.

Together, Henry and Cherisse had restored the place, staying faithful to the traditional style. But after Camille came along, the family didn’t grow, and most of the rooms in the house sat empty. In the wake of the divorce, Camille had spent most of her childhood with her mom, stepdad, and two half sisters, setting aside Fridays for Papa.

Her mother had declared that she had enough of drafty rooms, creaky floors, and the like, and she and Bart moved to a modern townhome near the beach. It had been an unusual childhood for Camille, shuttling between Mom and Papa, but she’d always felt loved and supported. When her half sisters came along, she never felt like the odd one out. It was her normal. And it was a good normal, right up until she had lost Jace. After that, finding normal was impossible.

So she did what was possible. She took care of Julie, spent time with friends and family, worked at the shop, and rescued other people’s pictures. It wasn’t the life she’d once envisioned for herself, but it was the only one that made sense to her.

She placed the greens in the sink and turned on the water. The plumbing shuddered and groaned. A house this age was a constant repair project. More than once, she’d asked him why he needed such a big place.

“It’s too much house for me,” he readily agreed, “but I do love old things.”

Camille did, too, and she was glad he’d kept it. Sometimes, though, she worried that the upkeep was getting to be too much for him. She didn’t like to think of him all alone in his historic, too-large house, tending his garden and cooking beautiful meals for friends. Though he was retired, Henry often poured samples at the Grand Crew Tasting Room on busy summer evenings. People loved him, with his quick, expert way of pouring and his in-depth knowledge of wine.

Camille liked knowing he got out every once in a while, especially now that his cancer had gone into remission. Still, she worried about what would happen to him when he grew too old to manage the big house.

When she was young, she expected her father to meet a woman and bring her home. She used to envision what it would be like to have a stepmother, which caused her some apprehension. As she grew older, she wanted him to find someone, the way her mom had found Bart, wearing her new happiness like a glistening mantle.

Henry was good-looking even now, at seventy-two. He was stylish and interesting … and so very French. He was also a master gardener and an excellent French country cook. He was creative and sure of himself, and totally resourceful. Sometimes when they worked in the kitchen side by side, he would give her a wink and say, “I would make someone a wonderful wife, eh?”

Every few years, she would ask him the same question. “Papa, why have you never remarried?”

After Jace died, her father had asked her the same question. “Why have you never remarried?”

That shut her down entirely. After that conversation, she never asked her father again why he went through life alone. Because now she understood. After Jace was gone, everyone had expected her to move on, including Camille herself. It hadn’t happened. Five years later, there didn’t seem to be room in her heart for anything but grief. It was the one constant in her life, and she knew there was a part of her—admittedly irrational—that didn’t want to let go of her grief, because that would mean losing him completely. Holding on to sadness kept him from fading away forever. She knew—on an intellectual level—that this was not the healthiest way to grieve. She’d gone to months of therapy to arrive at that realization. Yet knowing this hadn’t helped her move on. She had never remarried because she’d come to believe that no love was worth the pain of loss.

After emerging from the fog of shock and grief, she had put together a life for herself and her daughter that made sense—most of the time. Except for those moments when she felt so lonely that her heart felt like a bottomless well.

Her dating life was mostly ridiculous. Her relationships had been short—mercifully short—until Drake Larson. She’d stuck with him for six months before admitting defeat.

People said she was attractive. She had her father’s dark hair and eyes, and her mother’s dramatic cheekbones and full lips. But when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see a beautiful woman. She saw a woman who worried constantly, who lived inside a sadness she couldn’t manage to climb out of, and who regretted how daring and incautious she had once been, long ago.

Perhaps in matters of the heart, she took after her father. Perhaps she was only meant to have one shot at marriage.

She spun the greens in the colander, at the same time trying to shake off a wave of melancholy and the residue of a rotten week—Julie’s accident, and ruining Professor Finnemore’s film. Then she found the wine and sparkling water, and brought a tray outside.

“The garden looks wonderful this year,” she said, surveying the oblong patch on the south side of the house.

“I put in two more rows of tomatoes this week,” he said, pointing out the staked plants on the end. “Brandywine and Belgian Giant. One can never have enough homegrown tomatoes, eh?”

“Exactly. Yours are the best, Papa.”

“Come, let’s sit,” he said, gesturing at a small café table on the brickwork patio. The socca was done, crunchy around the edges and fragrant with the onions and herbs. He poured a chilled rosé wine from Provence, the traditional pairing with socca, and sparkling water for Julie.

“Santé,” they said together, lifting their glasses.

“Any day aboveground is a good day,” her father declared.

“I’ve never been fond of that one,” Camille said. “So grim.”

“After my year in hell,” he told them, “it has never been truer. Now that the treatment is done, I am determined to live my life.”

His diagnosis had been a devastating blow. The ensuing chemo and radiation had been grueling, but the goal had been attained—the cancer was in remission. A year ago, when he was in the throes of his illness and treatment, Camille had wanted to move in with Julie to help him through the ordeal, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He valued his privacy and independence too much.

He insisted that they keep their regular Friday schedule. Often, during that terrible time, Camille and Julie prepared a croque monsieur or an omelet with pesto and spinach while Henry lay shivering under a woolen blanket. For Julie’s sake, Camille tried not to show how sick with worry or how terrified she was of losing her father. They got through it with stubborn determination, and the help of a caregiver named Lamont Jeffries. Lamont had stayed with Henry while he was ill. He’d proven to be invaluable, keeping the household and garden running, looking after Henry, and taking care of all the painful indignities of cancer treatment. He still came around every week to visit and to do a bit of housekeeping and gardening.

Henry went to shut down the grill, moving with cautious deliberation, a leftover from his disease and treatment. Before the illness, he’d been gloriously youthful—as slender and fit as a man ten years younger, his abundant hair peppered with a distinguished sprinkling of white. After the chemo, his hair had grown back a dramatic snow white. He was still as handsome as ever, though he was no longer the spry, robust man she remembered. There was something fragile about him.

“How are you feeling?” Camille asked.

“I’m well,” he said with a satisfied smile. “I feel well. Have you ever studied the term ‘in remission’? In French, it is the same. It means an abatement of symptoms, but also, forgiveness.”

“That’s good, Papi. I’m glad you feel good again,” Julie said.

“I always feel best when I am with you, choupette,” he told her, putting their glasses on the tray. “You are the most beautiful part of my week.”

Julie offered the special smile she seemed to reserve just for him.

“What a fantastic evening,” he said. “Julie, I miss seeing your friends. Where have they been lately? You used to bring a friend or two over.”

She stared at the ground, scuffing her foot at the brickwork. “Busy, I guess.”

“You must tell them to come around more often now that the summer weather is here.”

Her shoulders hunched up slightly. “Sure.”

“Madeline’s ducklings will hatch next week,” he said, gesturing at the wire enclosure in a corner of the yard. “Bring your friends around to see the babies.”

“All right. Maybe. Let’s go inside to dinner.” She picked up the tray, and they went to the kitchen together.

“I’m pretty sure that incredible smell is bouillabaisse,” Camille said.

“You are correct. The seafood from the local docks was excellent this week.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Every time I sit down with my two lovely ladies is a special occasion.”

Julie plunked herself down on the sofa and took out her phone.

“What do you look at, so fixated on that small screen?” he asked.

Julie shrugged without looking up. “There’s a whole world in here. That’s why it’s called the World Wide Web.”

“The world is out there,” he said, gesturing at the view out the window. “I am an old man, but I do know the difference.”

“I’ve known that world all my life and I’m bored with it.”

“Put the phone away,” said Camille. “Screens off during mealtime.”

“I know. I know.”

Camille, too, wondered what Julie studied with such absorption in that small rectangle of light. There were new apps and games all the time, and her daughter was a known techno-wizard. No wonder real life seemed boring. In the screen world, all a person had to do was watch. Participation was optional—the screen created a shield or barrier. You could observe things at a safe distance. If your world inhabited a tiny screen, you didn’t have to be scared or out of control. You didn’t have to deal with the real world around you.

“How can we help?” she asked her father.

“You can toss the salad and lay the table. I will show Julie how to make the rouille.” The two of them made a spicy mayonnaise of olive oil, garlic, saffron, and cayenne pepper, spreading it on slices of grilled bread to float in the fish stew. Then he ladled the fragrant broth and fish onto soup plates, topping them with the bread slices.

Camille sighed with pleasure over the dinner of casual elegance. The broth was made of fresh tomatoes and olive oil, fennel, and onions, bright with saffron. “Papa, you’re the best. This is delicious.”

“The secret is to wash the fish in seawater,” he told them. “When I first came to America, I worked at a restaurant in Cape May, and every Friday night, my job was to wash the fish. It was a good restaurant, but the wine list was pathetic.”

“Is that when you decided to become a wine importer?” Julie asked.

“Yes, but it took some time. I was very young and quite ignorant. But I studied my craft and worked very hard, and founded my little enterprise.”

“Did you grow up liking wine?” she asked. “Because I can’t make myself like it.”

“Ah. You will, eventually. You’re the granddaughter of a Frenchman. You have no choice.”

She grinned. “Got it.”

They finished off the meal with the salad. Henry pressed the palms of his hands to the table and pushed back. “Tonight, I’m glad it’s just the three of us here,” he said. “There is something to discuss.”

Camille’s stomach clenched. Was there a dire note in his tone of voice? Was his latest checkup not a good one? “Is everything all right?”

“Yes. Stop worrying. You worry far too much. I have something to show you,” he said. “I had a special delivery today.”

He led the way to the front room, with its fireplace and grand bay window projecting out over the laurel hedge. It was decorated in a spare, chic style that somehow worked with the architecture of the rustic old house. Over the mantel was a painting Camille had always admired, depicting a region in the south of France called the Calanques—the towering, rocky inlets along the coast of the deep blue Mediterranean. The painter had managed to capture the deep, golden quality of light Camille had always associated with Provence, even though she’d never been there. What had Finn said? No one’s life is complete until they’ve gone to the south of France. Camille had to admit that loneliness did make her life feel incomplete, but going to Provence wasn’t the answer.

In the middle of the room was a large cardboard shipping crate plastered with customs forms.

“What’s this?” she asked her father.

“It arrived late this afternoon from France. Madame Olivier had it shipped to me.”

“Wait. What?” Camille was confused. “Who is Madame Olivier, and why is she sending you something?”

“She lives at Sauveterre—my family home in Bellerive. It’s an ancient house, and a section of the roof caved in. While clearing the attic for the renovation, she came across a trunk full of my mother’s old belongings, and she thought I might like to have it.”

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