All Annie could think was: more than a century old. So it wasn’t Derek. Smiling a big smile, she slumped against the backrest. There were others she should call first: John, of course. And Kevin. Earl. Taylor. But instead of them, Annie scanned her phone numbers and dialed Jonas.

“It’s not your father,” she said when he answered. “The skull. It isn’t him.”

He was as silent as Larry had been when Annie said she wasn’t interested in hearing his mea culpa about Mark. Then Jonas said, “So I still won’t know what happened to him.”

“No one will probably ever know for sure, Jonas. Maybe it’s time to trust your mother. Try to focus on the letters you have. The ones between your mother and your father. Believe in them. Because I do. I think your mother was a young girl caught in a terrible trap. I think they were very much in love and that they really did plan to elope to Hawaii. And raise you as their own.”

With every word she spoke, Annie was thinking—and wondering—about Donna.

Jonas said nothing, so she added, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out that way, Jonas. For all of you. But you do have lots of people here who care about you. Good people. People who believe in you and want to help. Instead of shipping me the paintings, won’t you please come home? This is your home now. Chappaquiddick.”

If they’d been in the same room, Annie thought she might have heard his heartbeat. Then he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt my mom.”

Annie laughed. “We always hurt the ones we love. Never mind, those were lyrics from an old song that you’ve probably never heard. Come home, Jonas. Your mother loves you. And so do we.” The last line had popped out unexpectedly, but she realized it was how she felt about a lonely young man, with a solitary life, reeling from having been abandoned—again—that time by his girlfriend, seeking an answer where there simply was none.

But the best response was yet to come when Jonas simply said, “Okay.”

In less than thirty minutes, Annie had gone from tired-but-happy to depressed to angry to peaceful. Her next call was to Taylor, because she deserved to know. Then she would call Kevin, because she was relieved for him, too.

* * *

John came to Chappy straight from the boat. Annie was asleep. “I wanted to return your text in person,” he whispered as he crawled into bed beside her. “In case you were wondering, I love you. Very much.”

* * *