Harry opened his eyes, giving up on the possibility of sleep. He could not bear to think of his father any longer and thought instead of college, the immersive reality of his last four years, and how it had suddenly ended. A surreal emotion came over him, the way you sometimes feel when you return from two weeks abroad, and the trip immediately seems like a mirage, as though it barely happened. That was how he felt now, thinking back on four years of college. Those years, his small group of friends, Kim Petersen, the professors he’d bonded with, were scattered now, permanently, like an ornate vase that shatters into a thousand pieces. His father was gone as well, leaving him with no family but Alice, and cousins he loved but with whom he had very little in common.

He stood by his bed, not knowing what to do next. Alice was vacuuming; he could hear the familiar hum from somewhere in the immense house.

His phone rang. Paul Roman, his best friend from college. He’d call him back; the last thing he wanted to do right now was talk. Instead, he walked to the window, cracked it slightly to let in some air. He looked out over the tops of the bright green trees. The steeple of the congregational church was visible, as was the shingled roof of the Village Inn and, in the distance, a snippet of the Atlantic Ocean, grey beneath a hazy sky. A young woman with dark hair held back in a headband walked slowly up the street. Harry watched as she noticeably slowed while passing the Victorian, glancing up at the windows. He instinctually stepped back into the bedroom. In the small, gossipy village of Kennewick, word must have gotten out.

His phone rang again. It was Gisela, another friend from college. Clearly, word had also gotten out among his friends at school. His father’s death had actually happened. He held the phone, knowing that he needed to call one of his friends back, but unable to get his fingers to move. The sounds of the vacuum were closer now. He sat down on the hardwood floor and leaned against the wall, rocking back and forth, still not crying.

Chapter 2

Then

Alice Moss was fourteen when she moved to Kennewick, Maine.

Her mother, Edith Moss, having finally received her check from the Saltonstall Mill settlement, took herself and her daughter from a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Biddeford to a single-family house in Kennewick Village. Her mother told Alice that now that they had money, and a house to call their own in a nice town, Alice would have to start acting like a little lady. Alice was just happy to be near the ocean. She claimed she had never seen it before even though Biddeford, less than twenty miles north of Kennewick, also bordered the shore.