Outside, twilight lingered in the trees. Crickets shirred on the lawn. Claartija stood and went around the table lighting candles. They all noticed her. Not just Ana but Pars too and Diana Olmstead and Douglas, and they looked at each other across the table and seemed to share the same thought: that she belonged to all of them somehow. Douglas stood and helped her with the candles. Kevin brought in the coulibiac on a tray. Claartija made room for it on the table, the puff pastry steaming and golden in the candlelight.

They ate. They talked. The candles flickered and swayed. Everyone tasted the roast—except Diana Olmstead, of course, who was a vegetarian. The meat was perfectly prepared. Kevin had no appetite himself; rarely did he after a day in the kitchen. But people were sopping up juices from their plates with bits of bread. Douglas was lost in conversation with Ana. Pars was telling Diana Olmstead the word for popcorn in Persian was “elephant farts.” Kevin looked up and caught Claartija’s eye across the table, and she winked at him, then turned and whispered something into her boyfriend’s ear. He seemed to Kevin a decent boy—quiet, attentive, his red hair always falling into his eyes. He played bass guitar in clubs off the island, and Claartija traveled sometimes as far as Halifax to watch his indie rock band. She was five years older than he, and he followed her around the inn like a puppy. Who could have predicted that Bunty Phillips’s youngest son would wear a silver stud in one ear and spend summer nights with a Dutch girl who lived with Kevin and Douglas at Trachis Inn? It would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. When Kevin ran into Bunty in town now, they exchanged pleasantries but avoided the topic—though both of them knew exactly what was going on.

Later, after the salad, and the cheese and the roasted nuts, after the ice wine from Pictou, and the Mont Blanc, the candles guttered in their globes. The tablecloth lay strewn with bits of bread and wine corks and almond shells. Sheila cleared the dishes, and Claartija rose to help, but Douglas made her sit. Outside, night had fallen; and in the dining room, they could hear the surf through the closed doors. Claartija and her boyfriend wandered out to the terrace. Diana Olmstead rose and stretched. A minute later, Claartija came running into the room.

You’ve got to see the moon! she exclaimed, then turned back outside.

Ana looked at Pars. They both rose with their wineglasses. Everyone else drifted out to the lawn. The night was clear and a full moon was just lifting out of the ocean, orange and luminous, dripping a liquid gold leaf into the sea.

It’s a harvest moon, Ana commented to no one in particular.

Why is it so large? Claartija asked.