There was a moment of silence in the audience.

Tully held her breath. Go along with me.

Then applause.

It was all Tully could do not to laugh. She glanced over at Johnny, who was standing in the shadows by Camera 1, giving her a boyish grin and a thumbs-up.

This would help her, fill her up. She would genuinely help this family and America would love her for it.

She stepped back to introduce her guests and from that moment on, the show moved forward like a runaway train. Everyone in the room climbed aboard and loved the ride; they clapped, they moaned, they cheered, they cried. Like an expert ringmaster, Tully controlled it all. She was in the zone; no doubt about it. This was as good as she’d ever been on TV.

Winter came all at once that November, settling over the island in a gray and rainy pall. Naked trees shivered in the cold, clung to their blackened, dying leaves as if to let go would mean defeat. Fog rose from the Sound, morning after morning, obscuring the view and changing ordinary noises into muffled, faraway echoes. Ferries honked as they came in and out of port, the sound a mournful dirge in the haze.

It should have provided the perfect setting in which to write a gothic thriller. At least that was what Kate told herself when she began, secretly, to write again.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as she remembered.

She reread what she’d just written, then sighed and hit the delete key, watching the letters blink out of existence one by one until she was left once more with a blank blue screen. She tried to come up with a better way to say it, but only more clichés came to her. The tiny white cursor mocked her, waited.

Finally, she pushed away from her desk and stood up. She was too tired to imagine worlds and people and dramatic events right now. It was time to make dinner anyway.

Lately it seemed that she was always exhausted, and yet, when she went to bed she rarely slept well.

She flicked off the light in Johnny’s office, closed up her laptop, and went downstairs.

Johnny looked up from The New York Times. “eBay suck you in again?”

She laughed. “Of course. Were the boys good?”

He leaned forward, tousled their hair. “As long as I sing along with poor unfortunate souls, they’re happy as clams.”

She couldn’t help smiling at that. Little Mermaid was this week’s favorite movie. That meant they watched it every day if they could.

The front door banged open and Marah was home, looking excited. “You’ll never guess what happened to me today.”

Johnny put down his paper. “What?”

“Christopher, Jenny, Josh, and I are going to the Tacoma Dome to see Nine Inch Nails. Can you believe it? Josh asked me.”