“I’m so happy for you and your mom.”

“So am I. I’m happy for all of us.”

“Owen?” Sarah said.

He raised his head to look at her.

“Come here, son.” She held out her arms to him, and he rose to hug her. “I can’t believe this.”

Owen didn’t think he’d ever heard her sound so euphoric. She hadn’t had much reason for euphoria during her dreadful marriage. As he held his mother, he locked eyes with his father, who watched them with a look of such abject hatred that Owen’s blood went cold. “Let’s get out of here, Mom. It’s time to go home.”

They were back on the island by sunset. While Laura took a shower, Owen brought Holden down to his favorite spot on the porch and chose a rocking chair that was separated from a livelier group at the other end of the porch. As he rocked the baby, he continued to process what had happened. His father had pleaded guilty. He’d been forced to take responsibility for the nightmare he’d inflicted upon his wife and children.

Owen would never see him again. Of that he was certain. They wouldn’t attend the sentencing hearing because neither he nor his mother felt the need to be there when Mark learned his fate. He was going to prison. That was all that mattered to them.

Holden snuggled in closer to Owen, his sweet breath warm against Owen’s neck. He and Laura could never believe how much heat that little body generated when he was sleeping. Owen rubbed Holden’s back as they rocked, and a feeling of peace and contentment unlike anything he’d ever experienced came over him as he looked out over the town he now called home while holding the baby he loved more than life itself.

His emotions were raw and close to the surface tonight, threatening to spill over at any second. He’d managed to hold it together during the flight home during which everyone had been in high spirits—no one more so than Sarah. Owen had never seen his mother so happy.

“There you are,” his grandmother said when she came onto the porch. She and her husband had hitched a ride home to Gansett with them and planned to stay until the wedding.

“Hey,” Owen said. “Sorry. Were you looking for me?”

“All over the place.”

“If I’m not upstairs with Laura, you can usually find me and my little buddy right here.”

“You always loved this porch,” Adele said as she took the chair next to his.

“What’s not to love?”

“Indeed. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it until we arrived earlier. And what you and Laura have done with the place! The pictures simply didn’t do it justice.”