“Resilient, flexible. I try. But Hannah is . . . dramatic. Colorful. A glory-seeker. In the news. I couldn’t compete.” His voice caught, and he waited till he’d got hold again. “So sobering that I’ll never see them again.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Of course I do. How would I find them? With the world closing down like it is? Once upon a time, you could go anywhere you wanted, whenever you wanted. Not anymore.”

I cupped my palms on his knees. “It’s all my fault. You’d have worked it out with Hannah if I wasn’t in the way.”

“No, no, and no. I don’t think that, and you shouldn’t either. This goes back further than you can imagine. But it’s so fucked up that it has to be this way!”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. Unless you can find a middle ground between yes and no options. Too late now, anyway.” He flopped back on the bed, arms splayed like a dead man. “You’ve lost your best friend. I’ve lost what’s left of my family. Orphans of the storm.”

I crawled up beside him and laid my head on his chest.

He curled his arms slowly across my back. “Wait a minute. Are you actually here, next to me, on my bed?”

I nodded.

“Then hold me. Hold me, girl. For the rest of whatever.”

“Yes.” I burrowed into his side and pressed my face to his neck. I could feel his smile. Animal comfort, nothing more. Soon we were both fast asleep.

Later, we woke, with the last of the daylight filtering through the blinds, and found ourselves studying each other with a kind of rapt wonder. Which went on for a long time. Which finally made us laugh.

“Hello, my new life,” Daniel murmured. “So worth waiting for.”

At long last—for me, at least—it felt safe and right, even necessary, to shuck our few clothes and make love until we fell asleep again.

THIRTY-SIX

I dreamed I was on Haiku, far out at sea, with no idea how I’d got there. Loosed from our mooring, alone and adrift on the slow, steep swells of the deep ocean.

I bolted upright in darkness. Had to get topside, raise a sail, steer for land . . .

But taking in the unfamiliar width of the berth, my unusual nakedness, the even breathing of the man asleep beside me, I recalled where I was.

I considered how I felt about that, surprised by the intensity of my desire, while Melville continued to rise and fall just as Haiku had, that same deep-sea rhythm of my dream. But that wasn’t right. Except in rough weather, our sheltered Lagoon never got more than a tall wake.

Had Melville slipped her moorings?