Louisa’s heart dropped. This was not the way this was supposed to go.

“Marissa, please—” Louisa’s mom took a step toward them, but Marissa’s glare stopped her in her tracks.

“Did you know about this?”

“She didn’t know anything,” Louisa’s dad said. “Nobody did, except Daniel. I asked him to keep it from all of you. I was so ashamed.”

“So your secret died with him, and you let it,” Marissa snapped, obvious disgust on her face. She looked at Cody. “Let’s go.”

Cody stood still for several seconds, as if being held in place by a magnetic force. Louisa knew that once he left, that would be it—they would be over.

She looked at the fallout of her father’s confession. If they’d been broken before, they were shattered now. And Louisa could dream all she wanted to—but even she couldn’t put the pieces back together.

Maggie Fisher was buried on a Wednesday.

All of Nantucket came out to pay their respects, yet somehow Louisa had never felt more alone in her entire life.

CHAPTER FORTY

THE WEEK AFTER MAGGIE DIED, Louisa finally went to the old woman’s house. She assumed it was up to her to get the thing cleaned out and put on the market, though part of her wished she could keep the old cottage for herself. She could take up collecting the cottages of the people she loved.

The view of the water was unmatched, and she still felt Maggie inside these walls.

She hauled boxes down the stairs and tried not to think about Cody. Marissa and Marley had left the island the evening of the funeral, something Louisa only knew because she overheard someone sending them off at the funeral luncheon. Her own parents would also leave in just a few days, and while that was a blessing, without Maggie there, how would Louisa keep from feeling truly, utterly, and horribly alone?

The island itself used to feel like a friend, but with Cody still here and the wide divide between them, even it felt like a traitor.

That afternoon, Maggie’s lawyer, Henry Holbrook, would come by to read the will. As far as she knew, she would be the only person in attendance for the reading, but Louisa thought that was fitting. Until this summer, it had been her and Maggie for a long time. Sure, her own parents popped in and out every summer for a few weeks, sometimes a month or two, but their presence hadn’t left an indelible mark on either of them.

Until now.