“The OWP is looking for you. You can’t just disappear—they bailed you out of jail. God, because of me you had to go to jail again. Eliza is looking for you.”

“I wish you were looking for me. I’ve been camping out on Oystertip—”

“You’ll get arrested again. Go home.”

“No, I won’t. I can’t go home.”

“Are you staying in that cold, empty house?”

“No, I’m camping out in the woods. Directly underneath a magnificent osprey nest. And every minute I want you there.”

“If you love me—if you really love me—you’ll leave right now and let me find my own way out . . . of this lost place. I can’t find it with you. . . .”

He reached into his pocket for the necklace: his last hope. “I brought this back to you.”

He held it out to her, his hand uncurled, open.

She stood, backed into the far wall, tripped. “No.” She grabbed on to the hall table.

“It’s yours.”

She walked toward the front door, opened it. “You have to leave. I can’t . . .”

He trudged to the front door, his feet heavy with the burden of leaving. “It’s under there. Under all this pain is what you know and feel for us.”

She didn’t answer, but held the door open.

“Say something,” he said.

“Goodbye, Nick. I’m sorry for all this . . . I am. I’m sorry I brought us to this place. I’m sorry you went back to jail. I’m sorry we lost the island. I’m sorry I was not stronger, wiser.”

He held out his hand one more time, the pendant dangling between his fingers. “Please take this.”

“I can’t. I can’t.”

He released the chain and it slithered to the hall floor. “I’ll be waiting for you. I always have been and I will now.”

She shut the door; the locks clicked against the door, against his heart.

“What are you doing? What is all . . . this?

Amy sat on top of Jack’s old jeans, shirts and unmatched socks, her head buried in her knees. She hadn’t moved from the foyer floor since Nick had left. She placed her chin on top of her knees and looked up at Phil.

“Amy, are you okay? What are you doing?” He gestured toward the piles. “What is all this?”

She stared at him.

“Get up.”

She stood and faced him. There was so much she needed to say to him—so many words of apology and remorse that she didn’t know where to begin. It seemed there were years of words stored below the unheard ones—the silence of being ignored—and she just didn’t know what to tell him first, everything she’d ever wanted to say jumbled together in a screaming crowd.