No sign of Morgan. Emilia swallowed her disappointment as she climbed into her skiff and rowed out to the sailboat. It’s okay, she reminded herself. She was staying here. Morgan would turn up eventually, and today she had something else she needed to do.

A brisk wind pushed her out of the cove and into the harbor. Sailboats dotted the horizon. She couldn’t have asked for better weather, and she grinned as the boat keeled. Spindrift drenched her as she made her way into deeper water. Pulling more tightly on the jib sheet, she increased the angle of the keel until the boat flew over the swells. Leaving Nell behind had definitely been the right choice; the dog would have hated this. Emilia, however, laughed as spray slapped her in the face. Off to port, a pod of porpoises swam parallel, racing with her across the sunlit sea.

She sailed until her body ached and her hands were raw from the wet lines. Evening brought a lull to the wind. In the calm, she reached into her bag and took out the small metal canister that held her father’s ashes. She had a larger urn with the rest of her things back in Boston. This was what she’d brought for this moment.

“Dad,” she said to the horizon. The next words wouldn’t come. He knew she missed him. He, better than anyone, knew about regret and missed opportunities and poor choices. She opened the urn just as the wind ruffled the surface of the water.

Ash flew out over the Atlantic to mingle with the waves.

“One day at a time,” she said.

Nothing about his death had changed. He was still gone, and the hole he’d left behind remained as large as ever, but she might be able to grow around it with enough time until the balance tipped in the other direction.

•   •   •

“Morgan?”

Three weeks and two days after she’d left Emilia standing in a doorway—not that she was counting—Morgan heard a familiar voice call her name from farther down the grocery store aisle. She groaned. Of fucking course.

“Hi,” she said to Kate. She’d clearly come from a showing, judging by the skirt and blouse she wore although Morgan noted she’d changed into the pair of sandals she always kept in her car so that she could ditch her heels. Remembering that detail would have sent her reeling two months ago. Now it just made her tired.

“Jesus, you look awful. Are you okay?” Kate set her shopping basket down and took a few steps closer, pausing at a respectful distance as she peered into Morgan’s face.

Morgan knew what she saw. Deep circles under bloodshot eyes. The clenched set of her jaw. Sleep, like Emilia, no longer shared Morgan’s bed.

“And you look great. I thought you didn’t shop here anymore.” Too blunt. Too rude. She didn’t care.