One morning while Maeve was resting and Liam and Rose were out in the boat, Lily took her coffee into the garden, to read on the iron bench. The weather was changing; the end of summer was near. A cool fog hung over the Point, softening the contours of rocks and rosebushes. The bell buoy tolled in the channel, and foghorns mourned in the distance.

“Hello, Mara.”

Just like that, she thought, her hair standing on end: nine years away from him, and he just walked in as if he owned the place. Edward came out of the fog and stood before her. She glanced around for his car.

“I parked down at the beach and walked up,” he said.

She stared at him without speaking. She was shaking, and she didn't want him to see. Nine years, and this was the first time they were completely alone together. He was stocky as ever, heavier than he used to be. There was gray in his brown hair. Only his eyes were the same. Bright hazel-gold, piercing in the fog.

“Why are you here?” she asked calmly. “We've asked you to leave us alone.”

“‘Us'?” he asked. “The only ‘us' is you and me, Mara. You're my wife.”

“You had the marriage annulled,” she said, “and me declared dead.”

“You wanted that, didn't you?” he asked, anger already starting to leak out, like steam. “Do you know what you put me through? Police grilling me as if I were a criminal. I was treated like a dog, taken in for questioning, hounded by the press.”

Lily gazed beyond him, to the cottage. She didn't want to look at his eyes. His tone was quiet, but his eyes were burning with rage.

“You don't know what it was like, staring into camera after camera, knowing that the whole world wondered whether I had killed you, chopped up your body, and thrown it into the Sound.”

Lily held back the shiver so he couldn't see. He sounded as if he had given the grisly scenario some careful thought. Chopped up your body. The words reverberated.

“The only reason you were upset about my disappearing,” she said, “is that it made you look bad. Your feelings had nothing to do with me, or the baby. You didn't want the baby, Edward. You barely spoke to me the whole time I was pregnant, except to tell me how unhappy you were about our lives changing.”

“You did make me look bad!” he said, as if she hadn't even mentioned the baby. But Lily stayed focused.

“You'd bump into me, hard, every chance you got. You spilled things on me. When I passed you, you tripped me. How many times did I fall when I was pregnant?”

“I can't help that you fell.”

“You were too much of a coward to come out and hit me. But you made sure I felt your force. You beat me in every way but with your fists.”