Rose felt better every day since her last surgery, except for one thing. She missed her mother. She didn't think there were any four words in the world worse than “I miss my mother.” Although she didn't say them out loud very often, because she didn't want to upset Dr. Neill, the words were inside her, more with every breath, and embroidered on her heart.

The beautiful summer days just seemed sad and strange, here in the salty old beach house by Narragansett Bay. Dr. Neill had appointed her official whale watcher, and when they weren't out in the boat with Dr. Stanley, Rose spent a lot of time by the wide window, the brass telescope trained on the water's surface.

She'd seen fish jumping, their backs silver and blue, some of them marked with dark stripes, their tails and fins delicate as hammered metal. She'd watched seagulls flying overhead with crabs hanging out of their yellow bills. And Rose had even seen a sea turtle paddling by.

But no whales at all. No Nanny.

“Can I see her picture again?” Rose asked, going over to stand by Dr. Neill at his desk. He had lots of books and papers spread out. There were pictures of blue, tiger, mako, basking, Greenland, great white sharks; marine mammals, including humpbacks, minkes, blue, fin, sperm, and beluga whales, Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, harbor and harp seals. The documents reassured Rose because they reminded her of his office in Cape Hawk. He pushed some of them aside so she could lean closer to see Nanny's picture on his laptop screen.

“There she is,” Dr. Neill said.

“Who took the picture again?”

“Patrick Murphy.”

“The man who came to Nova Scotia to tell Mommy her grandmother was sick?”

“Yes.”

“He took Nanny's picture in Hubbard's Point, in front of Mom's grandmother's house?”

“Yes.”

Rose raised her eyebrows and wiggled them. Didn't Dr. Neill know how ridiculous it seemed? She and he were in this house where they didn't really know anyone, and the person they loved most, Rose's mother, was in Hubbard's Point. Even Nanny was there. He sat at his computer, entering information about all the different species they had seen out at the reef.

“Dr. Neill,” she said.

“You know, Rose,” he said, “I've been thinking. You should call me Liam. Don't you think?”

She shook her head. He had tried telling her this before. But she didn't want to. It didn't suit the way she felt about him. “Liam” was a name for her mother to call him. It was a grown-up name. Rose wouldn't feel right calling him that. Besides . . . she swallowed, thinking about the name she wanted to use for him. It made her blush to think about, and she felt the blood making her face hot.

“No?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said stubbornly. “Dr. Neill's fine. So, Dr. Neill, why don't we go there?”