She carried the coffee she’d made in his fancy machine out the back door into the yard. The morning was sunny and the sky clear. The clean air brought back memories of precious mornings at Camp David, the sight of her sisters chasing one another around the stone pool deck at the Aspen Lodge, her parents setting off on a hike, just the two of them. Here an old oak sheltered a splintered picnic table, and a metal stake waited for a game of horseshoes. She curled her fingers around the coffee mug and breathed in the crisp lake air.

The house sat on a bluff with a long flight of rickety wooden steps leading down to an old boathouse and dock, both of them weathered a soft, sea gray. She couldn’t see any other docks jutting from the rocky, tree-lined shore or any neighboring rooftops peeking through the canopy. The Remington house seemed to be the only one on Goose Cove.

The water in the cove was a painter’s palette of colors, dark blue at the center, a grayer blue toward the edges, with streaks of tan marking the shoreline and the top of a sandbar. As the cove emptied into Lake Michigan, the morning sun flung silver spangles over the rippling surface.

A pair of sailboats reminded her uncomfortably of her grandfather, who loved to sail. She knew she couldn’t postpone it any longer. She set aside her coffee mug, reached for her cell, and finally called him.

Even before she heard the patrician voice of James Litchfield, she knew exactly what the former vice president of the United States would say. “Lucille, I do not approve of what you’re doing. I don’t approve at all.”

“That’s a surprise.”

“You know I detest sarcasm.”

She tugged on the orange dread dangling near her ear. “Has it been awful?”

“It hasn’t been pleasant, but Mat seems to have the press under control.” His tone grew even colder. “And I suppose you’re calling me because you want me to somehow aid and abet.”

“I’ll bet you would if I asked you to.” Her eyes stung.

“You are so much like your mother.”

He didn’t say it as if it were a compliment, but she thanked him anyway. And then, before he could light into her, she pointed out what they both knew. “Running away made Nealy a better person. I’m sure it’ll do the same for me.”

“You’re sure of no such thing,” he snapped. “You simply don’t know what to do next, and you don’t want to face the consequences of your actions.”

“That, too.” She said to him what she hadn’t been able to say to her parents. “I dumped the perfect man, and I’m not even sure why.”