“Oh, no. That’s only mostly all there is.”

Alice laughed. “Then by all means, show me the rest.”

• • •

The rest turned out to be the Serenity Point lighthouse, just across the bay on the western bluff. (Tommy had actually taken Alice once before. Had tried to, anyway. They’d driven to the lighthouse, parked in front of the lighthouse, but never quite made it out of the car and inside the lighthouse.) The lighthouse, Tommy informed her, was one of the oldest in the country, built out of wood in 1777, rebuilt out of stone in 1812 after a fire—a suspected, though never proven, case of arson—had destroyed the original. The spot was a lovely one, so private and unspoiled it must’ve looked much as it had a hundred years ago, Alice thought, no, two hundred years ago, when it was constructed for the second time.

“So you like it?” Tommy asked, after they climbed to the top of the lighthouse tower, climbed back down, explored the old keeper’s house next door.

“I love it.”

He looked hard at her face, like he was trying to gauge the truthfulness of her statement. “Really?”

“Really,” she said gently, reaching for his hand, squeezing it. “It’s the best thing I’ve seen in Serenity Point. Looking at it makes me feel lonesome but in a way I like, the same way I get when I’m standing in front of an Edward Hopper painting.”

His voice happy, “You should paint it.”

“Somebody should.”

“Why not you? I thought you loved to paint.”

“Well, I brought my sketch pad and pencils from home. They’re sitting on my desk in my room at Richard’s. And I know I brought my acrylics, too. But I can’t find the box I packed them in. They must’ve gotten lost in the move. I’ll just have to get another set, I suppose. It’s just, I hate to spend money on something that still might turn up. Richard didn’t want Charlie or I to get jobs this summer, which means I’d have to ask him for the cash. Oh well”—shaking her head at herself, smiling—“it’ll teach me not to be so casual about labeling.”

“Just the paints?”

“Unfortunately, no. Brushes, canvases, easel, palette. All of it, pretty much. Everything was packed in the same box, you know?”

He nodded. “Sure. Well, that explains why I’ve never seen you paint.”