“Are you hiding?” she asks. The boy looks up at her. He nods slowly.

Before this summer Maggie hadn’t known anything about little boys. Now, after so much time with Chase and Sebastian, they are familiar to her: their little-boy smells, their quirks, their morning bedhead. She’s pretty sure she could tell this boy a fart joke that would land. She crouches down. “What are you hiding from?” she asks.

He shakes his head, not bending.

“Wait, let me guess. You’re hiding from a giant green monster with furry teeth. From a purple shark that can walk on land. From a super-evil puppy?” The last one brings a tentative giggle. He shakes his head. “No?” says Maggie. “I’m not on the right track? Hmmm.” She cups her chin in her hand and acts like she’s thinking.

That’s when the boy blurts out, “From Mommy!”

“From Mommy!” Maggie pretends to be very shocked. “Well, my goodness, what did Mommy do to deserve being hidden from?”

“She made Daddy mad.”

It occurs to Maggie that she has no way to let the blond woman know her son is safe. She should have taken her cell phone number—but, since she didn’t, she will wait with Max until she returns. She figures they should come out from behind the steps and sit on the porch of the hotel, where they will be in plain sight of Max’s mother.

“Are you all done hiding now, Max? Are you ready to come out?”

He nods somberly.

“Why don’t we sit over here,” Maggie says. “And wait for Mommy. She went to look for you. But she’ll come back!”

They were sheltered from the wind when they were behind the steps, but once they emerge they can feel how much it is picking up. Maggie glances at the sky—it has taken on a yellowish tinge—and shivers. She’s seen the skies over Block Island a lot of different ways, but never yellow.

She settles Max on the top of the short set of steps leading to the sandal store and sits beside him. She knows from Chase and Sebastian that it’s best to keep talking. “You don’t live here, do you?” she asks. “Because I know everyone on this island and I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You must be a very important visitor. Are you a very important visitor, Max?”

He looks uncertain. “We’re visiting Daddy. I think he lives here now.” He sighs, world-weary. “But I don’t know.”

“What are the names of your parents?” Maybe she can call the police station and submit a report; that way, if the mother calls the police, they’ll have Maggie’s phone number.

“Mommy is named Cassie. And Daddy’s name is Anthony.”

“Ohhh!” says Maggie. Could it be? She has known, of course, that Anthony has a son he never told her mother about, and that the not-telling was the cause of the breakup. Grown-ups are both confusing and exhausting. “Is there any chance,” she says, “that your last name is Puckett, Max?”