“What are you doing after this?” he whispered.

“I’m free,” she said. “I’m free as a yellow-crowned night heron.” She pressed her body close to his and moved one hand up until it was covering the back of his neck. Her hands were small, but somehow she seemed to be holding his entire body with just the one.

Chapter 24

JOY

FOR THE NEXT three and a half weeks Joy had one of the best summers of her life, and this was including the summer she was sixteen and dating Tad Formosa, which was the same summer her best friend Krista’s grandmother allowed the use of her unoccupied house near Craigville Beach in Centerville.

Was it because of the sex? Maybe. Yes, definitely it was partly because of the sex! She wasn’t going to lie about that. But there were many more things too.

They hiked Clay Head Trail again; this time they did spot a yellow-crowned night heron. (“Endangered!” said Joy proudly. She felt like she’d given birth to the heron herself.) They biked up Corn Neck Road and then walked out to North Lighthouse at sunset. They kissed leaning against Settlers’ Rock and Joy thought her stomach might drop right out of her body. Joy had always wanted to kiss someone at sunset leaning against Settlers’ Rock.

Maggie taught Anthony how to clam. All the island kids knew how to clam, and Anthony was exactly the right amount of impressed. For all of his professed non-experience with dogs, Anthony was a top-notch dog walker, and Pickles had taken to him like a border collie to a Frisbee. Anthony fixed a hinge that had been loose in Joy’s kitchen cabinet for months. Joy knew how to do that, but somehow she never got around to it.

Anthony didn’t talk much about his life before coming to the island, or of his plans for after he left. Joy didn’t press him. She understood that island life was transient and that you were allowed to leave part of yourself behind and forget all about it once you approached the breakwater. Hadn’t she done the same thing, all those years ago?

One day, when Anthony had gone to sleep at his own cottage because Maggie and Riley were sleeping at Joy’s, she woke up in the morning, forgetting he wasn’t there, and reached for him. She felt a little surge of panic when she found his side of the bed empty. Uh-oh, she thought, frowning at the panic. You, Joy Sousa, are getting attached.

She got behind on keeping the books at the store. When she finally took an afternoon to catch up, she was startled to see how much lower this summer’s sales were than last summer’s. She’d felt busy. She felt busy all the time! Thank goodness for Bridezilla’s wedding. Even so, she was going to have to put the money she’d started to put away for Maggie’s college toward the rent increase. She was going to have to ask Dustin to chip in to replace the college savings.