I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask Stuart about his romantic history. I realize that I’ve always merely assumed that I knew him inside out. Of course, I don’t.

“What happened to his ex-wife?”

“I don’t know.”

Could it be her behind the threatening cards? Perhaps it wasn’t her choice to split up from him, perhaps, deep down she realized that she still loved or missed him and hoped they’d reunite until I was on the scene.

My tea has gone cold. I feel numb, like nothing will ever be normal anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to go home and play happy families. How can I not know the man I’ve known for so long, my...husband.

I pay the bill and we leave, walking toward the open area of the village where the ponies roam freely.

“I’m not surprised that Camilla won’t tell you,” Deborah says, “it was hard enough for Nina to divulge the details. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”

“Fair enough. Thank you.”

The anticipation of finding out what happened to Charlie, to really discover the horrible truth, fills me with both fear and relief. When Deborah starts speaking, I almost want to stop her, find some kind of way of hearing but not hearing, like peeking at a horror film through fingers partially covering my eyes.

“Nina said that they decided to take the boat out. It was her idea. She said she was showing off to Camilla, it was her boyfriend’s connections that gave them access to a boat, her newly acquired skill.”

Sounds about right, I think.

“But once they set off, she wasn’t as confident as she thought. It’s one thing doing it when you have an experienced person alongside you on board, obviously quite another when you’re wholly responsible. She said that as soon as she realized that, she should’ve turned back. But she got distracted.”

Deborah pauses and glances at me as if she’s still unsure whether or not to trust me. I don’t blame her, to be fair.

“I want to know,” I say. “But I understand this is hard for you.”

“It was Camilla and Charlie who distracted her. They were all over each other. Guilt hit her hard. She’d let you walk off by yourself, no doubt thinking that you’d made a fuss over nothing, had overreacted.

“They anchored, I think the word she used was, at Stuart’s favorite spot because their original plan was to watch the sunset, but Nina was frightened when reality dawned that it would soon be dark and she wasn’t even sure where the lights were or how to turn them on or which one was for what situation. She obviously didn’t want to get pulled over by the coast guard or the police. Or worse, cause an accident.”

I remember when I first passed my driving test, how it felt totally unbelievable that I was legally allowed out on the roads on my own. How the first time I hit fog unexpectedly on a tiny, country lane, I couldn’t recall where the fog light was. I remember the panic that someone was going to smash into the back of my car and tensing my whole body, already braced for impact.