“Some of it, at least,” said Gabe.

Claudia had to be in Martha’s Vineyard, thought Edie. This horrible thing had happened to her and she’d run. I would have run, too.

“I’m gonna call the house,” Edie said. “Maybe she’ll pick up.”

But the phone in Edgartown just rang and rang, and the family decided that the best plan was to go to the Vineyard tomorrow and get Claudia. Whatever she’d done, they’d deal with it.

Edie guided Lydia onto her breast and the girl, possibly sensing that another frustration might actually destroy her mother, latched on easily. Edie touched her black hair and looked at the tiny white dots across her face. The pediatrician said they were normal, that they’d be gone in a couple of weeks. What else would be different in a couple of weeks? Lydia finished her meal and gave a popping burp when Edie patted her back. Nathan found a notepad in the kitchen and they started making a list of all the things they needed to bring with them to the Vineyard. The pump, the bottles, the nipples, the nursing pillow, the diapers, the wipes, the Aquaphor, the onesies, the swaddles, the little first aid kit with the thermometer and the medicine spoon and the fingernail clippers and the nose bulb. They needed bags for the milk she pumped and pads for inside her nursing top. They needed so much all of a sudden. If she wasn’t so weighed down, could she have prevented this? If Edie hadn’t had the baby, would Claudia have come to her instead of running away?

Dave Wilcox called back the next morning as they headed to the airport. Gabe put the call on speaker.

“I’m at the house with the police,” said Dave. “There’s no sign of Claudia. But a young man appears to have spent the night. He says Claudia told him he could stay.”

TREVOR

The plan, before he fucked it up, had been for them to take separate busses on separate days to Claudia’s family home on Martha’s Vineyard and wait there together. Until it blows over, she’d said. It sounded reasonable at the time. But as the days passed since she’d told him to fuck off, Trevor realized that nothing that had happened was going to blow over. And none of it was reasonable. He went through the motions of class and eating but the more time that went by, the more worried he became. She hadn’t explicitly said that she wanted him with her for protection, but it made sense: Everyone in her life was unavailable, untrustworthy, or both. She’d leaned on him and he’d let her down. He’d thought he’d known better than her. And now she was alone on an island—if she’d even made it there.