“That’s the strangest part. You know how open she is about just everything. But not this. She says she’s saving the story for you, and she might never tell anyone else. I’m all cat with my curiosity, but if she never tells me, that’s okay. It’s enough to see her so happy.”

David carried his glass of wine across the dining area and living room, through the open door to the deck overlooking the public promenade that encircled Balboa Island.

The sea itself was swimming, each of the millions of ripples on its surface like a small fish schooling, withdrawing from the harbor as if to follow the sun westward. As the tide slowly went out, the dock pilings appeared taller as more of their length became exposed, and the belayed boats, big and little, rode low beyond the island seawall, beyond the sand that the receding tide had revealed.

Wearing a sapphire-blue kimono with a pattern of white storks in flight, Calista sat at the table, a glass of wine before her.

Although David moved quietly, she heard him and somehow knew that he was not Josefa. She turned her head and favored him with a warm smile, her blind eyes full of refracted sunlight. “Twice in one week. I love it when you’re living on this coast, dear. I wish there wasn’t a New York City.”

He bent to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m thinking of looking for a larger place and staying here all year.”

Until he spoke, he didn’t realize that he had been drifting toward such a major decision, but it was true. Either Maddison would explain herself to him, as she had promised when she’d ask for his patience, or he would learn the truth of her on his own. In spite of all the strangeness associated with her, he believed in her, in the rightness of her, and he yearned for—ached for—a domestic life with her at his side and perhaps one day children. No mystery in this world was so complicated or so dark that love could not solve it; and because he felt that he knew her heart, he believed no sin she had committed could be so great that love could not pay penance for it. He was not an author of misanthropic fiction. Although he was no Pollyanna, he had considerable faith in people, in humanity’s capacity for good and in its future. He had been foolish ten years earlier and, by his foolishness, had lost a shining future of his own. He would not lose this one. He would cling to Maddison through whatever might come, believe in her, be faithful to her through all challenges and revelations.