Her voice broke on the last few words, and she turned her head from David to gaze out at the harbor as though she could see the prows of three small sailboats cleaving the water as they raced up the channel.

He gave her a long moment to recover and then said, “But her name was Maddison.”

“Yes. And when I first recognized the voice, I thought it was only coincidence, a remarkable soundalike. However, the longer we talked, the more I became convinced that something extraordinary was happening. Her attitudes on so many things were the same as Emily’s. Her sense of humor, that quick wit, the way she would reach out and touch my hand and tap it three times with one finger. She used to do that, the three taps, and with each tap she’d say a word. ‘I. Love. You.’”

“Did she say that this time?”

“No. It was just now and then the reaching out and the tapping while we talked.”

He wondered how Maddison could have known to do such a thing. Unless Maddison was Emily. “Fascinating. But do ghosts talk?”

Calista found her wineglass but didn’t raise it from the table. “If they exist, why couldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a ghostologist or whatever. I guess so.”

“A lot of islanders, neighbors, passed us and called out to me, but none of them spoke to her or mentioned her.”

“What—you think they couldn’t see her?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. But that’s not all, David. That’s by no means all. I became quite bold. I asked if I could feel her face to know what she looked like.”

He could not fathom Maddison’s intentions for this visit. Unless she was Emily.

“David, she looked like Emily.”

He said, “Felt. Felt like Emily. It’s not the same.”

“Before . . . before we lost her, I felt my daughter’s face countless times. My fingertips learned her face as surely as I learned Braille.”

“But why would she call herself Maddison if she was really Emily?” He hoped Calista would have the answer that eluded him.

“Maybe she thought she would shock me too much, scare me, if she started out right away telling me who she was, what she was. In fact, I’m sure I’d have been angry with her, called her a charlatan, and asked her to leave. She needed to . . . to bring me along slowly to the truth. She was Emily, David. Somehow, she was.”

David didn’t know what to say, though for reasons different from those that Calista no doubt imagined.

After waiting for a cacophony of seagulls to wheel through the sky, Calista said, “You do think I’m losing it, early dementia.”