Ann smiled. She’d always hated it when he called her that, only now it sounded sweet. She began haltingly, nervous. “It’s about Noah. Dad, there are things I should have told you.”

“I know,” he said. “I knew you’d tell me in your own time. It’s OK. Speak your truth.”

“Michael isn’t Noah’s dad,” she said.

He didn’t say anything, although she could see relief wash over him, the same relief she’d felt saying those words out loud. Soon, the rest of the details of that sordid summer came out like a blast of water from a fire hose: Anthony, the pond. When she finished he didn’t speak for a long time, and she was grateful. The moonlight lit a streak in the cove like a searchlight.

Finally, he said, “I always knew something was off.” Her father was thoughtful, concerned, sad. He wrapped an arm over her shoulder. “I wish you’d told me. I don’t know why you didn’t.”

“It was a lot. And I didn’t know what you’d do to Anthony, or what he’d do to you, or what he’d do to me, and you’d taken in Michael because I asked you, and—it’s so stupid. I mean, I tell you all this now and I could have handled it better, but at the time I was doing what I thought I had to do. The story was out. It was easier to just go with it, I guess.”

Her father looked out at the tufts of beach grass sticking out of the small islands in the water. “I understand, I do.”

“I felt so … responsible.”

“No more blaming yourself. I know this isn’t your way, but you need to learn to lean into people.” He wiped a tear from his eye.

“That’s what I’m doing now. It’s just taken me about sixteen years.” Ann laughed, and so did her father. She loved his gravelly laugh.

“And now we have Noah.” Her father smiled at the thought of him. “That kid, he’s exactly right.”

A baby red fox rustled in the bushes along the bluff. The stars twinkled the way they always had. It was so nice here, so peaceful. Why had Ann felt she needed to run from the bad memories when the good ones were here, too? They walked a long time without speaking, their feet crunching along the path. They could have walked all night, walked all the way up to Provincetown. “We need to find Michael,” he said.

Ann stopped in her tracks. “No!”

“But he—I just don’t get it. It’s not like him. Any of this.”