I risk a look at Ellen. Her profile is fine-cut, like a face on a coin. Even in repose she has a questing, outward look. She’s waiting for me to speak, of course, because if ever a statement required confirmation or denial, it was hers.

“I discovered . . .” I drag my eyes from her and look away at the hill. “I discovered that Upton has always been too close to Alver Shore.”

“So.” She releases my arm with a gentle pat. “Well, I can’t argue with geography.” She moves away from me, grasps the top rail of the fence, and climbs over. I watch her stride over the grass in the direction of the sheep and Penny. After a moment she stops, turns around, and comes back to face me. “Actually, James, I’m not entirely sure you’ve got the right.”

“The right to what?”

“To give up on us all, with no warning or explanation.” She folds her arms, expecting me to respond to this challenge.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I say weakly.

“You made a promise to us, didn’t you? To the people of Upton? To serve us?”

“Yes, but that promise was false. It was contingent on my having faith, and I—”

“Faith.” Her face tells me what she thinks of that. “Let me tell you about Daniel Corey, Harvey’s son.”

“The boy who made your thimble holder.”

“Yes. He died in Italy, in August 1944, fighting on the Gothic Line. A hard, bloody battlefront as I’m sure you know, killing thousands and thousands.”

“Ellen, I’m so sorry . . .”

“John Blunden, Dan’s friend, was with him all through the war. When John came home, he told Dan’s sister it should have been him, John, instead, and he packed up and left for Southampton. He couldn’t bring himself to stay here, bumping into the Coreys every day. So we don’t see John anymore. William Kennet nearly fell off his feet when I told him the news. All he could say was, ‘Not Daniel, not Daniel.’ ”

“Poor William . . .”

“Dan got married in 1939,” she continues, holding up her hand. “A week before Selwyn and me. Marcy, his widow, has never looked at another man. His mother, old Mrs. Corey, she’s made of some sort of granite, I think, she struggles on. Another old lady still fighting the war. As for Harvey, Dan’s father, he’s broken. He’s never got over it and neither, for that matter, has Lucy. Dan was her oldest friend. He was a good friend to me as well during my hardest times. So even now, thirty years later, when I look at Dan’s picture and think of all this waste and damage, I get quite breathless with anger.”

Her tone is gentle, conversational. It makes her words all the more devastating.