“Must be nice,” I said. My voice was stony, nearly icy, but my insides were molten. He came back. He was here. As discreetly as I could, I checked his left hand—ring still in place. At least today he was dressed appropriately. He wore stone-white shorts and a navy gingham shirt, crisp and expensive-looking, turned back at the cuffs. A new watch, a Breitling. He had a tan, a fresh haircut; he had lost twenty pounds. He looked great; there was very little trace of the sweet, bumbling man I had known. I was even more drawn to this sleeker, more confident version.

“What time are you off?” he asked. He nodded down the beach. “I got our room.”

Our room, 718. I had avoided going anywhere near the hotel rooms since he left.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

Why not. I thought about telling him that my mother had read my diary and was threatening to call Irene, but I didn’t want him to know how much control my mother had over me. I thought he’d be angry that I’d written about our relationship and been stupid enough to leave the diary in a place where Mama could find it. I thought he’d think poorly of my mother for blackmailing me—and I couldn’t bear that. Mama was looking out for me.

“You’re married,” I said. “To Irene. You have children already. I’m not going to disrespect that. You can’t ask me to. It’s not fair.”

“Rosie…” he said.

“It happened,” I said. “But it can’t continue.”

He nodded at my midsection. “Except it is continuing. You’re having my baby.”

I nearly surrendered to him right then and there. My baby. Here he was, willing to claim the child so that I wasn’t alone in all of this. And in the months since he’d left I had felt very, very alone. Mama and Huck would help me. I would live with them and bank the money that Todd Croft had given me to get me through the first year.

“I have to get back to work,” I said. I left Russ and put in an order for conch fritters.

He stayed until service ended. His mere presence at the bar—he was watching the Braves-Phillies game—made my pulse quicken and my breathing get shallow and I feared this reaction would affect the baby so I tried to stop and rest, drink plenty of ice water, and get to the ladies’ room often to splash my face.

Finally, I was finished. It was time for me to leave. I walked over to him.

“I’m going home,” I said. “It was nice to see you again.”

“Please, Rosie,” he said. “Just come to the room.”