“Sometimes,” he said, “a strange question can lead to clarity in other areas. What was your answer?”

“That she was living a wonderful life on a South Seas island. That she was happy, really happy. She’d never come home because she’d somehow lost her memory on her way back after her balloon ride with Mattie. I could actually see her drinking from coconuts and walking on sandy beaches, unaware she even had a daughter.”

“It’s a nice dream,” Zeke said.

Dani felt the warm afternoon breeze. “It’s a compromise between death and abandonment. I get everything-a mother who’s alive and happy, who didn’t leave me behind on purpose.”

“What did the detective say?”

“‘Far-fetched, kid,’” she repeated, imitating his Brooklyn accent. “‘Better get used to the idea that your mother’s dead.’”

Zeke looked thoughtful, neither condemning nor endorsing that advice. “That isn’t easy, either.”

“Is your mother…”

“They’re all dead. My mother, my father, my brother.” He kicked a small, loose pebble off the boulder. “We might as well head back.”

But Dani didn’t move.

Zeke’s eyes were completely lost in the flickering shade as the wind picked up. He stood very still, very close to her. She could sense the tension in him. And the resolve. He was just as determined and stubborn as she was, only his manner was calmer.

“There’s more,” he said, not making it a question.

Dani could feel the ache of fatigue, and she had to force herself not to change her mind. Finally she said, “Zeke, your brother was here after my mother’s disappearance. Four years later.”

He was silent a moment. “You’re sure-”

“I’ve thought about it ever since I realized who he was, and yes, I’m sure. Everything was blowing up over my father’s embezzling, and Mattie grabbed me one day and headed up here.”

“What month?”

“August. I remember racing season had started.”

“How do you know it was Joe?”

“I recognized his picture in the book. Not at first-it took a while. But it was the same person.”

“Where did you see him?” Zeke asked, his tone businesslike.

“Right here on this rock. I used to love taking off in the woods on my own, and I’d come out here and sit and swing my legs over the edge. That was before I took up rock climbing. That day I found a man standing out here.”

“Joe,” Zeke said.

She nodded, feeling the wind on her back. Clouds were billowing up, and the humidity had increased, making her shirt cling.

“Did the two of you talk?”

“I think I told him who I was. I was a little nervous about meeting a stranger in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t say much that I can recall, just that he’d heard about me and was glad to have met me. That wasn’t all that unusual a comment in those days, with the publicity about my mother and grandparents and Pop getting nailed to the wall for his light fingers.”

She paused, but Zeke said nothing. She had no idea what he was thinking. A mosquito was on his dark hair. She brushed it away, feeling awkward and nervous, even cruel. He couldn’t have a favorite dream about his brother drinking from coconuts on a South Seas island. Joe Cutler was dead. The whole world knew it.

“We talked about the cliffs and the view,” she went on. “He didn’t say why he was here. That much I can remember, because I’d wondered. He left before I did. On my way back to the cottage, I saw him at the pavilion, just sitting among the weeds. I didn’t call or wave to him-I didn’t want him to see me, try to follow me home, something like that.”

“Do you know if he saw Mattie while he was here?”

Dani shook her head. “I don’t know. Not that she’d have told me if he had. Did you know he’d come back to Saratoga?”

“No.”

The humidity was bringing out the mosquitoes. They were buzzing all around now, but Zeke ignored them. Dani tried to, but she was tired and confused, and everything seemed to irritate her.

“Zeke, it’s your turn,” she finally said.

He turned away from the edge of the boulder, his back to her.

She didn’t relent. “Why would Quint Skinner be here?”

He was walking away from her, up the steep incline.

“Zeke-”

Looking back at her, he said quietly, “I don’t know.”

She watched him climb up to the hemlock but didn’t hear him as he vanished into the woods, leaving her standing alone in the wind.

Sixteen

Mattie sat in the window seat on the train, Nick dozing beside her. The peaceful, scenic ride along the Hudson River had always brought her comfort. Looking at her former husband, she ached for him, for he did indeed look every second of his ninety years. The physical signs of age didn’t sadden her-the thinning white hair, the protruding veins, the brown spots, the wrinkles and sags-as much as the knowledge that he wasn’t always going to be around. Likely enough, the bold, charming man who’d captivated her on the Cumberland River more than sixty years ago would die before she did.

And she wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready.

He stirred. “What’re you staring at?” he asked, sounding cranky.

“You. How long has it been since I told you I love you?”

“Decades.”

She smiled. “Well, I do, you know. I always have.”

“Fine way of showing it.” But he patted her hand. “I’m cold as a fish. Circulation stinks.” He sighed and settled into his seat, hardly moving. He seemed utterly spent after his long-and so far insufficiently explained-cross-country flight. “Don’t you wish we had the sense fifty years ago that we have now?”

“What makes you think we have any more sense now? Nick, you haven’t changed. If you had the energy, you’d still be chasing women.”

“No.” His watery eyes fastened on her, as searching and intense as they’d been when she’d stood with her valise on the riverbank so long ago, aching for him to take her with him. “I’d know I had the only woman I ever wanted, and fidelity wasn’t too great a price to pay for her.”

Mattie was touched. Nick had never been particularly sentimental. “Oh, Nick, we’ve had a life together the only way we could. We were never meant to live all this time together under the same roof. It never would have worked. If you hadn’t been anyone but who you are, I doubt I’d have kept you a part of my life all this time. And, you know, it wasn’t all you.”

“You don’t say.”

But Mattie was serious. “If you hadn’t gambled and chased women, I’d have picked something else to gripe about, because I was meant to live on my own the way I have. I went from my father’s house to yours…it was important to me to have a house of my own.”

Nick nodded, but she wasn’t sure, in his exhaustion, he’d absorbed all she’d said. “Have you been happy?”

“For the most part, yes. Very much. I’ve come to rather enjoy being a screen legend of sorts. It would be ungrateful of me to complain.”

She held his hand; it was, indeed, awfully cold. She remembered well how warm he’d been in bed. They’d made love since their divorce. Even since his affair with her sister. Not often, but they’d accepted long ago that whatever bond existed between them-however else anyone might define or judge it-it was one that suited them, and would endure.

“And you, Nick?” she asked. “Have you been happy?”

He averted his gaze. “I’ve had some grand times-no question of it. But at what cost? Mattie, Mattie.” He coughed, looking pale and beyond tired. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I have so many regrets. Too many.”

“Nick, don’t.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve done some memorable films. I don’t deny that’s important and satisfying. I’ve given some good times to people who needed a break from reality. But when it’s all done, Mattie, when you’re an old man and the Great Beyond is beckoning, what’s any of that matter? I was-am-a poor father to my only son. My only grandchild doesn’t trust me, with good reason.”