I hit a sandbar, the skiff wedging firmly into place, and jumped out. My shoes filled with seawater. Plenty of starlight to see by, and a shim of moon.

His house was the highest on the hill. Well after midnight, it still radiated gold and warmth into the island dark. I leaned against a tree trunk, watching.

Max was restless. He never stayed in a room longer than half an hour. Often he paced, or played musical chairs with himself, as if, like me, he couldn’t stay long in one position before the pain grew unbearable.

But tonight I watched, and watched, and saw nothing. All the lights were on, hurricane lamps on the porch, candles in a bedroom. Not once did his silhouette cross them.

A disturbing thought entered my head.

If he was lying in a warm bath with his veins open or swaying from a garage rafter, I’d be the only person in the world who’d know.

I hiked uphill.

The house was hedged with bushes, grass grown wild. I waded through a sea of spines and thorns. Garage door open, nothing inside but boxes, the remains of eighteen birthdays and Christmases. Max spent hours touching the dumbbells, the electric guitar, things coated with dust and the oil of his son’s skin. I knew that ritual. I kept a duffel bag full of Elle’s old T-shirts, heady with camphor from vaping. I could close my eyes and inhale and feel the warmth of her body again, a breath away from mine.

He wasn’t anywhere on the first floor. Open rooms paneled with white wood, empty save for candle-thrown shadows. I tried the rear door. Unlocked.

I froze at the crack of a branch.

The yard swam with dark but a shape moved against it, a deeper darkness.

“Looking for me?”

He walked into the corona of light. Still scruffy, thinner now than when we first met, tanned. Frayed tee, salt-bleached jeans. Something glinted at his side.

I waited, motionless, as he came up the steps.

“Max,” I said tensely.

We both looked at his hand. At the gun that hung there, as if forgotten.

“Oh.”

He checked the safety and tucked it into his jeans. I exhaled. Max patted my good arm.

“You look beat. Want a beer?”

“God, yes.”

I waited on the porch, sprawling in an Adirondack chair frosted with mold. At my feet rusted garden tools lay abandoned. Weeds crept through the wood slats. This place was a graveyard.

Max brought two bottles of Shipyard and took the chair beside mine. We clinked and drank.

“Thanks for not shooting me,” I said.

He rolled his shoulders. “Sorry about that.”

“Didn’t know you were into guns.”

“It’s for home defense.” He took a long sip, staring out into the trees. “The police just returned it. They had it in an evidence locker.”

I swirled my bottle, frowning.

“I went out to shoot, but couldn’t bring myself to fire. It’s the last thing he touched.”

We glanced at each other. The name drifted between us, unspoken.

Ryan.

All this time I’d spent avoiding Ellis, I’d been growing close to Max Vandermeer.

He didn’t work anymore. He lived on savings, passed time tinkering with his yacht or pacing the house, wearing the wood floors velvety. I caught hints of his old life. Blueprints for boats. Samples of fiberglass and metal. Shipbuilding engineer. He’d made enough money to own a mansion on a summer tourist island. Once there was a woman in the house, and I’d rowed away without a word. I never saw her there again. The Ex-Girlfriend.

My psychiatrist had wanted me to process my losses, to heal. I didn’t want to process anything. I’d kept my eyes closed and my wounds open and dumped my shrink. Max was my therapist now, and I was his.

He told me about the islands: how Peaks, where he lived, used to have theaters and hotels lining the gaslit boardwalk, until one by one the buildings burned down. In World War II it became a military bunker, with a huge gun battery built to shoot down enemy ships. But the guns were never fired and then they were taken apart, and in the decades since, the island had edged back toward wildness.

Like you, I thought, studying him. His beard was all gold and bronze brambles, his skin sun-chapped, rough. Sometimes when I looked at him I remembered a man bringing birthday presents when I was little. A dash of blond hair, an elusive, slinky laugh. A silhouette in the door, always leaving.

I wondered if Max still glanced up when a shadow fell across the floor and thought, before he remembered, Ryan.

“Ever feel like he’s still here?” I said.

“Every day.”

I flexed my bad hand. My phantom hand, I thought sometimes. There but not really. Like Elle was still here, but not really. Not part of me anymore.

“Do you talk to him?” I balanced the beer on my knee. Rowing wrecked my dexterity for the day. “Sometimes I talk to her. Out loud, like a crazy person.”

“That’s not crazy.”

“It is when I answer for her.”

He eyed me, concerned. “Something happen?”

“She’s back. She got a job where I work.” I kicked a foot against the railing. “It’s like a dream and a nightmare both come true. Every night I’ve prayed for this, and when it happens the first thing I feel is resentment. Anger, honestly. There’s something wrong with me.”

“It’s not wrong. You can miss someone without missing the way they hurt you.”

“Did Ryan hurt you?”

He took another sip.

“What did he do, Max?”

“Signed up for the Marines. Despite all my pleading and begging. You’d never know it from the trophies, but he hated playing ball. Could’ve had his pick of minor league teams. He threw it away to get shot at in the desert.”

“Why?”

“Destructive impulse.” Max was watching me now. “Sometimes people set themselves up to be hurt by a situation, instead of hurting themselves directly. To absolve the blame.”

I peered into my bottle. “If he really wanted to be a marine, you should’ve supported him. Even if you didn’t believe it was for the best.”

“I couldn’t support my son throwing his life away.”

“You sound like my mom.”

“Then your mom loves you.”

I put the bottle down, hard. “Part of loving someone is wanting them to be happy, even if it hurts you.”

“You’re right. You’re right, of course. I suppose that means I was a bad father.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He drained his beer.

“Max, I didn’t say you were a bad father.”

Now his eyes held a too-bright luster. Shit.

He stood and so did I.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

He flung the screen door open. And I did something I’d never had the balls to do.

Followed him in.

“Wait. Max.”

He strode through the house and I chased and when he stopped suddenly in a dark hall, we collided. His arms locked around me. My back touched the wall.

“Wait,” I said again, in a different tone.

Warm breath on my face, beery. He was much stronger than he looked and I smelled the sea on him, salt water and sun-wrought sweat. I’d hugged him before but it was always brief and reserved. Not like this. I breathed fast, my chest touching his. Heat seeped into my skin. And crazily, I felt something. Something I should not be feeling for this man.

“Let me go,” I said.

He took a step back. “I’m sorry. I thought—maybe I’m not ready for this.”

Talking about Ryan, I thought, or this?

No. This was not happening.

I turned and fingers grazed my shoulder blade. I stood there not breathing as his hand ran lightly up my neck and cupped the nape.

It was so strange, I realized. He was the first man who’d touched me this way since Raoul. And that was years ago. Entire years of my life.

“Max,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

His hand fell. A candle flickered somewhere, skimmed the edges of our faces with fire.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m not thinking straight.”

“It’s okay. I’m not, either.” I shifted my weight, uncomfortable. “We’re both emotional right now. And slightly drunk.”