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would have taken her home. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with the weight of grief on her chest—and not with the rest of the townsfolk still on the docks. As long as they stayed and waited, she had to as well. She had been on that boat. She might not know the names of these islanders, but she was one of them on this night.
    By eleven, the fog had dispersed, and the mood of the crowd lifted with the hope that survivors would be more easily spotted. By midnight, though, when no good news was radioed back from the boats, that hope waned. By one in the morning, those on the dock stood in silent huddles.
    Shortly thereafter, word came back that the Coast Guard had called off the search for the night and would return with divers in the morning—but still the local fleet kept at it. By two, however, even they began to return. One boat after another slipped into the harbor, their engines rumbling in exhaustion. The faces of the men who climbed back on the dock were pale and drawn in the flickering light of the torches; they had little to say and simply shook their heads.
    Julia searched until she saw the man who had helped her right after the accident, the man from the Amelia Celeste . Zoe identified him as Noah Prine. Though he hoisted himself to the dock now with the others, the depth of the pain on his face set him apart. He didn’t look around, didn’t acknowledge any of those who had been waiting there all night, and they, in turn, gave him wide berth as he strode along the planking and off into the night.
    “He was with his father,” Zoe explained softly. “Hutch is still missing.”
    Julia was horrified. She could only begin to imagine what Noah was feeling, fearing that his father was dead but not knowing for sure. Her own father was still alive, as were her mother and her brothers. And her daughter.
    “I need a phone, Zoe,” she said, feeling a dire need, right then, right there, to hear Molly’s voice. The girl was a culinary student, normally studying in Rhode Island, but now doing a summer apprenticeship in Paris. It would be morning there. If Molly had worked the night before, she might still be sleeping, and under normal circumstances, Julia would have waited. But what had happened—and what she felt—were far from normal.
    Zoe produced a cell phone, and Julia quickly punched in the number of Molly’s global phone. As it rang, she moved away from the others on the dock. It seemed forever before a groggy voice that Julia knew well said, “Mom?”
    Julia felt such a swell of emotion that she began to cry. “Oh, baby,” she gasped in a choked voice that, quite naturally, terrified her daughter.
    Sounding instantly awake, Molly asked, “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing. I’m fine,” Julia sobbed softly, “but it’s a miracle.”
    The story spilled out in a handful of sentences, to which Molly injected “Omigod” with rising frequency and fear. When Julia finally paused, her daughter said with a mix of disbelief and awe, “ Omigod! Are you sure you’re okay?”
    “I am, but there are others who aren’t. I’m sorry to wake you”—she was crying again, though less wrenchingly now—“but with something like this, you need to talk to people like your own daughter. Email doesn’t do it. You need to hear a voice .”
    “I’m glad you called. Omigod . Mom, that’s just so awful! Here I am, pissed off that the chef at the restaurant won’t give me the time of day, and there you are dealing with life and death. When’ll they know about the others?”
    “The morning, maybe.”
    “That’s so bad. And you—you’ve been looking forward to this for months. It was supposed to be your vacation. Are you going right home?”
    The question startled Julia. “No,” she said. Odd, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind. She couldn’t list her reasons, because her thoughts were too disordered. But leaving wasn’t an option. “I’ll be at Zoe’s. You have her number.”
    “Are you sure you want