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came to the end.
    She slid the box toward her. It sagged a bit when she lifted it. It had been hidden away for a long time, and it was carrying a heavy cargo. She looked around the kitchen, suddenly uncertain as to where to put it.
    “Here, give it to me. I’ll put it in the attic.”
    “No, not the attic. Put it in the closet in my room.” Where I can watch over it as I have for thirty years.
    T hey walked silently back over the dunes to the cottage. The rain had let up some, but a fine mist coated their slickers. Alden didn’t take a flashlight. Neither of them needed it. Even with the cloud cover they knew their way.
    There had been back and forth between the houses for generations. A path had gradually formed from the tramp of years to and from.
    What would happen now? Alden wondered. Would things change irrevocably? Would the path grow over? Which one of them would leave first. Him? The woman walking beside him, carrying her wet clothes in a plastic grocery bag?
    Thirty years old. It was hard to believe. He still could remember the night she was born, most of it anyway. There were big gaps that he’d never been able to coax out of his subconscious. Maybe he didn’t have to know. Maybe none of them did.
    He’d been against telling Meri. He didn’t like change. Not that kind of change anyway, the kind that brought upheaval as this was sure to do. Would she forgive them for keeping her in the dark all these years? Would she forgive him?
    And what would learning the truth do to her?
    “What?”
    He looked sideways at her.
    “What was the sigh for?”
    “It was a yawn,” he lied. “Sorry. I was up early this morning.”
    “Oh.”
    They walked on. Toward the cottage, toward the yellow rectangles of light that could have been taken straight from Arthur Rackham. Hansel and Gretel, the Seven Dwarfs. Only when you got closer did it look like what it was, not a fairy tale, but a New England shake and stone farmhouse, built by pragmatic, hardworking farmers over a hundred years before.
    Behind them, his house loomed like a bad memory—a monstrosity left over from the Gilded Age that didn’t quite make it to Newport. Now it was a drain on his finances and sorely in need of renovation.
    Meri hesitated when they reached the kitchen door. Alden opened it and nudged her inside, shutting the door behind her. Then he shoved his hands in the pockets of his rain slicker and began his solitary walk home.
    Was his promise to that poor girl fulfilled now that Meri knew? And when had his promise changed from obligation to joy?

Chapter 4
    M eri heard the door close behind her. She’d been hoping Alden would stay for a few minutes at least, to help with the transition or lend moral support. But she should have known better.
    Her dad and Gran stood together facing her like a photograph, stuck in time.
    Feelings of love and remorse swept over her. “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s all right,” her dad said and scooped her into a hug. “We all love you, sweetheart.”
    “I know, Dad. It was just such a shock. I had no idea at all. And now . . . Well, I just feel like I don’t know who I am.”
    “You’re a Calder Hollis,” Gran said.
    Dan opened one arm and included Gran in the hug. She was small next to her son-in-law and granddaughter. Because Meri was her granddaughter—Alden was right. She knew Gran loved her, would always love her; she knew that. The problem wasn’t with them; it was with her, and she needed to figure out a way to come to terms with the other stuff herself. But that could take some time, once it had settled in, and she found out the whole story, and found her birth family, and then . . .
    T he next morning broke clean and sunny. It was going to be a gorgeous day and for seconds after waking in her room upstairs at Gran’s, Meri forgot the trauma of the previous night. But even the sun couldn’t keep realization at bay for long.
    It all came back to her as soon as she saw Alden’s sweatpants and