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the taxicab’s window.
    “We there yet?” Her voice was high, almost singsong-y, as if she were auditioning for a musical part that she wasn’t going to get. The cabbie, a tall Ethiopian immigrant whose command of English was still improving, wiggled a shaggy head. Bitsy exhaled in disgust. He’d been nodding gleefully at everything and anything she said, all the way from Portland.
    I could tell you it was friggin’ eighty degrees outside and sunny and you’d nod your foolish noggin, she thought. She frowned out the window.
    The sky was a battleship gray color, and everything had that hunkered-down look she remembered of Maine winters. Not much snow to speak of—Bitsy had expected more—and what there was lay scattered in frozen patches on the iron-hard ground.
    The cab whizzed by a diner with a black and red neon sign from the 1950s and Bitsy had a stab of recognition. Miller’s , the place with the rude waitresses, sinful fruit pies, and impossibly long lines come summer. She allowed herself to smile. It had been a favorite destination for her and Chuck. The ferry from the island, and then the ride to Miller’s. Maybe a stop or two at some antiques shops, and then the comfortable drive and ferry ride back home. Such a simple way to spend an afternoon, and yet it had been so satisfying.
    When had those outings turned from delightful to deadly? Bitsy couldn’t pinpoint the moment. It had been a gradual creeping of dissatisfaction, like a coastal fog, that had insinuated its way into their marriage. Well, maybe not the marriage , Bitsy admitted. Just me.
    She glanced at her watch, a tiny diamond-encrusted face on a thin gold band. Four o’ clock. She’d just make the ferry, if the driver hustled. And if he didn’t, she’d be sitting for another hour in Mana-tuck. She pulled a twenty dollar bill from her wallet and waved it in his rearview mirror. “Faster,” she urged him, jiggling the bill as an enticement.
    He smiled and bobbed his head. A reassuring increase in the cab’s speed gave Bitsy hope. Perhaps this time her eager driver had understood.
    _____
    The village of Hurricane Harbor consisted of a tiny shingled office that sold tickets for the ferry, a café, a bar, and the impressive Hurricane Harbor Inn, an old wooden structure with wide porches and, in the summer, rocking chairs that invited guests to pause and relax. The bar’s weathered sign read The Eye of the Storm, but locals just called it “The Eye.” Likewise, the Hurricane Harbor Café, which sold flavored coffee and pastries, sandwiches and potato chips, was known simply as “the Café.”
    Darby walked briskly by these familiar landmarks, intent on catching the ferry and keeping warm at the same time. She met the eyes of the ticket seller, who waved her toward the waiting boat. “Buy your ticket over to the other side,” he yelled, opening the door but a crack. “I’m already closed up for the day.”
    Darby stepped on the slick walkway and climbed gingerly onto the ferry. Unlike the warmer months, when the outside seating areas were full of camera-toting tourists, the decks in February were bare of riders. Two ferry workers scurried about, untying lines and stowing fenders, while the captain waited patiently to begin backing up the vessel. Darby did not envy them their jobs in the frigid cold. She hurried inside to the heated cabin and took a seat by a window.
    A mother and a baby sat across from her, the baby so bundled it looked like a plump fleece sausage. The woman smiled at Darby, a quick smile of pride, and continued rocking the child and humming a tuneless little song.
    The boat gave a small lurch and began backing away from the dock. Darby remembered countless rides on this ferry—trips to go school shopping with her mother, journeys to the Manatuck boatyard with her dad. She remembered, too, the night she stole her Aunt Jane Farr’s truck and drove it onto the ferry to Manatuck, beginning a painful solo ride to the West