Chapter 10 - Under Our Own Stars
The waves of the Atlantic broke against the granite cliffs of Mount Desert Island with a steady, rhythmic roar that sounded like the breathing of the earth itself.
The house in Maine—the old shingle-style cottage my grandfather had built in nineteen-twenty-four—stood high on the point, its cedar shakes weathered to a soft, silvery gray by ninety years of salt spray and winter gales.
It was mid-July. The wild roses along the stone wall were in full, violent bloom, their pink petals scattering across the crushed oyster-shell driveway in the afternoon breeze.
Inside the living room, the double French doors were thrown wide to the sea. The curtains, made of unbleached linen, billowed gently in the draft, carrying the scent of pine needles, wet rock, and the cold salt air of the bay.
In the center of the room, positioned so the player looked directly out over the water toward the lighthouse on Egg Rock, sat my father’s Steinway grand piano.
It had spent six months in a climate-controlled restoration facility in Boston, having its soundboard repaired, its hammers re-felted, and its rosewood case stripped of forty years of nicotine and old wax. Now it gleamed with the deep, warm amber of honey preserved in glass.
I sat on the polished bench, my fingers resting lightly on the cool ivory keys.
I didn't play the waltz.
Instead, I played a Bach prelude—simple, mathematical, clean, and entirely free of romantic deceit. The notes moved through the high-ceilinged room like clear water flowing over smooth stones, each one distinct, each one honest, each one occupying its own space without needing an orchestra to justify its existence.
Behind me, the screen door clicked open, followed by the soft, rhythmic thud of boat shoes on the heart-pine floorboards.
Julian walked in carrying a basket of fresh blueberries from the roadside stand down near Somesville and two bottles of cold ginger beer. He was wearing faded denim, a gray chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and the relaxed, sun-browned expression of a man who hadn't looked at a litigation docket in three weeks.
He set the basket on the dining table, walked over to the piano, and leaned his elbows against the curved rim of the case, listening until the final G-major chord drifted out through the open doors and vanished into the sound of the surf.
“You’ve improved,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “When we were twelve, your father had to pay you twenty dollars an hour just to get through the scales.”
“My father had poor pedagogical instincts,” I said, resting my hands in my lap, looking up at him through the afternoon light. “He thought bribery was a substitute for practice.”
“It worked for the bar exam,” Julian said, smiling.
He pulled a small white envelope from his shirt pocket and laid it gently on the music rack above the keys.
“What is this?” I asked.
“The final operational report from the Thomas Sterling Center,” he said. “The first thirty pediatric patients were moved into the residential music wing yesterday morning. The endowment yield from the recovered assets is running four percent ahead of projections. Marcus Vance says we’ll be able to open the satellite clinic in Portland eighteen months early.”
I looked at the envelope. For five years, every financial document handed to me had been a threat, an apology, or a confession.
Now it was just a record of healing.
“And Grant?” I asked, surprised to find that the name caused no reaction in my pulse—no spike of anger, no sudden contraction of my stomach. It was like asking about the weather in a city I had visited once as a child and never intended to see again.
“He had his first parole eligibility review denied last Tuesday,” Julian said simply. “His conduct has been satisfactory, but the restitution balance remains unpaid. He’ll serve the full term. Sloane was transferred to a community halfway house in Hartford three days ago. She’s working as a filing clerk for an insurance agency.”
I nodded slowly, closed the fallboard over the keys, and stood up from the bench.
“Good,” I said.
Julian didn't step back. He stood close, his gray eyes searching my face with that calm, unhurried patience that had become my anchor over the past year.
“Claire,” he said softly.
“Yes, Julian?”
“The summer gala for the hospital is in two weeks.”
“I know,” I said. “Eleanor Van Der Bilt has already called four times to discuss the seating chart. She’s determined to put the Governor next to the ice sculpture.”
“I’m not asking about the seating chart,” Julian said, reaching down and taking my hand. His fingers were warm, rough from an afternoon spent fixing the halyards on his sloop down at the harbor, completely steady. “I’m asking if you’ll dance with me.”
I looked down at our hands—his long, capable fingers woven between mine, the gold signet ring on my right hand catching the light, my mother’s Cartier earrings sitting upstairs in their velvet box, waiting for an evening when they could be worn for joy instead of defiance.
“Only if we choose the song,” I said.
“No waltzes,” he promised, his voice low, intimate, carrying the quiet certainty of something that had been waiting ten years to be said out loud. “Just whatever music we make ourselves.”
May you like
I smiled—a real, wide, unshadowed smile that crinkled the skin around my eyes and let the ocean air fill my chest until there was no room left for old ghosts.
“Then yes, Julian,” I said, stepping toward the open French doors, pulling him with me into the salt breeze and the wild roses. “Let’s dance.”
