“Where’s my ma?” Adam said.

“Taking a nap with the littlest three. Come on over here and talk to us.”

He hesitated for just a moment before he came into the room to stand between Curiosity’s chair and Lily’s divan. In Lily’s experience Adam was an even-tempered child, slow to anger and always willing to listen to reason. She had never seen him upset like this.

Curiosity was saying, “Come on, now, and tell us what’s wrong. Where’s Nicholas?”

The story came tumbling out at the mention of Nicholas’s name. Hannah and Birdie had come into the trading post to say there was a drowned body in the lake and it turned out that Harper Washington was missing, gone from the Red Dog since early morning, didn’t even come home for his dinner.

“And he’s always hungry,” Adam finished. “Lorena—she looked like she was going to faint when Hannah told her there was a drowned man in the lake. And now the magician and Mr. Brody have gone off on the raft to bring it back.”

“Magistrate,” Lily corrected him, fighting back the urge to laugh. “It might not be Harper,” she heard herself saying. “A trapper might have got caught in the flood and washed up there.”

Adam’s head bobbed, as if he wanted to believe her but didn’t dare.

“Where’s Nicholas?” Curiosity wanted to know. “And where have your grandma and auntie got to?”

“I’m supposed to tell you,” Adam said. “Auntie Hannah is waiting for the body to come back so she can look at it and Grandma is with Lorena and Nicholas at the Red Dog. Why do they want Auntie Hannah to look at a dead body?”

Lily gestured and he came close enough that she could put an arm around his shoulder. “Doctors look at dead bodies because sometimes by looking they can tell how a person died.”

Adam looked even more distressed. “But dead is dead,” he said. “What difference does it make, how it happens?”

Curiosity made a clicking sound, the one that said she saw trouble coming. To Adam she said, “You know there are bad people in the world.”

Understanding came over Adam’s face. “Do you think the dead man in the lake was killed on purpose?”

“We don’t know that,” Lily said, pulling him closer. “Most likely he just got caught up in the flood.”

“Why would anybody want to kill Harper?” Adam said. He was shaking.

Curiosity said, “Come set here on my lap a bit, little boy.”

He went willingly enough and climbed up to that safe place. Some of Lily’s most vivid and comforting childhood memories had to do with sitting on Curiosity’s lap, and she saw now that Adam was glad to be there.

“You just set,” Curiosity said to him, one hand resting on his back. “You set here with me and when you feel a little better, we’ll have a talk, you and me.”

Lily said, “Hannah won’t need your help?”

“Your sister and mama can handle things just fine without me,” Curiosity said. Her gaze was fixed on Adam. “We got other work right here.”

“I want Mama,” Adam said.

“I know you do,” Curiosity said gently. “But your ma has got to get some rest. When she wake up, we’ll fetch her right down here to sit with us.”

“I feel bad for him,” Adam said. “I don’t understand why his ma would go off and leave him in a strange place. My ma wouldn’t ever leave us like that.”

Lily didn’t think it would be a good idea to get into a discussion of Jemima’s motivations with a nine-year-old boy, but neither could she ignore the real concern he was showing.

“Does Nicholas talk about his ma very much?”

Adam’s mouth worked for a moment, and then he shook his head. “He never does. Not once. It don’t seem right.”

“Sometimes when people are very angry they tuck it all away and never let on,” Lily said. “In my experience, that only makes things worse.”

“I don’t think Nicholas is mad,” Adam said thoughtfully. “He likes it here better than anywhere else he ever lived, he told me that. And he likes Lorena and Harper—” He broke off to clear his throat.

“Let’s not borrow trouble,” Curiosity said.

Adam pressed his mouth together and nodded. He blinked once and then twice, like a much younger child in need of a nap.

Curiosity shook her head gently at Lily.

Such a beautiful, perfectly made child and with such fragile sensibilities. It was hard for someone so young to see things so clearly. To understand and not understand all at once.

Lily closed her eyes and tried to see her own child at nine years old. A boy or a girl, long-legged, skin browned by the sun. A child who was free to run and explore, as she had been, as Adam and all the others were.

She had the sense that this would be her only baby, a thought that would have filled her with sorrow a few months ago. But here in Paradise it wasn’t as hard to think about. There was no lack of family or playmates here.

And just that simply Lily realized that she had come home to Paradise for good. There was nowhere else in the world she would ever be able to raise a child as she meant to raise this one.

Chapter LI

Hannah’s strict instructions were that Daniel was to rest for a full hour after the treatment.

“Alone.” Hannah’s tone was pointed, but she was smiling too.

On the porch Martha said, “What is the most we could hope for?”