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Are you okay?” Aviva asked as she and Lucas drove back to Boston. Lucas’s knuckles were white from gripping the wheel, his expression unreadable in the darkness.

He glanced at her and then looked back at the road. “I’m mortified that my grandfather talked to us like that. It’s very unlike him. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s me who should be apologizing to you. It was my questions that stirred all of this up.”

“But you had every right to ask them.”

“Still, I’m so sorry you had to find out about your grandmother that way.”

Lucas sighed. “To be honest, knowing she had an affair doesn’t surprise me.

I loved her—she was my family—but she was the most self-centered person I’ve ever known.

When I was a kid, she’d get angry if my grandfather paid attention to me instead of her, even if it was only for a few minutes.

I think my mom really struggled with that, too.

Things were really rocky between her and my grandmother.

I don’t know how my grandfather lived with her all those years. ”

“Relationships are complicated,” Aviva said softly.

Lucas choked out a laugh. “I’d say that’s the understatement of the evening. You must feel like you’ve stepped into a soap opera—my grandmother having an affair with my wife’s grandfather? Honestly, Aviva, I’m very embarrassed.”

“Hey,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “None of this is your fault.”

Lucas’s voice was rough. “You have to admit, it’s pretty screwed up.”

“Eh, we’re all a little screwed up,” she said. “That’s what makes us interesting.”

He laughed and then sobered. “How am I going to tell Millie? She never knew my grandmother, but she’s always had a great relationship with her great-grandpa Hubert. He’s the last piece of her mother’s side of the family left. This is going to break her heart.”

Aviva shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t need to know. It’s hard enough losing your mom when you’re young. I think that this would feel like another profound loss.”

“Maybe you’re right. I try so hard to do the right thing with her, but it’s hard to know what that is sometimes, you know? I worry a hundred times a day that I’m screwing it all up.”

“I think,” Aviva said, “that just being there for her, loving her, is the best thing you could be doing. I didn’t have that after my mom died.

I had Colette, but that wasn’t the same as having a parent.

I have the feeling that you’re an incredible dad, Lucas.

It’s not about getting it right one hundred percent of the time. It’s about showing up and trying.”

Lucas gave her a small, sad smile. “Thanks for that.”

“Anytime.”

Lucas was quiet for a moment. “Listen, I know tonight was a complete train wreck, but since my grandfather kicked us out before we had a chance to eat, do you have any interest in having dinner with me now?”

Aviva turned to him in surprise. “Are you sure you want to? After everything that happened tonight?”

“Very sure—if you’re up for it. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to turn the evening around. Unless, of course, you’re completely alienated and want nothing to do with me, which, by the way, I would totally understand, too.”

Aviva’s heart fluttered. “I’d love to join you for dinner,” she said with a smile.

His eyes were warm as he turned to her. “Good. How does Italian sound? There’s a great little place right by the museum.”

“Italian sounds perfect.”

Five minutes later, Lucas had just pulled into a spot along the street and cut the ignition when his cell phone rang, startling them both. “Sorry,” he said, digging in his pocket. “I just have to make sure it’s not Millie.”

“Never apologize for being a good dad.” She watched as he looked down at his phone, blinked a few times, and then shot her an indecipherable look before picking up.

“Hello?” he answered, and then he was silent for a second as the person on the other line spoke. “What happened?” he asked, and then, a moment later, “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

“What is it?” she asked after he’d hung up. “It wasn’t your daughter, was it?”

Lucas ran a hand through his hair. “No. It was the assisted-living facility.”

Aviva groaned. “Oh, no. Not Colette again.”

“No.” Lucas took a deep breath. “Apparently, Hubert collapsed in the hallway on the way back to his room after dinner. They called an ambulance, and he’s being taken to the hospital now. They think it was a heart attack—he’s not conscious. I—I have to go.”

“I’ll come with you,” Aviva said instantly. “I mean, if you want me to.”

Lucas held her gaze. “I do. If you’re sure.”

She nodded, and as he turned the car back on and pulled away from the curb, she found herself praying hard that Hubert would survive long enough for Colette to get her answers.

Colette sat across the table from Marty, a candle flickering between them in the low light of the Edgewater, Colette’s favorite restaurant on the South Shore.

She had called Marty earlier in the day to ask how soon he could sell the ring he was holding for her, and told him there was something else she wanted to discuss, too.

He’d told her that he had a busy day, but that he’d make a reservation somewhere for dinner that evening.

She hadn’t expected this, though. When he picked her up, he’d seemed uncharacteristically nervous, and he hadn’t told her where he was taking her until they were a block away.

“What on earth made you choose someplace so nice?” she asked him as they waited at a stoplight. Usually, she and Marty dined in the back of his shop or at one of the casual restaurants nearby.

“No reason,” Marty said, his eyes darting quickly to her and then back to the road as the light changed.

“If I didn’t know better,” she said, “I would think you were trying to woo me.”

Marty just laughed as he pulled up to the valet stand at the Edgewater, but she could see color creeping up his neck. She imagined that she must be blushing, too.

Now, as the waiter delivered a first course of oysters, Colette had the strangest feeling that they were on a date, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“You know, Colette,” Marty ventured after slurping an oyster and washing it down with a sip of the sauvignon blanc they’d ordered, “I’ve been wanting to do this for years.”

“Do what?” she asked, taking a sip of her wine.

“Take you out properly.”

“Then why haven’t you?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking the question.

After Marty’s wife had died some twenty years ago and he’d begun to date again, she had wondered whether he might ask her out, but he never had.

He had opted for younger women, and she’d felt like a bottle of milk past its expiration date.

“I should have,” he said. “Is it too late now?”

Colette touched her bare wrist, thinking of the bracelet that had glimmered there just a day before, the bracelet she’d given back to Daniel Rosman, fulfilling her mother’s decades-old wish.

Daniel’s appearance in her life had upended everything.

She’d felt like herself with him in a way she hadn’t felt in many years with anyone, even Marty.

After leaving Hubert’s assisted-living facility a few days earlier, and after seeing the other half of the bracelet in the museum, Daniel had come home with Colette for a few hours, and the two of them had simply talked, sharing stories about their mothers, and about their memories of early childhood in Paris in the 1930s, before the war.

When he’d hugged her goodbye before heading back to his hotel, she’d had the strangest sense of wanting to hang on just a little while longer, and she’d been relieved when he told her he planned to stay in Boston for at least a few more days.

After he’d departed, she’d sat in silence for several minutes in her living room, trying to put a finger on what she was feeling.

It was, she realized, a sense of belonging.

It was a feeling of being exactly who she was.

And it was the knowledge that for this man whose life had always been woven into hers, that was enough.

With Marty, she had always felt the opposite.

She knew he cared for her as deeply as she cared for him.

But when they were younger, making it past her defenses would have been hard work, and he’d opted out.

Later, when they might have had another chance, he had chosen women young enough to be his daughters.

“Yes,” she said now. “I do believe it is too late.”

He looked genuinely mournful as he twisted his napkin in his lap. “I’ve been a fool for a long time, Colette.”

“Yes,” she said with a smile, “you have been. But it never would have been a fit, Marty. I’m glad we never tried, because it might have ruined a beautiful friendship. And Marty, I am deeply grateful to call you my dearest friend.”

Marty looked up. “I’m grateful, too.” He cleared his throat and took a long sip of his wine. “Well, now that we have that out of the way…” He trailed off and loosened his tie. “What did you want to see me about? You said you had a question?”

She nodded, grateful to have moved into safer territory. “Do you remember the first ring you ever sold for me?”

“Sure I do, kid. As I recall, it featured six emeralds, each flanked by six pave-set diamonds.”

“Your memory is astonishing.”

He smiled. “How could I forget? It was one of the pieces that helped fund the opening of the Holocaust center, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” She took a deep breath. “And now I’d like to buy it back.”

He stared at her. “Colette, it would have to cost upward of fifty grand, if it’s even still out there.”

“I’m hoping,” she replied, “that the proceeds from the sale of Linda Clyborn’s ring will be enough not only to cover the cost, but to give the owner incentive to sell it.”

He seemed to consider this. “Let me see what I can do. If I recall, we sold it to a diamond broker who was a collector himself; it’s possible that he, or his descendants, still have possession of it. Can I ask why you want it back?”