He had been coming home.

He had been standing at the edge of the world beside his daughter, watching the water, knowing that the twenty-year storm he had weathered in total isolation was, at last, about to end.

I heard a car door close on the gravel lane behind me, and when I turned, Mr.

Vance was walking up the slight incline toward the bluff, a slender briefcase under his arm, his dark suit immaculate and his silver hair tossed by the wind.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said, stopping a few paces away.