Three gold coins lay on the marble table when I told my maid’s three-year-old daughter she could have any three wishes she wanted. Ellie ignored every toy around her and asked only one question: “Why does Mommy have to say sorry when she didn’t do it?” The moment she said it, I stopped looking at the child and looked at my brother Dante.

At 7:45 AM, the fog off the Sound began to turn a pale, pearlescent gray as the hidden sun rose behind the thick cloud cover.

The wind had died down to a bitter, biting breeze that carried the sharp scent of salt water through the cracks in the cedar siding.

I stood on the rear deck of the cabin, my heavy dark coat buttoned up to my chin, watching the gray water below.

Fifty yards out, navigating carefully through the jagged granite rocks of the coastline, a thirty-eight-foot lobster boat painted dark green with a white wheelhouse chugged slowly through the swell. The engine had a deep, wet, rhythmic beat—a classic Diesel commercial rig built to handle the rough winter waters of Block Island Sound.

The boat backed its twin screws, maneuvering expertly against the small wooden dock at the base of the cliff.

A tall, weathered man in a yellow oilskin slicker and a dark wool cap stepped out of the wheelhouse, wrapped a heavy mooring line around a wooden cleat on the dock, and looked up at the cabin.

Captain Thomas Sullivan.

He had run tactical insertions for Marine reconnaissance in Vietnam before spending forty years running lobster pots out of Montauk and Stonington. He was sixty-eight years old, had a face lined like old leather, and owed me his life after I pulled his youngest son out of a messy cartel gambling debt in Atlantic City fifteen years ago.

I turned and walked back inside the cabin.

Clara was already standing by the door, dressed in her dark wool coat, holding the canvas tote bag over her shoulder. Ellie was standing beside her, wearing a small yellow raincoat Clara had found in the hall closet—an old coat that had belonged to Sofia when she was four years old.

The coat was slightly too large for Ellie, the sleeves rolled up twice at the wrists, but it kept out the cold.

"It's time," I told them.

Clara looked around the room one last time—the warm fire now reduced to glowing red embers, the leather sofas, the quiet safety of the cedar walls.

"Are you sure about this, Mr. Moretti?" Clara asked, her voice tight with emotion.

"Sullivan is the best mariner on the East Coast," I said, leading them out onto the deck. "He'll take you to a small private dock in Stonington, Connecticut. Standing on that dock will be an attorney named Marcus Vance. He has a set of keys to a farmhouse in Vermont, a clean driver's license for you under the name Clara Miller, and a Social Security card for Ellie."

Clara stopped on the top step of the porch stairs. She looked at me, her brown eyes filling with fresh tears.

"How... how did you arrange all that in three hours?" she whispered.

"I used to run an empire, Clara," I said softly. "I still have friends who remember how to work."

We walked down the steep, wooden stairs built into the side of the dirt cliff, our boots crunching against the frozen soil and ice-covered steps.

At the bottom, Captain Sullivan was waiting on the dock, his thick hands holding the wet hemp line. His sharp blue eyes looked at Clara, then down at Ellie in her oversized yellow raincoat, then up at my face.

He didn't ask a single question. He was a man who understood that in our world, asking questions was a quick way to wind up at the bottom of the Sound.

"Morning, Vince," Sullivan said, his raspy voice cutting through the sound of the idling diesel engine.

"Tom," I nodded. "Water clear?"

"Coast Guard is tucked into their slips at Montauk station because of the icing," Sullivan said, stepping aside to make room on the narrow wooden deck. "We'll be across the Sound in forty-five minutes. Smooth sailing all the way to Stonington."

He reached out a large, calloused hand, gently helping Clara step over the gunwale onto the boat's deck. Then he reached down, lifted Ellie up like she weighed nothing at all, and set her safely beside her mother.

Ellie stood on the wet deck of the lobster boat, her small hands holding onto her mother's coat.

She looked up at me as I stood on the wooden dock above them.

"Mr. Vincent?" she called out over the chug of the engine.

"Yes, little one?"

She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out the first gold coin, and held it out toward me in her small fist.

"You need your magic coin back," she said, her clear voice carrying over the smell of salt and diesel. "So you can make a wish too."

I looked down at the tiny girl standing on the deck of a commercial fishing boat in an oversized yellow raincoat.

I felt a sudden, sharp tightness in my throat—a sensation I hadn't felt in seven long years. It wasn't the dull, suffocating ache of grief that had dragged me down into the dark since Sofia died.

It was something entirely different.

It was warmth.

I took a step closer to the edge of the dock, reached down, and placed my large hand over her small fist, pushing the gold coin back into her tiny palm.

"Keep it, Ellie," I said, my voice thick. "That coin bought its wish. It belongs to you now."

I pulled the third gold coin—Sofia's last coin—out of my pocket and showed it to her in my hand.

"I have my own coin," I said, showing her the cheap piece of stamped metal. "And I'm going to use it today."

Ellie looked at my coin, then looked up into my eyes, and gave a slow, solemn nod of understanding.

"Cast off, Tom," I told the captain.

Sullivan didn't hesitate. He threw the heavy mooring line off the cleat, stepped into the white wheelhouse, and pushed the brass throttle forward.

The diesel engine roared, the twin screws churning the dark gray water into white foam as the boat backed away from the dock, turning its bow out toward the open Sound.

I stood on the icy wooden dock, watching the green boat move through the gray sea fog.

Clara stood at the stern, holding Ellie in her arms, both of them waving until the boat became a dark silhouette against the white mist, and then disappeared entirely into the gray horizon.

I was alone.

I stood there for three minutes, listening to the fading rhythm of the diesel engine, the bitter wind pulling at the collar of my heavy coat.

Then I turned, walked back up the cliff stairs, climbed into the Range Rover, and turned the heavy vehicle back toward Long Island.