Afterwards, Jane didn't quite know how she and Alec had ended up taking the boat out just the two of them.

The plan was that they all would go. They would bring sandwiches and chips and some beer. Jeffrey and Alec would bring their instruments. Batty had a song all picked out to sing to the seals.

But after the phone call with Tommy, it was clear Rosalind wanted to be alone. She let her sisters hug her and dote on her for a few minutes, and then Rosalind went to her bedroom and shut the door. Batty was so worried about Rosalind that she declared she couldn't sing, not that day. She said that she would stay behind in case Rosalind wanted to talk. Then Jeffrey said there was no point in going to serenade if Batty wasn't there to complete the event. And anyway, he and Skye had wanted to hike along the cliffs, they could do that.

Jane had been sad since the day was so perfect, and Alec had said the boat was all ready to go, it was a shame to waste the day.

And then all of a sudden, Alec and Jane were on their way to the dock. They would serenade the seals another day, but Alec said there was nothing stopping them from enjoying some sandwiches and a nice ride.

In the years since they had met, Alec had never ceased to impress Jane and her sisters. He was, in every way, the perfect father for Jeffrey. And he was humble about it. He always reminded Jeffrey that he had missed the more difficult years of fatherhood, and he took some blame for that. It always seemed so noble to Jane how Alec could admit that he had been in the wrong, right alongside Mrs. Tifton. Although Alec was ten times nicer and more handsome than Mrs. Tifton.

As Jane hopped from the dock down into the boat, and Alec tossed her a life jacket, it occurred to Jane that he hadn't seemed to age a day since the summer they had first met. It was over ten years ago.

"You know," Jane said. "You made me wear a life jacket that first ride too."

"I made all of you," Alec said. "With Claire's injury, I was being extra careful with you kids. I felt so bad about Grover making her fall, I wanted to take some stress off of Claire."

Jane plopped onto the worn bench and watched Alec rev the engine.

"If you think about it, if Grover hadn't made her fall, she would never have met Turron," Jane said. "And then Claire would still be a lonely spinster."

"True," Alec said. "And if she hadn't been hurt, I wouldn't have spent so much time with you girls and Jeffrey. And then maybe we would never have known I was his birth father."

Jane shook her head at how dreadful it would have been to spend a summer living next door to Alec but to never discover the truth. He and Jeffrey would have been less than fifty yards apart, and yet never known. They would have been ships passing in the night.

"We would have figured it out," Jane said as the boat pulled away from the harbor and out into the neverending blue. "You guys looked too much alike."

"You were uncanny back then," Alec said. "When you insisted I looked like someone you knew."

"I was lucky you were so young," Jane said.

Alec smiled and pushed the boat faster until Jane grabbed the bar to steady herself. She grinned into the wind. They pulled past the tiny island, and Jane leaned into the wind. When they came to the rocks with the seals, Alec stopped the boat and they lingered.

Jane pulled out the sandwiches. She thought about how Alec had only been thirty-three when the Penderwicks had first met him. Which was really not that much older than she was now. And how he still looked just as young, even though he was over forty. So still, not that much older than Jane.

But then she thought about Alec's tragic history with love, and how he and Mrs. Tifton had actually gotten married, only for it to blow up in their faces.

"Poor Rosie," Jane said. "I don't know what's going to happen."

"Sounds like the wedding might be off," Alec said. "I always thought those two were head over heels, but you never can know."

"They are head over heels," Jane said. "They really are. Rosalind is just confused or scared or something."

Alec shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "And you might be close to your sister, but no one really knows what it's like inside a relationship except the two people involved. Especially when it's been so intense for so long. They've been together since they were kids. It's tough to carry a relationship like that into adulthood and grow with it."

Jane sat in silence and ate half her sandwich. Alec opened two cokes and handed her one.

"It's just hard to see Rosalind struggle," Jane said. "She never struggles. She's the oldest and the prettiest and the wisest."

"You've sure got a lot of superlatives for Rosie," Alec said.

"But they're all true," Jane said. "At least from my perspective."

"I might just be an outsider, a mere Penderwick-Affiliate, but I can tell you what I think," Alec said. "Almost from the day I met Rosie, I always thought she was a girl who was hiding things."

"What do you mean?" Jane asked. Rosalind wasn't sneaky or a liar. She didn't deceive. She was open and loving and honest.

"She just held her cards close to her chest, she always watched her words and actions," Alec said. "Like she had taken some of her feelings and wrapped them up tight and shoved them somewhere deep down inside her."

"You make her sound cold," Jane said. "She's not; she's the warmest, kindest person."

"More superlatives," Alec said. "And I'm not saying she's cold, truly, I think Rosalind has a big heart. But I think somewhere along the way, Rosie pushed some of herself to the side so she could be what she thought her sisters needed. I mean, listen to you, you idolize her. She never let herself be human like the rest of you."

"That makes me feel really bad," Jane said. "Like we stole something from Rosalind. Or made her into something she didn't want to be."

"Don't feel bad," Alec said. "My theory was that it was because of your mom dying when you kids were so young. With a single dad and no mother, Rosalind felt she had to step up."

"Dad was always saying Rosie had mothered us too much," Jane said. "Wise beyond her years, he always said."

"When I found out your father had only married Iantha right before I met you guys, I remember thinking it was too late for Rosalind. She could have done with a new mother figure a bit earlier."

Jane peered up at him and gave him a sly smile.

"You've really done a bit of psycho-analyzing with all of us, haven't you?" she asked.

"All of it guesswork and totally inappropriate," Alec said. "I'm obviously no paragon of familial perfection myself."

Jane sipped her cola. The seals were sunning on the rock as always, but she felt as if they were letting them down, coming all the way out here with nothing to offer except their paltry company.

"You were my favorite of the Penderwicks," Alec said. "That first summer, I thought you were hilarious."

"Well, I'm glad you found all my antics and melodramatic hair-cuttings entertaining," Jane said.

"It wasn't just your melodrama," Alec said. "It was your vibrancy and your mind. It was like you were some sort of comet blazing through the world, so open to love and life. The way you were asking all the adults about true love, it was astounding."

"Oh, God," Jane groaned. "I forgot about that survey."

"Seriously, don't be embarrassed," Alec said. "You were so intelligent and sharp and just light-years ahead of other kids."

"Well, thank you," Jane said. "I'll take a compliment when I can."

"Good," Alec said.

"Things have changed," Jane said. "I've sworn off love, as I'm sure you've heard. It was taking up too much time."

"Mm," Alec said. "But what if kid Jane was onto something? I've always thought that even at 11, you knew a great writer needed great material. And you were determined to get it any way you could. Beg, borrow or steal. Or dive headfirst into a romance with the local Casanova."

Alec winked at Jane, and she found herself smiling back. It was comforting to think that maybe her former self hadn't been a total idiot after all.

Alec revved the engine, and they were off, bouncing over the big waves and bound for shore.

Jane kept glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, and she caught him doing the same. She had no idea Alec had thought so much about the Penderwick sisters. And to say she was his favorite, out of them all. Jane couldn't help but be flattered.

As they neared the dock, Jane reminded herself that it was time to focus on the task at hand. Rosalind needed help. She either needed to be aided in her attempt to rid herself of a man she had never loved (Jane couldn't believe this, even after the phone call), or Rosalind needed to be saved from an unthinkable scandal.