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French wine sauce with buttery potatoes and green beans?”
    “That sounds wonderful.”
    John looked around and noticed their waiter standing off to the side. John signaled him, and he quickly returned. John gave him their order in French. The man smiled as he wrote it all down and said, “Very good, monsieur,” then walked away.
    When John faced Laura, she seemed impressed. “You speak French too?”
    “Actually, I don’t. Just enough to order food. If I ever took you to Paris, we could only visit the restaurants.”
    Laura laughed. John realized something just then. How much he loved to hear her laugh. He wanted laughter to always be a part of their romance. “So tell me more about The Confidence Man .”
    “I’ll say this,” she said. “It really makes me want to travel on a steamboat someday. Or even better, on one of those huge paddle-wheel steamships that come into the bay every month or so.”
    “Where would you want to go?”
    “I don’t know yet. I just want to be on one. I think it would be a wonderful adventure.”
    John sat back in his chair and smiled.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Nothing,” he said. “I just love talking with you.”
    John’s previous conversations with women back in New York had always been so formal. Laughter never made an appearance. He remembered his younger sister Allison; she’d laughed often as a little girl. As she grew into her teen years, their mother had put an end to it. “We must form you into a proper young lady,” she’d said. And that’s what poor Allison had become: a younger version of his mother, just as proper, just as boring. There was nothing he could do to rescue her.
    Laura was so different. It was refreshing to hear a woman so feminine and refined, yet one who’d thought so thoroughly about so many things. There had been no tension in their conversations, no fear of saying the wrong thing or forgetting to say the right thing. He had never imagined being in love could be so enjoyable.
    Just then a small wave splashed hard against the raft, dousing him in saltwater. Dousing also these pleasant thoughts, replacing them with a more melancholic stream. He recalled what Laura had said back then, about wanting to take a voyage on a paddle-wheel steamship someday. She’d talked about it many more times as she read Melville’s book. That’s why he’d chosen this trip for their honeymoon.
    But she wasn’t on a steamship anymore. And neither was he.
    He looked around. He was on a raft adrift at sea, protecting a coat full of rainwater in the middle of the night. His beloved was on an old wooden ship sailing farther away from him with every breath. By now Laura must have accepted the fact that the Vandervere was gone. She would believe that he was dead.
    And if she believed that, she would have read his note.
    He looked up at the half-moon lighting the sky. Oh God, I don’t know how or what to pray . He heard someone moan, Robert perhaps. He must have been praying out loud. He looked, but the coat hadn’t moved.
    Please, Lord, ease her pain. Especially the pain I’ve caused. Go before her to New York and prepare the way .

14
     
    Lexington Avenue
Two blocks north of Gramercy Park
New York City
     
    Joel Foster stepped through the iron gate, up the curved granite stairs, and through the front door opened by Beryl, the family butler. Beryl held out his hand to receive Joel’s silk hat. “The gate is squeaking again, Beryl. Get someone on it.”
    “Right away, sir.”
    The nicest of the family’s three carriages remained out front; the driver had been instructed to wait.
    “Your coat, sir?”
    “I’m going to leave it on. I’m afraid Mother might be sending me out again in a moment. In fact, don’t put my hat away just yet.” He walked through the foyer toward the dining room.
    “Is that you, Joel?” a woman called out. “Allison, you’re slouching. Please sit up straight.”
    “Yes, Mother.”
    He walked in, and his mother lit up at the