It is April now. Miles and Tick have spent the winter on Martha's Vineyard recuperating on the nearly deserted summer resort island. Tick is getting back to normal after being nearly catatonic. Miles and Tick have the use of Peter and Dawn's beach house, which is remote from what little activity there is on the Vineyard. Tick is enrolled in the local high school where she remains pretty uncommunicative. Slowly, however, she is recovering. Miles gets a call from David, who brings him up to date on events in Empire Falls: It has been one of the worst winters in a long history of horrendous Maine winters. Mrs. Whiting has drowned in the flood of the spring runoff. The flood destroyed much of the development work she had begun-a gentrification project.....
