Taylor got busy on her phone, relaying Donna’s vital numbers to the hospital and to the EMTs who by then were en route in the ambulance. Annie knew how the process worked—the efficient island emergency medical care would arrive on the scene faster than such care would have in Boston; even better, the island crew was tied into the big hospitals up there. Fast service; world-class connection.

The police arrived, followed by the ambulance. Someone told Annie that John was on another call, an accident out in Katama. She would have preferred if he were there, but knew that Donna would be safe and well cared for; they slid her onto a gurney and into the back of the vehicle with deft precision. During the process, Donna lifted her eyelids once or twice, looked around, then promptly closed them.

Kevin opted to ride in the back of the ambulance; Annie said she’d drive behind them. Taylor offered to bring her in the pickup. Earl said he’d go home and tell Claire what had happened, then he’d swing by the hospital to see if they needed anything.

Though it was broad daylight, Taylor put a portable, red-flashing light on her dashboard, and they rumbled toward the On Time in their small parade.

There was no waiting at the dock: the police car and the ambulance drove right onto the ferry, bypassing a short queue of other vehicles. Ninety seconds later, the police and the ambulance reached the other side and rolled off the On Time, which then deadheaded back to Chappy so Taylor could cross next.

Once they, too, reached Edgartown, Annie braced herself as Taylor gunned the engine; they caught up with the ambulance before reaching the Triangle. Luckily, it wasn’t summer yet so the traffic was manageable. But the thought of tourist season began to bear down on Annie: what it might or might not bring. And, most of all, what would happen to Donna.

“Did your mother relapse?” Taylor said, and once again it took a few seconds for Annie to realize that “mother” meant Donna and not Ellen Sutton who’d been dead for years and whom Taylor hadn’t known, anyway.

“I don’t know.” She didn’t tell her Kevin’s suspicion.

“Kevin must be taking it hard.”

“He will if something’s gone wrong.”

Taylor nodded. She did not pry further, which caused Annie to feel more nervous about Donna’s condition. Annie knew practically nothing about any kind of cancer except the leukemia that her mother Ellen had had, and, of course, Murphy’s multiple myeloma. But ovarian cancer was a mystery to her. Except she now knew that Donna had lost her hair.

She hoped the EMTs hadn’t removed Donna’s wig while Kevin was there.