Donna—her mother, yet a stranger—looked as though she were sleeping. In fact, she looked exactly as she had after she’d kissed Annie’s cheek the night before, then closed her eyes and smiled.

Annie sat beside her, took her hand; it was cool. She wanted to cry. But she could not. So she just sat there, staring at Donna, as if waiting for her to wake up.

Then Kevin was in the room. He sat on the other side of the bed and held Donna’s other hand.

Annie and Kevin did not speak. They did not have to. The silence was their communication.

The ambulance arrived, though Annie didn’t know how much time had elapsed. The faces were familiar; Taylor’s wasn’t among them. After all, it was far too late for the skills of an EMT.

Whoever the responders were, they strapped Donna to a gurney and took her away.

Later—that night or the next day—Annie remembered that John had been there, that he’d driven Annie and Kevin to his parents’ house because Earl and Claire were their family now. At one point, Annie went outside, sat on the deck alone, and stared at the pansies Lucy had planted. She could not bear to be in the same room with Kevin’s grief; she’d been too unsure if she was feeling her pain or his.

Then John was there again. Sitting next to her.

“I love you,” he said.

And Annie cried, that time knowing that the ache and the tears were hers.

He put his arm around her, and she wept into his chest over so many losses that she remembered too well.

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Annie spent the next days wandering the beaches, collecting wampum, shells, and sea glass for the Inn, and helping Jonas hang several of his lovely paintings in the great room. She did everything quietly, by rote, in a kind of slow motion that got her through to the nights. Kevin had returned to hammering; by then he was attacking moldings in the bedrooms. He seemed to take more solace in doing aggressive work. Annie finally told him that Donna had told her that the money for the Inn had come from her; Kevin had nodded, but there was no need for discussion. Sometime in the future, Annie knew they’d share how much that meant to each of them.

Donna had left instructions that she wished to be cremated; at the end of the week, they held a memorial service at the tiny St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown. She’d once commented on how wonderful it was that the sanctuary doors were wide open every day, welcoming all. Annie wondered if Donna might have hoped that she and Kevin could find some comfort there.

“She didn’t want to stick around too long,” Earl said after the service, when people had gathered in small groups in the compact parish hall and were eating bite-sized sandwiches and tea cakes and sipping coffee from paper cups. “She worried about being a burden on you and your brother.”