“I’m so sorry, Donna. Kevin didn’t tell me,” Annie said. And while illness—a cold? The flu? Pneumonia?—could explain the weight loss and the gauntness, it certainly had done an awful number on Donna.

Donna tasted the chowder. “Kevin didn’t tell you because he doesn’t know. I didn’t look this bad when I saw him at Christmas.”

“You should have called. Either one of us would have gone up there . . .”

The older woman shook her head. “I did not want to crowd you. You’ll never know how thrilled I am that you two are friends. But you and your brother have each been through a lot. So, yes, I did not want to crowd you. You’re both working hard; you didn’t need your mother interrupting that.”

Annie winced at the reference to “mother.” There was definitely a fine line between Donna MacNeish and Ellen Sutton that Annie did not want to cross. Maybe things would have been different if Annie had responded years ago when Donna first reached out to her.

That was then and this is now, Murphy whispered.

Taking another spoonful of chowder, Annie was aware that Donna was barely eating. “You would not have invaded our space,” she finally said. “Do you want to tell me what was wrong?”

“No.”

The ferry whistle blew; Annie turned her attention to the harbor where the big Island Home—the lifeline to the island—was pulling out of the dock, making its way back to Woods Hole.

Donna sighed. “I don’t want to tell you, but I will. It’s really the reason I’ve come.”

The same instinct Annie had had the night that Mark hadn’t come home—had never come home again—rose in Annie’s stomach. This time, it churned the chowder.

“I’ve had a bout with cancer,” Donna continued. “Ovarian. Not the best kind—as if there is a best kind.”

Raising one hand to her temple, Annie reached across the table and rested her other hand on Donna’s. “Oh, Donna. I’m so sorry. Are you having treatment?”

“I was. They’re done. It wasn’t pleasant, but now it’s time for me to recuperate.”

More than anything, Annie wanted to find the right words—if there were any right ones. She didn’t have the courage to ask—what was the term? If they’d “gotten it all”? In her peripheral vision, she was aware of the white behemoth inching out toward Vineyard Sound, its back-and-forth mission similar to life: some crossings were smoother than others. “Kevin doesn’t know?” she asked, though Donna had already said he did not.