She walked. Not down to the beach because she didn’t need to be reminded of that clump of seaweed stuck between the rocks. Instead, she headed up the driveway, past the scrub oaks and pines, past the places where clusters of green shrubbery were dewy and expectant, not yet ready to reveal their buds.

Reaching the dirt road, Annie took a right. She didn’t know where she was going, but she stayed on the main road rather than going toward Cape Poge Bay; the only things out there were osprey nests. As much as she loved living on Chappy, parts of it were still too isolated for her comfort.

She walked fifteen or twenty minutes, then fifteen or twenty more. She supposed it was not surprising that, subconsciously, she was headed to Earl and Claire’s. Nor was it surprising when she saw Earl’s pickup heading toward her.

He stopped; he rolled down his window. “Out for a stroll?”

“Very funny. But no. I’m fretting about my brother.”

“Yeah, I noticed he was up and out kind of early. His bed looked hardly slept in. I figured I ought to try to track him down.”

“I’ll save you the trouble. He’s at the Inn. Hammering down hardwood floor.”

“I didn’t know he knew how to do that.”

“He doesn’t. He’s upset. Sleep deprived, he claims. He’s taking out his troubles on a bunch of nails and wooden planks.”

Earl scratched his chin, the way Kevin now did sometimes. Maybe Kevin wished that he’d had Earl as a father.

“He mad at someone?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Not even at Donna. Well, not at her exactly. But he found out last night that she had cancer. And that she didn’t tell him.” She hadn’t intended to tell Earl so soon, and certainly not while he was in his pickup and she was standing on the roadside at seven in the morning where little could be heard above the engine of the truck other than the incessant chirping of a few birds.

“She’s terminal?” he asked.

“No. She’s actually recuperating. But she hasn’t used the word ‘cure,’ or even ‘remission.’ So that’s where we’re at.” Until that moment, Annie hadn’t realized she’d been worried about the possibility that Donna might not “recuperate.”

“Well, God, that’s unsettling.”

She didn’t tell Earl that she didn’t know what God had to do with it. Having faith in anything had waxed and waned for her over the years.

Then Earl said, “Get in.” He raised a thumb and gestured toward the passenger side of the cab. “I can’t have you trundling all over this island in the wee hours of the morning. You might run into Bigfoot or a gator.”

She could not stop a smile. “There’s no such thing as Bigfoot, at least not on Chappaquiddick. And I don’t believe that we have gators, either.”

“You never know,” he said. “Stranger things have happened here.”

Annie didn’t need to be reminded of that, either.