Then Kevin said, “Annie said you need to go over something with us, Mom, about the estate planning? I thought you’d already taken care of that.”

Donna looked at Annie, not with anger, but with sorrow. Annie instantly regretted that she’d been so direct. God, she thought, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be part of a family. Not when it comes to this.

“I was sick,” Donna said, her voice so low that Annie had a hard time making out the words.

“What?” Kevin asked.

Donna raised her chin, reached out, and took his hand. “I was sick, honey,” she said more clearly. “I had ovarian cancer. I came to the island to be near my children while I recuperate.”

Kevin studied her a moment, their hazel eyes mirroring each other’s. He did not say a word; instead, he turned to Annie.

“I didn’t know, either,” Annie said. “Until today.”

“She told you?”

“She thought you were going to pick her up.” Annie looked at Donna with what she hoped was understanding. “And you needed to tell one of us, didn’t you?” Please, Annie thought, don’t make me feel guilty that you told me before Kevin.

“I did,” Donna replied, and patted Kevin’s hand. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s been bottled up inside me for so long. One of those ugly secrets you need to tell someone but can’t. I needed to wait until the crisis had been averted.”

“You’ve had plenty of practice.”

“Which didn’t always turn out bad.”

“Like when you started your antiques business before you told me you were going to, because even I knew you didn’t know a damn thing about antiques?”

“I knew I had to make a better living for us than I could by greeting people at a radio station. So I denied the odds and I won.”

“And now you’ve waited for the crisis to pass again.” He took a big swig of wine. “When did you get it?”

“Over a year ago. It’s why I sold the business. It’s why I took the cruise, which really wasn’t the ‘worldwide cruise’ I led you to believe. It was a boat trip across the Atlantic, then a long train ride to a hospital in Switzerland where I had an experimental treatment for two months.” Her gaze fell to her lap. “It took forever to get there, but my Boston doctor said I really shouldn’t fly.”

“He wanted you to go?”

“She. Dr. Geraldine Lang. And, yes. She wanted me to go. She recommended it.”

Kevin rubbed his chin as if pondering what Donna had said. Then he asked, “So your boyfriend never left you?”