Stumbling to a stop beside her, I watch in horror as it disappears. Given its import, it should make some sort of show before going down. But if even the smallest splash occurs, it is lost in the rain-roiled waves.

“Anne!” I protest, dismayed, “why?”

She turns on me, voice rising over sea and rain. “Why not! I don’t want a gun around. He threatened Jack, he’ll threaten other people, he just loses it sometimes without knowing what he’s doing, and now you and Margo are here—and Joy, do you want a gun around her? What kind of mother are you? What kind of awful mother wants a gun anywhere near her child?”

“You said there was no gun, you swore it,” I charge, refusing to look back when footsteps patter from behind. I’m suddenly, powerfully livid at Anne—livid that a gun did exist, livid that it is now gone, livid that she didn’t consider anyone’s wishes but her own. Mostly, I’m livid that she doubts I’m a responsible mother. She stood up there on the bluff all but crying at the thought of raising a child alone. But everything I’ve done for Joy all these years, I’ve done alone. It was me, only me—no Bill, no Dad, no Lina, no cozy little Bay Bluff to help—and I’ve produced an incredible person, so clearly I’ve done something right.

Anne may be right. I haven’t been here for Dad. But I’m a good mother. She has no right to question that. And I’m a good sister, if keeping the three of us in touch is any measure. She didn’t help with that, not one bit. It has been me, all me, spending a lifetime trying to keep peace.

Well, fuck that. Birth order only goes so far. Attack me, and finally, belatedly, wholeheartedly, I attack back.

Here on the dock in the dark under a steady rain, I let go in a voice that is fierce after years of restraint. “You call Margo selfish, but you’re the selfish one, Anne. You had no right to do what you just did. It was thoughtless and uncaring. What happened that night happened to all of us. Just because we weren’t here doesn’t mean that gun didn’t shape our lives. It’s haunted us for twenty years—was the biggest question—and you just threw away all the answers. What in the hell were you thinking?”

Eyes dark, mouth tight, there is little sugar in her heart-shaped face. “That gun would tell us nothing.”

“How do you know? It had a story. If we’d been able to confront him with it, he might have talked. If it had a serial number, it could have been traced.”