I need to reconnect with that safe place. But I can’t leave Joy now. Or Margo. Margo has to be hurting, too.

“Anne will be back,” she whispers.

I don’t want her back. That’s the thing. I’m not up for another confrontation, any more than I can talk about the one we just had. Even after Joy reports that Dad is asleep in his chair, I continue to rock.

Margo slips out only when Joy is beside me again, as if by silent agreement they won’t leave me alone. Likewise, they ask nothing. Margo returns with three mugs of hot chocolate topped with globs of whipped cream, and though the gesture is the sweetest, I can’t drink. Hot chocolate, here, in this house, is so thick with memory that it would clog my throat.

My phone chimes. Grabbing it from the desk, Joy sets it in front of me on the quilt. It settles into a fold that obscures the screen, and for a minute, I don’t right it. If Anne is telling me to go back to New York, I’ll have a problem. If she is calling me a bastard in print, I’ll have a problem. If she is saying that she won’t be back for two weeks, I’ll have a problem.

Margo angles the phone, reads the screen, and turns it to me.

Just got home. Will you come?

“Jack?” she asks.

I nod.

“Go.”

“I can’t. What if Anne comes back?”

“She won’t,” Margo says softly. “If she’s with Billy, he’ll calm her, though how anyone covered with tattoos can be calming,” she mutters, “is a mystery. Go, Mal. If she comes back tonight, I’m here. I’m in charge. Joy will sleep with me.”

Again, I think of all they haven’t asked. “But what she said—”

“—can wait,” Margo cuts in, both commanding and gentle.

Leaning forward, I hug her, then put a hand to Joy’s face. She’s always such a talker that her silence unsettles me. When I draw back with the question in my eyes, she simply says, “Go, Mom.”

I’m not sure she’s okay. But Margo is already reaching for her, and right now, there’s no one I’d trust more.

Leaving the bed, I step into flip-flops, pull on my sweatshirt, and lifting its hood, run down the stairs.

With each step on the bluff stairs, each loping stride across the sand, everything else falls away. All I can think of is running through the rain to get to where I need to be.