She stopped only when she reached the beach, a long crescent that ran along a road. It was empty except for one distant figure on the far end, hurling a tennis ball for a dog. She sat on the edge of the stone wall that overlooked the sea, and took deep, ragged breaths. The sun was burning through the thin layer of cloud and causing spots to swim in Caitlin’s vision. She was light-headed, and she thought about how little she had eaten in the previous twenty-four hours. Still, she felt better after the run than she’d felt in the past few days.

When her heartbeat had slowed down, she turned and began to walk back toward the motel. She’d made up her mind on the run. She’d travel back with Grace on the plane the following day, if she could still get a reservation. It meant another day in Maine, another day alone in the town where Grace had died, but she could handle it. She’d call her mother as soon as she got back to the motel.

Once the decision was made, she felt relieved. And now that she had a day to kill, she thought about Harry. She wanted to see him again. Talking with him at the diner the previous afternoon had helped her. Some of that had to do with how grief-stricken he seemed, not just by his father’s death, but by Grace’s as well, and some of that was because she’d felt so instantly comfortable with him. She thought of Grace’s last e-mail, in which she’d written how cute Harry was, although Caitlin assumed that she was simply transferring whatever she felt for his father onto him. Caitlin and Grace had never been attracted to the same men. Grace, since their father’s abandonment, had always fixated on older men, or, if not older, then men who were quiet and distant, men who were challenging. Caitlin, less assertive, had always been drawn to gregarious boys, sporty types who told jokes, and treated her like one of the boys.