Charley had often wondered how they could have been saved from such utter disaster. It was obvious what went wrong—poor little Bunny, gone. But it remained a mystery how everything could go as wrong as it had. That was probably why she had been so successful in the talk show business—that search for answers. She’d had a San Francisco–based television talk show for a dozen years and, since she’d studied journalism and psychology, she’d favored guests who had insights into dysfunctional people and relationships. It had been a very popular show.

And it was now canceled. “I want to go back,” Meg said. “I want to see if I remember.”

There it is, Charley thought. Everyone in the family had their own response to Bunny’s sudden death and Megan’s was to forget. Most of that last summer at the lake didn’t happen in her mind. She had been only fifteen at the time. The doctor called it a nervous breakdown and completely understandable, given the circumstances. They hospitalized and medicated her. She didn’t stay in the hospital long, then came home and seemed her old self with one exception—she couldn’t remember almost a year of her life. Pieces came back over time but it wasn’t talked about.

The Berkey-Hempstead family was very good at not talking about things.

“Do you think if you go back to the lake for a while it will all come flooding back, after twenty-seven years?”

“No,” Meg said. “I think I’ll remember the golden days of summers there. I think I’ll remember what a happy childhood we had. For the most part. I think it will be healing. So relaxing and healthy. I want to hear the ducks, the boats on the lake, the children at the camp down the road, the naughty teenagers partying across the lake in that cove. Surely that’s still there, the cove.”

Charlene remembered partying on the beach at the cove around the bend from the lodge. She had been all of sixteen. “Hopefully someone built a great big house there,” she said. “Or a parking lot.”

“I hope it’s not very changed…”

“That’s what you really want?” Charley asked.

“It’s all I want.”

Charley knew she had no choice because you don’t deny your only sister who has cancer anything. “I’ll have to go there,” she said. “Certainly things will have to be done to make it civilized. I’ll have to make sure the house is habitable. I should tell Michael our plans, talk with Eric…”

“Will Michael put up a stink about this?” Meg asked.

“I don’t know why he should. Of course I’ll have his complete support—he loves you. Maybe he’ll even steal a little time and come out for a visit, bring Eric.”

“Everything is all right with you and Michael, isn’t it?” Megan asked.