Why all this fuss for people who’d died so publicly—so spectacularly—in a flash, when there was nothing for the thousands who’d died agonizingly slow, alone, shunned inside their rooms? Was this what was eating away at Kevin for weeks? All the friends in New York City he’d watched die and no one cared?

Yet Douglas, who was too young to have experienced those years in New York, needed to talk. Ever since that night at Government Dock, working side by side with the search and rescue volunteers, he’d been galvanized. What happened the weeks following at the naval yard Douglas couldn’t quite put into words; but he’d worked with people from all over the provinces who felt personally responsible for solving the puzzle of the crash. It had become something of an obsession for them, and Douglas, sensing their focus, their fervor, found it intoxicating too. With each recovery of an engine part, a wing flap, an electrical panel, they felt closer to an answer. Some nights after work, Douglas shared a beer with two young naval officers and some of the other workers. And after the excitement of the sorting facility and the camaraderie of the bar, Douglas found himself often reluctant to return home. Kevin could be such an old fart sometimes—he simply refused even to discuss the crash. He cared only about the upkeep of the inn, and complained about all the things Douglas wasn’t helping with. For years, they’d been drifting apart, two pieces of plankton floating farther and farther away. But now the gulf between them grew even greater. It wasn’t just the dozen years between them. It seemed to Douglas at times that Kevin cared more for his guests than he did for Douglas himself. And while Kevin complained about Douglas’s lack of help, wasn’t it that Kevin wouldn’t let him do anything? Wasn’t he just such a fucking control freak?

The darkest days of winter arrived. The wind batted and tore at the house. The Fallons, the neighbors with the summer cottage, pestered Kevin again with calls from Montreal. Would he please check their cottage, the hot water heater, the fridge? Could he get someone to drain the pipes?

By December, he felt something stirring inside. Breaking, snapping, coring itself out. He felt like a piece of wood, whittled down—thin, sharp, irritable. He longed for the silent Bulgarian, the Dutch girl, for Pars Mansoor and Ana Gathreaux. Those first days after the crash seemed almost innocent now, if that could possibly be said. For there had been such an outpouring from every person on the island, from the fishermen, the islanders, everyone offering rooms, cars, homes, the signs on the lawns expressing their solidarity. Kevin had felt it too, an orgy of public grief, of love.