She asks for Shakespeare, and Lissa and Laurie take turns to read the sonnets. One sunny Sunday, Lissa calls Johnny, who comes to join them, arriving freshly shaven, bringing flowers and pastries and good coffee and wine. They read Antony and Cleopatra all the way through, taking turns to read the parts. It takes all day, and is one of the nicest days she can remember. Sarah has her eyes closed for most of it. Sometimes Lissa sits beside her, takes her hands, which Sarah squeezes now and again.

Later, Johnny helps to carry Sarah down to the garden. It is the first time in a week since Sarah has left her bed. When Lissa and Johnny make a hammock with their hands and lift her, she is noticeably lighter. Laurie disappears into the kitchen to roast a chicken, waving them all outside.

“Fetch my sketchbook, would you?” says Sarah, when she is sitting in the chair. Lissa does so, bringing it and her tin of charcoals. Then she retreats to the bench behind her, watching her mother’s charcoal move over the paper, the garden springs to life beneath her hand: Johnny dozing in a deck chair, Ruby stretched belly up in the sun.

Later that evening, when the chicken has been eaten and Sarah is asleep in bed and Johnny has departed, Lissa and Laurie stand by the sink, clearing the last of the plates.

“Is he your lover?” says Laurie.

“Who?” Lissa looks up, startled.

“Johnny?”

“No.”

“He’d like to be. He’s a lovely man.”

“I don’t need a lover,” says Lissa. “Not now.”

Laurie nods.

“And he’s complicated.”

“We’re all complicated,” says Laurie. She stows plates in cupboards, wipes down surfaces. It is the tidiest the kitchen has ever been.

“I’m giving up acting,” says Lissa. “I realized that earlier, when we were reading. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“That’s a shame, Liss,” says Laurie softly.

“No,” says Lissa. “It’s not. I never want to go to another audition again.”

She feels this land, the certainty of it. The relief.

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“Sort of.” Outside, the light lands in the pear tree. “I’ve been thinking. I’d like to train to be a teacher.”

“Really?”

She nods. “An English teacher.”

“Like your mother.”

“Like Sarah, yes.” She turns to Laurie. “But I’m not sure. I’m going to go away first. To make up my mind.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

It is hard, hard to think of a destination that does not seem contrived—she does not want to find herself. Or perhaps she does. Perhaps that is exactly what she wants.