Celeste walked along the ocean edge, collecting beach stones, picking up all the green ones that were the least blemished and dropping them in a bucket. She tried to tell herself that no matter how sad she felt, how scared of what a future would look like without Jack, she could still enjoy Provincetown’s unparalleled natural beauty. The sky was beginning to streak shades of peach, gold, and purple. How many times a season did she and Jack turn to each other and say, “That was the most beautiful sunset of all time,” only to find themselves repeating the same words the next night. And the most magical thing was that no two sunsets ever looked the same. In a town filled with painters and writers and sculptors and photographers, nature was the most prolific and surprising artist of all.

Sunsets always brought her comfort. Growing up, spending summers out in the Hamptons, she’d shared countless memories of watching the light fade over the Atlantic Ocean with her parents and sisters. They sat out back on Adirondack chairs, her parents debating how best to tame the mosquitos while she and her sisters angled for a trip into town for ice cream. Celeste remembered the sting of her sunburns, the smell of the salt air, and a feeling of absolute security.

She hadn’t cared when her father cut her off from the money. The thing she missed was the connective tissue between the five of them that had once felt as tight as a muscle. Every argument between herself and her sisters, every manipulation by her parents, every incident that made it clear that Pavlin the company was more important than Pavlin the family, set her further adrift until she had come to prefer the separation. And now, because of that, she was destined to be alone.

Celeste squinted into the near distance. Something about the sunlight bouncing off the ocean played tricks with her eyes. Or maybe it was the rush of nostalgia about the halcyon days of her youth. Either way, she thought she saw Elodie walking in her direction.

But then, it was Elodie, or a version of Elodie that she hadn’t seen in thirty years. Elodie, her hair blowing in the breeze, barefoot. Elodie, noticing her, too, gingerly offered a wave. They hadn’t spoken since their argument over the ring.

“I stopped by the store a few times today but I kept missing you,” Elodie said.

A seagull circled them, pausing to peck at a cracked mussel shell still holding meat.

Celeste’s impulse was to hold on to her anger about the Electric Rose. But she couldn’t deny that she wanted—no, needed—to talk to her sister.

She felt tears welling in her eyes.

“Celeste. Are you okay?”