He died in the night. My mother was alone with him when it happened. She’d tried to take him over to the mainland on the evening ferry, but he didn’t make it to the hospital. I didn’t like to picture him in her arms, seven weeks old, the cold wind as the ferry ripped along, all of them—mother, baby, and boat—chasing his disappearing breath.

They buried him in the island cemetery and lady’s slippers sprang up on the mound of earth under the shady branches of the encroaching woods. The flowers returned year after year, their delicate swelling like some sad secret the earth was telling. They were beautiful in a way that nothing else we knew was beautiful, their pale fleshiness, dark pink veins. In childhood, we went every year to plant more, transplanting them from the woods around the Day Estate, even after we didn’t need to. They flourished, spread, a lovely rash creeping from Baby B’s earth to the other grassy graves, the color densest beside the headstone that said SON~BROTHER.

He had broken my mother’s heart, that was clear to us. Although his body was buried in the earth under all those flowers, he never really passed away the way the dead should. He hung around on the fringes of our consciousness all the time.

In the dimly lit kitchen—only a single bulb over the sink—I watched my brother’s eyes, huge, glassy. “It’s Baby B,” he said.

The stranger held still as if afraid to break a spell. His eyes moved from me to Lucas.

“Lucas, Baby B is dead,” I said.

“I’ve been dreaming about him every night,” Lucas said. “I could sense him getting closer, and I thought there was something I was supposed to do. But it wasn’t me after all. You were the one who had to bring him here.”

“He’s a stranger, Lu. I met him tonight at the inn.”

“Then how do you explain this?” Lucas pointed at Cole’s ankle—at a small tattoo I hadn’t noticed. “Lady’s slipper.”

We both looked at Cole. “I got that when I was twenty-one,” he said.

“Why that particular flower?” I asked.

“Why? Because it’s beautiful, and rare. And it was someone’s favorite flower—someone I loved. Sorry, what is going on? Who’s Baby B?” A flush had risen from his neck to his cheeks. His eyes black, bright.

“He was our brother,” I said. “Sorry, maybe it’s time for you to go.”

“No,” Lucas said. “Don’t go! Here, sit down. I’ll get a beer for you, and we’ll tell you about Baby B. We’ll tell you the whole story.”