We had stashed our clothes in the brush where we’d gone in, and then drifted swiftly in our underwear far from that spot. When we climbed out, naked except for bras and underwear, cold and shivering and laughing and scared and full of adrenaline, we had to creep along the banks looking for our clothes in dim light. The moon, the water, the lights reflected in the river, all contrasted with the trash along the river, the old fast-food bags, and newspapers, and plastic cups, and the shapes we glimpsed in the brush we thought were homeless men in sleeping bags.

We were so cold when we found our clothes, we couldn’t stop shivering, but even that felt good. The danger of the night felt like something our future selves would approve of. In intro to psychology the next day—that was the class we shared—I sat by Mary. And even this felt new and strange, this making a friend. On the island, we’d all known each other for so long, we were more like some big extended family of cousins, forced to play together, than like friends who’d found each other. But Mary was a friend I’d found, or who had found me. I imagined all the memories my future self would have of Mary and me, our adventures. Maybe we would backpack across Europe together the way my parents had. Maybe we would move into an apartment together when we graduated. We would be maids of honor at each other’s weddings, godmothers to each other’s babies. Our husbands would be best friends, as would our children.

I could see the future, as clearly as I’d ever seen anything. It was full of love. And it was mine alone, not Lucas’s or my mother’s. There was a freedom in that thought as sweet and forbidden as the October swim in the Providence River.

When my mother called a few weeks later to tell me she had cancer, I went home right away. I had to this time. I only mourned the one lost semester, the spring, somehow thinking she’d get better fast, that I’d be back next fall.

My mother never mentioned the lighthouse to me again. But she told me again and again that I had to look after Lucas. The sicker she got, the more desperate she sounded. You take care of him. Don’t leave him alone. Of course I was going to look after Lucas. I wasn’t a monster. She got smaller and smaller, her head tiny-looking with its wispy crown of hair. And when she died, like Baby B, she continued to hang around. Lucas said he saw her in the bathroom mirror. The smell of sandalwood sometimes wafted through the house, a ghostly cloud of it. He said he felt her embracing him just as he was falling asleep.