How would my mother have responded if Cole had shown up while she was still alive? I put her face together carefully, not leaving anything out: her heavy, pale hair, her orange lipstick, the way she pushed her reading glasses up on top of her head. I tried to remember her as she really was: my mother, not some dream. I imagined her in the doorway, with Cole Anthony standing across the threshold. She watched him carefully. He told his story. Something stirred in her face, but she didn’t make a move yet. Some fissure in her belief system needed to widen before this new belief could enter. Her breathing got fast. The fissure widened. The belief entered her completely. She gasped. Opened her arms. Pulled him close.

In some ways it was like that for me. Slowly, day by day, hour by hour, almost without my knowing it was happening, I allowed Cole Anthony into the inner circle of trust where really only Lucas had been allowed before. He didn’t talk about his past, but I slowly began to accept that there were private—justified—reasons for that. Maybe he was recovering from a broken heart, from a large and powerful grief. Maybe he really hadn’t liked the person he used to be and wanted nothing more than to start over. In some ways he was just like everyone else who came to Wolf Island—he was looking for something. Memories, I thought. A new story, a new past. Or maybe a future.

I liked having Cole around for a few reasons, but when I was honest with myself I saw that a primary reason was that he took some responsibility for Lucas. For the first time in so long, I wasn’t always needed. If I didn’t come straight home after work, they simply made dinner without me. I could leave early in the morning, and they would make breakfast and Lucas would go ahead to work without me. It was like some vista opening up. I could see farther than ever before. I could see into the future, a future where I could make choices for myself.