Then I remembered what it was like to come home to take care of her. It was never pride I saw in her eyes all those months she was sick. It was something else: fear, resentment. I sometimes had the sense she was about to tell me something, divulge some great truth or secret. But she would always grow silent, turn away from me. Whatever she knew about life, whatever message she had for me then, I needed it now more than ever. I didn’t need obscure dream sequences with candles.

By the time I reached the information booth, I felt a great swelling in my throat, and it seemed to belong to many different emotions, pushing and shoving for real estate in my body. I felt confused, with formidable questions rearing up again and again. Why hadn’t she told us about Cole if she believed he was Colin? Where had she met him? And why did he suddenly want to be with us so badly, after all this time? Did he actually think he was Colin, too?

At lunchtime I went to the Day Estate where Lucas worked. He was raking the paths. Scooping up the twigs and leaves into a garden cart. There were smudges of dirt on his face, his bare arms.

“I have to talk to you,” I said. “It’s about Cole.”

I told him that Cole wasn’t his real name. I told him about the letter. He listened in stillness. Afterward, he asked to see the letter, but of course I didn’t have it anymore. We sat down on a bench overlooking the water and the four sharp rock jetties stretching into the turbulent waves. Everyone called them the Claws.

“You see?” he said, his eyes bright and glassy, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be seeing.

“He’s hiding things from us,” I said.

“She told me once that she’d found Colin. She told me she knew who he was and where he was. She said he was coming here. But this was when she was really sick, and her mind was wandering. I didn’t believe her.”

The water before us churned rhythmically, beating on the rocks.

“I should have believed her,” he said.

I felt a sweet familiar ache, what it felt like to take care of him. What is it about brothers? We take care of them, protect them, and feel grateful to have that important job—but under all of it runs a current of resentment. Because why aren’t they taking better care of us?

That evening when I got home, Lucas and Cole were huddled at the kitchen table. Lucas’s eyes were wet, bright. I sat down with them, the three of us around the tiny table. It was warm in the kitchen, that familiar hum coming from the refrigerator.