I also know everyone who follows us back to the cottage from the funeral. Dad knows them all, too, since most of them have lived here forever and still talk about what a fat baby he was.

Old Joe (who is Gram’s age) and Older Joe (who is about a thousand) hit the buffet table and then strike up a conversation with Dad about corn prices. They run the farm that wraps around one side of the town. If you ever visit Lanternwood, odds are you’ll get stuck behind Old Joe driving his tractor down High Street, chugging from one end of the horseshoe to the other.

Gloria and Ruth—Gram’s best friends since childhood—make a beeline for me as soon as they walk in the door.

“Oh, Emma,” says Gloria, opening her arms and enveloping me in a crushing hug. “We miss her already, don’t we?”

I shouldn’t be surprised by Gloria’s strength. She’s only five feet tall, but she manages to string the holiday lights outside the village hall every year and has been known to use her huge handbag to hit people who ask how old she is.

“Yeah,” I say. “We do.”

“She had a good life,” croaks Ruth, banging her cane against the wood floor for emphasis. “A good, long life.”

When you come to Lanternwood, Ruth will be the one leaning on her cane in her yard next door to the church, waiting to complain about her aching bones to anyone who happens to pass by. Now she lets out a sob, and Gloria reaches into her enormous purse and hands her a tissue. Ruth blows her nose—actually she sounds like she’s trying to blow it off—and brings all conversation to a halt. Then she catches sight of Mom.

“Excuse us, Emma,” she says. “We need to have a little chat with your mother.”

As Gloria and Ruth corner Mom and begin to pressure her into joining the garden club, I make my way over toward where Dad has gone to sit with Lily. In the corner of the room, standing in front of one of Gram’s river paintings, I glimpse Professor Swann, who used to teach in town at Hampstead College. He’s dressed in the same tweed suit and old-fashioned hat that he wears every day when he takes his morning and evening walks to the river.

You can tell by his British accent that Professor Swann didn’t grow up here. Even though he’s lived in Lanternwood for most of his life, he’s still kind of an outsider. He is standing alone right now, sipping coffee and staring off into space, his eyes misty with tears. Which is sweet, since I don’t think he and Gram were particularly close.

“Gloria has extra tissues if you need one,” I say.