When Boomer and I return from the Spinney, the sun hangs in the watery blue sky like a juicy golden apple, ripe for the picking. And somehow, I feel a little bit lighter. Because for a whole hour, I wasn’t thinking about my skin and my maybe-spreading-even-now vitiligo.

And now that I’ve written a chapter, it’s somebody else’s turn. Will they like what I wrote? Will they write again?

I’m so lost in thought that I nearly bump into Professor Swann, out for his morning walk.

“Morning, Emma,” he says, tipping his hat at me.

“Hi, Professor Swann,” I reply.

“A beautiful day,” he says, his accented words crisp as crunching leaves, “isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“The kind of day you want to share with someone,” he says, squinting up at the sky. “You know, we will miss your gram terribly around here. She always made me feel welcome in Lanternwood, even when other people treated me as an outsider. Always had a kind word to spare. She was a wonderful person. But you know that better than anyone, of course.”

“Yeah, she was,” I say, feeling a bit taken aback. I didn’t realize that she and Professor Swann knew each other that well. But I guess that explains why he seemed so upset after her funeral.

He wipes a bit of lint from his suit. “Well, I’d better—”

“Professor?” I interrupt. “Do you think— I mean, does it get easier? People say it does, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing Gram.”

He flashes me a sad smile. “You won’t,” he says. “But it will get easier.”

It’s just, there’s something in his eyes that makes me feel like he doesn’t quite mean it.

The last garden roses are blooming in the corner of Gram’s yard, forming a little crowd of pink, cheerful faces to welcome me through the white gate. Inside Morning Glory Cottage, it’s toasty warm, just the way Gram liked it, and Lily is sitting at the kitchen table.

“What were you doing outside?” she asks. “Mom and Dad think you’re still sleeping.”

“I went for a walk,” I say. “Why are you up so early anyway? Don’t you need your beauty sleep?”

Lily usually sleeps until at least ten on the weekends.

“I have to work on my personal statement. Mom will be mad if she finds out you left without saying.”

“She’ll only find out if you tell her.”

Lily hesitates, then shrugs. “Better take your sneakers off.” She picks up her phone with one hand, a Yale brochure in the other, and snaps some “applying to college” selfies.

I wriggle my feet out of my shoes and kick them over beside the door just as Mom and Dad come downstairs.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Mom says.

“I, um, just came down.”