“I’ll be good as gold. I just thought it might be a nice place to talk. Besides, we have to celebrate gas rationing being over. I mean, even though it’s been over three months.”

She relented, laughing.

They drove through town, out into the darkness of the countryside, and down the rutted road that led out onto the Point, following the narrow beams of the headlights through tall brown grasses that shimmied in the breeze. Anne had the strange sense they were descending somehow, traveling to a place other than anything she had known before. It seemed that perhaps there would be no return. But she had no regrets. In fact, her skin seemed to hum with anticipation—exactly for what she didn’t know, but she had the feeling that finding out would be its own reward.

The water off to the left—the harbor’s narrow little finger—shone black in the night. To the right, past the trees and over a sand dune, was Lake Superior. Occasional cars were pulled off the road into parking spots that had been created through persistent use. When Harry found a vacant one, he pulled in, and the Buick rolled to a hushed stop.

“Want to get out and take a look at the lake?” he asked.

She weighed the idea, then nodded. She had always felt that the lake could almost baptize her, when she needed it to. She supposed she had been avoiding it these past few months, because she knew it would access that place deep within her that mourned, the place she kept buried under obligations of classes, friends, volunteer work. But she knew the time had come. She was glad that Harry had brought her here, and found herself wondering, How could he have known?

He shut off the car, then came around to open her door for her, and she stepped out into the cold air gusting off the lake. She could hear the waves rolling on the shore as she took his arm and followed him onto the dune, holding on to her hat, struggling to keep her footing in her heels. When they reached the dune’s apex, they were met with the vista of the black expanse of the lake meeting the strip of white sand, all topped by an endless cloud-striped sky. She caught her breath. Like a string that had been plucked, her grief reverberated within her, loudly at first, and then fading to almost nothing. She tasted a snowflake that landed on her lip. It seemed that the end of something had come.

“You all right?” Harry said. “Want to go back?”