The unmistakable sound of tires crunching over gravel was heard in the distance, and everyone turned. A pair of headlights soon flashed through the woods. Kate looked around for Devin, a slight panic in her voice as she called for her. Devin, who had lost interest in the frog, was jumping from one pool of umbrella light to the other across the lawn. She ran back to her mother. That was curious, Eby thought. Who did they think it was?

A dark blue Toyota appeared and circled around them, coming to a stop in front of the main house. A lean man in his sixties got out. He smiled and lifted his hand in a shy wave.

“That makes seven!” Bulahdeen said happily, writing his name down.

“If he’ll be at the party, I might come,” Selma said.

Bulahdeen made a tsking sound, not looking up from her list. “You know he’s not here for you.”

“It doesn’t mean I can’t dance with him.”

“Who is that?” Kate asked.

“That’s Jack Humphry,” Eby told her. “He stays here every summer. He’s been in love with Lisette for years. He knows this is his last chance with her. Look at that expression on his face. That is the look of a man who has finally woken up.”

“I know that feeling,” Kate said.

Eby wanted to say so much to her. She wanted to say that waking up is the most important part of grieving, that so many women in their family failed to do it, and she was proud of Kate for fighting her way back. But Eby didn’t say anything. She could fix a lot of things, but family wasn’t one of them. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to come to terms with. It was the very reason she’d left Atlanta. She squeezed Kate’s arm, then pulled the bag out of the trash can and walked to the main house to greet Jack.

Because it was high time Lisette woke up, too.

Chapter 5

5

In the inky stillness of the next morning, Lisette woke up and dressed quietly in the silks her elderly mother still sent her from Paris—cool slippery things that made her feel like she was covering herself with fresh air. For a while, after she left Paris, Lisette threw away her mother’s packages on principle. Lisette was not the same vain pretty girl her mother had once known. But then Lisette started making an exception for the lingerie. It was not vain if no one but herself saw her wear them. She then put on a blue dress and a freshly laundered apron that smelled like the lemongrass soap Eby used for the camp’s sheets and towels, the only soap that could take out the damp mustiness that wanted to cling to everything in this place.