I glance behind me and feel more than see figures leaving the grove, over the hill, out of view. Real or imagined, I feel pursued, and so I keep going.

I bet they do this every time, the day before the Day. It seemed practiced, like a square dance, or, what are they called? Morris dancers, with their bells and sticks? Hugh took me to see a troupe at a village fête on the mainland before we were married. Silly old men, I remember thinking, but you could hardly fault them for enjoying it, even if you didn’t understand it at all. It wasn’t my culture. This isn’t either.

I stop jogging, my lungs on fire, and grip my loose hair with two fists.

For the first time since those fraught early years here, I feel certain I don’t belong on Lute. I never belonged at home, in Florida. I managed to briefly convince myself that I was less of an alien at college, but after I did what I did—no, once everyone knew what I did—that bubble was popped. The only place I’ve ever actually belonged is nowhere. In between. In cars and airplanes and ocean liners.

And with Gran. Anywhere with Gran.

When I was on the boat, Hugh consumed my every waking and sleeping thought. Now when I think of that ship, I think of Gran, my champion with her dry, sarcastic laugh, the way she’d point at me when I said something funny, her collection of hats she bought and never wore, her passion for fruit salad, her fierce, unwarranted devotion to me from the moment I was born.

I let her down. I didn’t fight for her. I introduced her to Hugh, she loved him instantly, his courtesy, his charm, and we made a lively trio for four whole days before I ditched her at the airport. I called her from here, of course I did, but our chats weren’t much more than an item checked off my to-do list, and I initiated them less and less frequently as I sensed her mind slipping and knew what it meant. I ran. I always run. I squirmed backward from my guilt and all the poisoned memories she couldn’t help but carry with her, until it was a nurse answering every time, telling me she was sleeping.

I’ll never see her again.

Sometimes I wonder if she would have liked it here on Lute. And sometimes, even though it makes no sense, I feel like she’s been here this whole time, walking beside me. Like she never went back to Florida to be bullied into submission in her last days. It’s a pretty lie.

I pull my shirt collar around my neck. I need a jacket. It’s getting cold. Glancing back one more time, I don’t see any Lutes. They must have stayed behind, chatting. Maybe they brought a picnic.