Most of them had plans that night with their husbands, fiancés or boyfriends and were off to shower and change. Jenny remembered what it was like to have a regular Saturday-night date and missed being half of a couple. But she certainly didn’t begrudge her friends their hard-won happiness. Each of them had been through the fire to get to where they were today, and they deserved all the good things life had to bring them.

However, as she drove away from Syd’s house, Jenny couldn’t help but be a tiny bit envious of what they had to go home to when she was on her way back to the empty lighthouse for another night alone.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Twelve hours after his day began, Alex drove onto the grounds of Martinez Lawn & Garden, where the retail store was closing for the night. Sharon, the young woman they’d hired to run the store for them this summer, waved to him as he went by. She’d been a total godsend to him and Paul as they managed the landscaping end of the business along with their mother’s increasingly complicated medical situation.

He drove into the huge aluminum building where they kept their equipment and stowed the trailer, not bothering to remove the mower, since they’d be back out bright and early in the morning. Alex, who wasn’t usually required to cut grass, was helping to work through the backlog and get back on schedule before they lost most of their landscaping customers.

He’d forgotten what an ass-kicker it was to ride the mower all day in the broiling sun, especially this week in the midst of the worst heat wave in recent history. Leaving the “barn,” as they called the equipment shed, Alex eyed the house with wary trepidation. What would he find when he got there? Would his mother be awake or asleep for the night? Would his brother be agitated from dealing with her and generally out of sorts?

Alex hated not knowing what to expect, and he hated that he hated his life with an unhealthy passion. He’d had a great life in DC, including a job he’d loved, good friends as well as softball and basketball leagues he’d played in for years. But then came the call last fall from his brother, letting him know that their mother’s forgetfulness had become something much bigger, and he couldn’t handle it all on his own any longer.

In the course of two weeks, Alex had quit the job he’d loved, sold his townhouse and moved home to Gansett Island. And now he was back to cutting grass twelve hours a day and coming home every night to a host of challenges he’d never expected to face and was completely unequipped to manage.