“Yeah. I expected to be bowled over by sadness again, but I’m not.” Mandy set the empty urn in the bottom of the boat. “I feel…lighter.”

“I’ll always be grateful to him for what he did.” Danny reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“I’ll never forget him, but I’m going to try to focus on the good parts.” She wasn’t letting go of his memory, just the sadness and guilt. Jed would be in her heart forever.

“He would want you to be happy.”

“I know.” Mandy wiped a tear from her face. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to cry.” She’d thought she was out of tears. Danny and Mandy had attended Ashley’s funeral in Boston. A structural defect and the Taser charge had combined to cause the young woman’s heart to arrest. Her asthma hadn’t been the only cause of her shortness of breath. Two days after returning home, the sadness weighed on Mandy’s heart. No parent should have to bury a child. It was unnatural. So was suffering at a parent’s hands, though. Evan was still in the hospital, his sanity and health precarious after four months of imprisonment, watching his father plan to murder people on his behalf. The fate of Carolyn’s son was also uncertain, but a cousin had driven up from Boston to take the boy home with her. With no one to care for him and his disease turning him more violent by the day, Colonel Fitzgerald was being moved to a nursing facility.

“It’s OK.” Danny shifted a seat closer and took her hands in his. The scar on his left arm reminded her that he knew all about pain and loss and acceptance. “Better to let it out than let it fester.”

“I still can’t believe he left me everything. I have no idea what I’m going to do with all his stuff.” Jed’s will had been both recent and very detailed. Honey belonged to Bill. Everything else, from the cabin to the boat to the dogs, went to Mandy.

“So, you’ll know when you know. No rush.” Danny rowed them back to shore.

A small group of people stood on the bank. Victoria and Samantha hugged each other. Swollen, red eyes attested to their grief. Their parents hovered a few feet behind them. Next to them, Kevin gathered with his entire family. The still-gaunt Hunter was sandwiched between his parents.

But they were standing there, alive.

Mandy’s throat tightened. Even if she could speak, she didn’t have words to express the complicated emotions bottlenecked inside her.

Danny squeezed her shoulder. He got it. “Thank you all for coming. I know this is hard, but Jed would have appreciated you being here.”

“We had to,” Hunter said. “Didn’t we, Dad?”

“You bet.” Kevin choked out. “We owe him—and you both—everything.”