In honor of all the summer's blessings, Liam and Rose had caught lobsters. Liam had bought a rowboat with a small engine and three pots, set them just off the rocks with buoys marked with white and green stripes. That morning at dawn, while Nanny swam in the waves—her white back and dorsal ridge pink in the light of the rising sun—Liam and Rose had rowed out to haul their first catch.

Ten lobsters came up in the pots. Lily had watched from the porch as Liam showed Rose how to measure the carapace, and then how to throw back the undersize ones, and the egg-bearing female. All but three were keepers. Rose still seemed hesitant about eating lobsters, but she wanted to celebrate for Maeve's sake.

Maeve walked through her house, checking out everything. Rose stayed by her side, pointing out pictures she had drawn, flowers she had picked, asters she had pressed in the family Bible, just as Lily had done as a child. Maeve in turn had pointed out the doorway in the downstairs bedroom where she had measured Lily's growth every summer, the blue ribbons Lily had won in beach swim races, her first tennis trophy, and her very first needlepoint pillow—of a rose garden.

“See?” Maeve asked. “Your mother has always loved roses.”

Rose beamed.

“Let's measure you,” Maeve said, rummaging through her dresser drawer for a pencil.

“I'm short for my age,” Rose said, standing against the door. Her head came up to where Lily's had been when she was six, three years younger. Lily, watching from the hall, felt a pang.

“That doesn't matter,” Maeve said, making the pencil mark. “It's no use comparing yourself with others. Not just in height, but in life. It's how you grow inside—how you try and how you learn from your mistakes—that counts. That's all that matters, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” Rose said, looking up at her great-grandmother with grave eyes. She turned to look at the mark and smiled.

“I used to imagine us doing this,” Maeve said. “I've always saved a place for you on this door.”

“Even though you didn't know me?”

“Oh, Rose. I've always known you,” Maeve said, hugging her. “Right where it matters.”

“Where?”

“In my heart,” Maeve said.

Rose nodded. That was something she understood very well.

Liam called to say the lobsters were almost done. Lily put out corn, melted butter, and tossed the salad with tomatoes freshly picked from Clara's garden.

They sat around the kitchen table. Everyone joined hands, and Maeve said grace. Lily bowed her head. She could barely look up—all of them together at one table: Maeve, Liam, Rose, and Lily. This was a day she had so often thought would never come.