“Why can’t we just pull out one memory strand, or ten or twenty for that matter, and keep only the ones we want?”

He didn’t answer her, because of course there wasn’t an answer.

Instead he told her, “I’ve only told one other person that story. It’s mine. I don’t like dumping it on people.”

“I’m honored that you told me. My dad has this saying he’s repeated for as long as I can remember. ‘As the Irish say . . . ’ and one of them is, ‘No matter how long the day, the evening comes,’ which means, all things do end. But these bad memories of ours don’t seem to have an end.”

“Indeed.” Beckett attempted an Irish accent that wasn’t convincing. He laughed at himself and dropped his arm over her shoulder. In comfortable silence they took a few steps along the river walk. Colleen moved a few inches from Beckett, allowing his arm to fall from her shoulder, and they held hands.

Then quickly, a shiver ran up Colleen’s arm, and then down again. What was it? What was amiss? Something. Or was it that she was moving too close to Beckett too fast—alarms sounded inside.

There were so many people out enjoying the riverside at day’s end. Two teenage boys ate something out of a paper bag. A set of three girls took selfies with their phones and then snapped them again and then again in various poses. A couple stood kissing, her arms thrown around his neck and tears on her cheeks. He consoled her with strokes on her hair and cooing noises.

So familiar: that stance and those noises.

Walter.

Colleen squeezed Beckett’s hand too hard. “What?” He paused in midstep and Colleen released his hand and pointed at Walter and the young woman with the bright red hair, so unnatural it looked painted on.

“That’s him.” Her voice fell as low as her quickly plummeting stomach. And the label came from habit. “My fiancé.” She shook her head. “My brother-in-law.”

“That’s not your sister . . .” Beckett dropped his hands on Colleen’s shoulders and spun her around to face him. “Don’t get involved.” Beckett then took her face in his hands, kissed her.

Colleen stared at him for a few breaths and then broke free. “Of course I have to get involved. It’s my sister.” She twisted her neck to watch the train wreck, to see what she’d seen before as a repeating echo. But he was gone. Instead there stood a family of five, rough-and-tumble toddlers and two exhausted parents trying to get them to stand still for a photo next to the flagpole. The kids were having none of it.