Hallie stepped closer to Walter, holding her hands in a tight knot in front of her. “Right now you will leave. Our dad, our precious dad, is lying in a morgue and all you can think about is defending your rights as a family member. All you can think about is telling my sister why it was better that you married me and cheated on me instead of her. You have no empathy. No heart. Right now you will disappear.”

Walter passed his gaze from one sibling to another and yet did exactly as they’d told him to do. He left.

Hallie and Colleen looked at each other, but neither spoke a word. There was altogether too much and too little left to be said. They returned to the living room, where Colleen collapsed into a chair and brought her cast to her lap as Shane brought her a glass of orange juice and another pain pill. “I’m sorry.” She spoke the words robotically, speaking to both siblings but looking at neither. “I couldn’t have him in this room with this grief.”

“Thank you,” Hallie said. “Honestly, thank you.”

“Lena,” Shane said very quietly, “Mr. Lister dropped off the will a couple hours ago.”

“Dad’s lawyer. The one who does all the pub business?”

“Yes. It seems he also did the will and estate for Dad.”

“And?”

“There’s nothing stunning in it. Everything he owns is split between the three of us, and the pub is mine to manage. We can figure that out later, but the one thing that is urgent is this—he asks for cremation and that his ashes be scattered in the river. Our river.” Shane motioned to the back window where they could each see the water. “I’d never heard him state this belief out loud, but he wrote that the Irish believe that where you are buried, that is where you will one day resurrect again. And he wants to be in the river.”

“Not with Mother in the cemetery?” Hallie’s voice was low and quiet.

“I don’t think it’s about not being with her,” Colleen said and paused to guzzle large gulps of the orange juice, brush her hand across her face, clearing her thoughts. “He spent his life with her. It seems obvious that the water is where he forever wants to be.”

Hallie shook her head, her hair falling across her face. “It’s too awful to understand. I can’t understand.” She looked between her brother and sister as the girls reentered the room, Sadie holding out the wand and handing it to Colleen. “Do you think he took his life?” Hallie asked in a quiet whisper.

“What does that mean?” Rosie asked, and her eyes scanned the faces of the adults.