It was getting dark. She’d meant to head back to the Cape and tackle the list of chores the Realtor had told her she’d need to take care of, but her assistant had screwed up a spreadsheet, her manager called to ask her to update a presentation, and then … Screw it. She hardly ever went back to Wellfleet, because returning meant remembering.

Don’t, she thought. Don’t think about Anthony. That was her mantra. She could have tattooed the words across her wrist as a reminder. When she thought of Anthony, she thought of how hollow his words were that everything would work out if she just followed his plans. She was so stupid back then, so overwhelmed. And look what happened: Anthony sent her some money, and her parents believed it was from Michael, happy that he’d at least managed to support her. Except after only a few years, the money, once a reliable thousand dollars a month, trickled to odd amounts, a little here, a little there, until it stopped completely.

Don’t think about Anthony! Now, when she thought of Anthony, she thought of all that blood.

Ann realized her hands had clenched into angry fists. Her nails left half-moon-shaped marks in her palms. Relax, relax, she told herself. She was wound up so tight with worry and dread that she hardly had the slightest inkling what relaxation even felt like.

She’d been tense and distracted ever since Poppy told her she was finally heading back to Milwaukee, six months after their parents had died. Exotic Poppy, the great surfing, adventuring Robinson Crusoe. But damn, Ann missed her, even if she didn’t understand the choices Poppy had made and she couldn’t forgive her sister for leaving when she’d needed her most.

“What’s Poppy like?” Noah would ask, the same way he’d ask about relatives that were long dead, and Ann would pull out old photos of the two of them from Cape Cod, or show him Poppy’s pictures in their high school yearbook. “She’s pretty,” he would say, and Ann would have to agree. To everyone else, Poppy was charming, mellow, and impossibly cool. Ann had always admired Poppy, even when they were girls, although she hadn’t liked to admit it. Like Noah, Poppy never tried to be like anyone else, never cared what people thought of her. She was her own person—so why was she the one trying to find herself?

Ann thought of the postcards and packages Poppy had sent to Noah over the years. They were wrapped in thin brown paper and decorated in unusual stamps from all the far-off places she’d stayed. She’d sent handmade wooden yo-yos, painted kazoos, knotted bracelets, strange currency, pretty stones from the beach. All those packages and scenic postcards—was Poppy trying to make Ann feel as if her own life was small and unlived?