Of course it hadn’t all been perfect with Peter, no matter what Rebecca had told Sherri that night by the pool. Sometimes he left his socks on the floor, and when his seasonal allergies kicked in, he snored so badly she had to sleep with headphones, and sometimes he was too strict about keeping the garage tidy. And by the way she was no picnic to live with when it was almost time for winter break and all of the kids at school were sick and she couldn’t keep their germs at bay; she was always snappish in the winter. At least twice a week they quarreled about whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher. Rebecca absolutely hated dragging out the recycling in the winter when Peter traveled and she complained about that more than she should have because, come on, it was just a couple of bins. She watched Patricia walk on, and she thought about the sorrows, small and large, that people carried around with them. Patricia walked past the spot where they often sat to watch the Yankee Homecoming fireworks, and past the playground where the girls used to play when they were little. Patricia got smaller and smaller until finally she disappeared altogether from Rebecca’s line of vision.

45.

The Squad

If you turn down a spot on the committee for the Holiday House Tours two years in a row, you’re not going to get asked back. You’re just not. We know people who have been trying to get on that committee for four or five years—longer, in some cases. If Rebecca wanted to give her spot to Gina, obviously that was her choice. But she could have at least answered Gina’s texts about it, so Gina would know what she was thinking.

(By now it was almost August, and we had seen almost nothing of Rebecca.)

One of us thought maybe she was seeing somebody, but why would she keep that a secret?

We wouldn’t blame her if she was! Peter had been gone for a year and a half by this point!

46.

Alexa

For the next several days the conversation with Cam roiled around Alexa’s stomach like a batch of bad oysters. She vacillated between self-righteousness (how dare he refuse to help her with this very scary situation!) and self-doubt (was there a chance he was right?). At the Cottage, she worked one five-hour shift, during which she made six Ringers, three milk shakes, and who-knows-how-many ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles. She was scattered and klutzy. She dropped a doughnut, and then she stepped on it. She gave the wrong change to two different customers. She forgot to tell her boss that they were on their last container of chocolate ice cream, so they ran out—a huge problem, obviously.

“Whoa,” said her coworker, Hannah. “Amazon. What’s going on with you? You get in a fight with Tyler or something?”