Page 116 of The Summer We Started Over

By eleven o’clock in the morning, Eddie was in the Book Barn, sending Dinah’s work emails. Barrett was at her shop with their father. Dinah had driven her silver Mercedes into town to do research at the Nantucket Historical Association.

Bobby was with his mother at Children’s Beach. Eddie had driven them there and planned to pick them up at noon, unless Dove called.

Eddie opened her journal. She hadn’t had a chance to write in it for a few days. Well, she hadn’t wanted to write in it.

She knew what she had to write would break her heart open.

Dove is dying. It will happen soon.

I am so afraid.

I don’t know how people can stand this. Suddenly, and I can’t tell anyone this, I’m weirdly grateful to Stearns because he died so quickly, efficiently, completely. We didn’t have to watch him hurtle over the winding road, crash down the steep mountain, landing with a broken neck—the coroner said his neck was broken. His death would have been instantaneous. We didn’t have to be with him as he died, we didn’t have to witness him—was he terrified? Was he anguished for those few minutes when he realized he was losing his son and his wife? I hope he didn’t even know. I hope he thought:Cool. I’m flying.

I don’t think Dove’s passing will go quickly. I promised her, and myself, that I’d stay with her in the hospital, and Barrett will join us if it’s necessary for her to stay overnight. Dove doesn’t want to die in the hospital, but it has come to the time when she needs help with her pain.

She says that she’s not afraid to be dead. She believes once she is truly dead, once her body is dead, as Dove puts it, she will reunite with Bobby someday far into the future, she hopes ninety years in the future.

She says she’s going to be with Stearns. She knows he is waiting for her.

I never disagree with her. If believing in life after death is foolish, then let her be a fool. And what do I know, anyway? What do we all know? Maybe she’s right.

All I really know is that I’m watching a friend pass over a bridge that is blurred by clouds and will soon become invisible like this island is when mist and fog surround it. How will she know how to place her feet? I’ve asked her this.

Dove says that when she steps forward into the mist, the bridge will appear beneath her feet.

I’ve got to go pick Dove and Bobby up from Children’s Beach.

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The three friends were in a private room in the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Their father and Dinah were home, taking care of Bobby. Dove was in a hospital bed with tubes going into her slight, shrunken body and nurses coming in to check on her every fifteen minutes. Eddie sat on one side of the bed, holding Dove’s hand. Barrett was on the other side, holding Dove’s other hand.

“How do you feel?” Barrett asked. Immediately, she corrected herself. “I know you can’t talk but I hope you feel like you’re floating on clouds of whipped cream.” She flashed a glance at Eddie. “I sound idiotic. I hope she doesn’t think I’m taking this lightly.”

“It’s okay, Bare,” Eddie assured her. “The doctor said she can hear us, but may not understand what we say. Look at her. The pain medication is working. She’s not grimacing in pain. That’s the important thing right now.”

Barrett nodded. “Hey, Dove, think of all the fun times we had together. Remember the time we made a fort in your backyard? Your mother flipped out because we used the good blankets and pillows.”

“I remember,” Eddie said. “We made spears out of sticks we found in the trees. We went hunting the monster. Once, we heard a noise near the forest, and we thought it was the monster and we screamed and ran back to our fort and huddled in there, shaking.”

“Remember that Halloween when we went together and you were Rapunzel and I was the prince and Eddie had to be the witch?” Barrett cackled and made her hands into claws.

Eddie snorted. “I’ll never forgive you two for that. I didn’t want to be the witch. Who wants to be the witch? You two got costumes with sparkles and sequins. I had to wear a big black hat like the witch inThe Wizard of Oz.”

“Eddie,” Barrett argued, “witches are good.”

“Not when they wear the black hat,” Eddie retorted.

Their eyes were fastened on Dove’s face, but she showed no sign of comprehension.

Barrett said, “Remember when you got that karaoke machine for Christmas and we decided we were going to become a trio singing old-fashioned songs? We recorded us singing and when we replayed it, we fell on the floor laughing because we were so terrible!” She glanced at Eddie. “Is it okay to be silly?”

“Yes,” Eddie answered. “But, Dove, we have serious things to tell you, too. We found your mother’s phone number. She’s still living in Florida with a guy named Archie. She’s kept the last name, Fletcher. We called her…and left a message…but she hasn’t called back so far.” A surge of sorrow clogged Eddie’s throat. She waved her hand to Barrett, telling her to take over.

“We can’t find your father’s address. The last person we spoke with said he’d moved to Costa Rica.” Barrett paused. “You know, we haven’t heard fromourmother in years. We want to tell her she has a grandchild, but the last we heard she was in Amsterdam and we can’t find her on social media or by searching.”

“The three of us never had a perfect mother.” Eddie felt tears beginning to well in her eyes. “But they did what was necessary, they kept us alive and healthy.”

“Maybe it was the location,” Barrett suggested. “Like a spell was cast over our neighborhood by on old witch who curses the area so that mothers didn’t want to stay.”

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