Bobby didn’t look impressed.

  Barrett began to quote, “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea / In a beautiful pea-green boat.”

  “But wouldn’t they fight?” Bobby asked.

  The sisters laughed and told him that was a very good point. William and Dinah were involved in their own conversation. Dove sat gripping the arms of her chair, struggling to stay upright, but managing to smile.

  The buzzer rang. Eddie dressed the salad and set out plates and silverware. Barrett brought the mac and cheese from the oven and went around the table, giving everyone generous helpings.

  Dove told her son to eat some lettuce.

  Bobby obeyed. “It tastes like toilet paper!”

  Dinah leaned toward him, her jewelry glittering, a whisper of her perfume drifting over him. “How do you know? Have you ever eaten toilet paper?”

  “No, silly,” Bobby replied, laughing.

  He finished eating before everyone else, so Dove said he could watch television again. Bobby shrieked with joy. Eddie took him into the den and settled him in front of cartoons. She returned to the kitchen, took a platter of grapes, plums, and peaches from the refrigerator and set it in the middle of the table. Now Dinah was arguing with William about a poem called “Lamia.” Barrett was telling Dove about her shop.

  We’re almost like a real family, Eddie thought. A slight disaster of a family, but still a family.

  * * *

  —

  That evening, Eddie gave her bedroom to Dove and Bobby, and Barrett and Eddie made a little parade as Eddie moved her clothes into Barrett’s room and brought Dove and Bobby’s luggage in from the car.

  When everything was arranged, Dove said to Eddie and Barrett, “I want to tuck Bobby in. I’ll be down in a while to talk.”

  But when half an hour had passed and Dove didn’t appear, Eddie went upstairs to check.

  She found Dove deeply asleep next to her son.

  She returned to the family room to tell her father, sister, and Dinah that Dove and Bobby were asleep.

  “Could we please watch television?” Barrett begged. “I need to zone out.”

  Together, they watched Father Brown, a gentle British mystery set in the 1950s. Barrett was delighted by Mrs. McCarthy’s hats, Dinah was thrilled every time Lady Felicia appeared, Eddie kept hoping that Bunny would fall in love with Inspector Sullivan, and William said they were all delusional.

  “Those aren’t real people,” he reminded the others.

  “And what a shame that is,” Dinah told him.

  After three episodes, they all went to bed, knowing that tomorrow would require clear minds and strong hearts.

  * * *

  —

  After breakfast the next morning, Barrett was in her shop, unpacking new inventory, when Eddie called.

  “She’s awake. Dad’s taking Bobby to Children’s Beach so we can talk.”

  “I’ll come home right away.”

  Barrett drove carefully, obeying the stop signs, wanting to keep the edges of the world straight. She found her sister and Dove in the kitchen. Eddie was at the sink, filling the ice cube tray. Barrett kissed Dove on her forehead and then, for no reason at all except that she felt like it, she kissed Eddie on her forehead, too.

  “Eddie’s been telling me about your shop,” Dove said. “I’d love to see it.”

  “Of course. But first…” Barrett hesitated. “I mean, I can’t stay here too long today, and since Bobby’s at the beach and we can talk freely—Dove, you’re staying with us for, um, a while, right?”

  Dove made a sound that was half laugh, half cough. “I am. I can’t be specific, but we do need to map things out. I’ve seen doctors, had tests run, trust me on this, I have gotten second and third opinions. I’ve been informed that I will basically be getting sicker, and weaker. And that the end could get pretty ugly. I’m hoping you two and your father will be able to keep Bobby distracted.”

  “When should we take you to the hospital?” Eddie asked.

  “I don’t want to go to a hospital. I want to be here. I’ve seen doctors. I’ve been in hospitals. I know I can’t be cured. I came here—” Dove bent her head, choking on a word, struggling for breath. “I came here because you two are the only ones I can count on to take Bobby.”

  “Of course, we’ll take Bobby,” Eddie told her.

  Dove held up her hand. “Wait. I also came here because I can trust you two to trust my judgment and my decisions. I want to die in my bed in my sleep.”

  “But what do we tell Bobby?” Barrett cried. “I mean, Dove, think of him.”

  “He’s all I think about,” Dove insisted. “I have prepared him. I’ve already told him that I’m going on a long trip soon. I told him he’ll stay with you while I’m on my trip, and many, many years later, he’ll see me again.”

  “What?” Eddie said. “Aren’t you giving him a promise you can’t keep?”

  “I’ll see him again. Just not on this earth.” Dove summoned up a smile. “That’s what I want you to tell him.”

  “Dove,” Eddie protested.

  Dove said, “That’s what I believe.”

  “Good grief,” Barrett said. “This is too hard.”

  Eddie moved a chair closer to Dove and sat down. “If that’s what you want us to tell him, that’s what we’ll tell him. We’ll do everything the way you want us to do it, Dove.”

  Dove reached out and took Eddie’s hand. “I want you to adopt him, Eddie. Barrett, don’t be insulted—but you just started your store, I’ve been reading social media about it and the photos you’ve put on Pinterest are gorgeous. And Eddie is the oldest and she could work at home with her proofreading or whatever she does for Dinah, and when you have time, Barrett, you can help, if you want, and of course your father could be his real grandfather, I mean, he is his real grandfather.”

  “What about your mother and father?” Eddie asked.

  “I haven’t been in touch with either of them. They don’t even know about Bobby.”

  “Oh, Dove,” Barrett said. “That’s so sad.”

  “Barrett,” Dove responded, “when was the last time you spoke with your mother?”

  Barrett rolled her eyes. “That’s different.”

  Dove lifted an eyebrow. “What was that quote you used to repeat whenever you were mad at your parents?”

  “Oh, right!” Eddie said. “The Khalil Gibran one.”

  “I remember,” Barrett said. “Something about how your children come through you but they don’t belong to you…”

  Suddenly, Dove was crying. “Weren’t we so cool? All the times we sat in the family room, talking about death and life and children and sex and—”

  “—and we’d go crazy in your room, dancing to ‘Hollaback Girl’ and we wanted to be Rihanna—”

  “—and we’d put on fabulous makeup and false eyelashes and fake tattoos—”

  “And when we were real little, we’d dress up like fairies and have our little fairy hideaway and your mom bought us all fairy costumes—”

  “And your mom gave you a fairy birthday party and she gave us all wands and light sticks!”

  Dove winced and turned her head away from them. She struggled to get her breath. “I’m tired,” she gasped.

  “Do you want to go back to bed?” Eddie asked.

  “Please.”

  “I’ll help you.” Eddie lifted Dove from the chair and waited as Dove steadied herself.

  “Can I bring you anything from town?” Barrett asked.

  “Actually, it would help a lot if you went to a drugstore and bought some disposable incontinence bed pads.”

  “Oh, damn, Dove, really?” Barrett sounded horrified.

  Dove burst into laughter. “I know, right? Incontinence bed pads wasn’t a game we ever played.”

  Because Dove was laughing, Eddie started laughing, and Barrett couldn’t help herself. She laughed, too. For a moment, there in the kitchen in a farmhouse on an island, they were three friends again, sisters more than friends, and they laughed because they were terrified and heartbroken but they were together again, and they would laugh as long as they could.

  Dove went upstairs to sleep. Barrett returned to her shop. Eddie put together a casserole and went up to Barrett’s bedroom, shut the door, and sat on her bed, leaning against the headboard. She opened her journal and began to write. It was odd, she thought, how the only place she could be honest about her feelings was in the journal. She could write, this is too hard, and maybe Dove won’t really die, and how can I be Bobby’s mommy?

  After a while, she went to her Web browser and looked up the poems of Khalil Gibran.

  * * *

  —

  At nine o’clock, Barrett closed her shop and drove home. She entered the house, carrying a white pharmacy bag filled with bed pads and boxes of chocolate, which she hoped Dove could eat.

  “We’re in here,” Eddie called from the family room.

  William sat in one overstuffed chair and Dinah had kicked off her sandals and was curled up in the other one. Eddie and Dove were seated on the sofa in front of the television. Eddie had the remote in her hand and had obviously paused the TV.

  “We’re watching John Mulaney,” Dove said. “He’s so funny.”

  Barrett said, “Hi, everyone!” and sat next to Eddie, trying to hide the pharmacy bag by stuffing it beneath the sofa.

  “Barrett.” Dove leaned forward to look past Eddie. “You don’t have to hide those. We’ve told your father and Dinah about it. About me.”

  “Also,” Dinah said sweetly, “I think I see a box of Ferrero Rocher sticking out of the bag. I think our little group would be cheered up by a bite or two of chocolate.”

  Barrett was speechless. How could Dinah think of chocolate when Dove was right there, so ill and thin?

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Dove said. “Dinah’s had a difficult day. Her stalker is on the island. He sent a message through her website that he’s here and would like to see her, at her convenience.”

  “What are you going to do?” Barrett asked.

  “We were just discussing that,” her father said.

  Barrett glanced at Dove. How could anybody think about anything with Dove so sick?

  Dove seemed to read her mind. “I realize I’m the most important person in this room, Barrett, but we’ve spent enough time moaning about my problems. It cheers me up to hear what’s going on with everyone else.”

  Eddie elbowed Barrett in the side. “What about those chocolates?”

  Barrett drew out the white paper bag and passed the chocolates around. She watched as Dove took one, but then only held it in her hand, fiddling with the gold wrapper.

  * * *

  —

  The new Book Barn family developed their own routine.

  In the morning, Barrett rose and zipped off to her store. Eddie, sleeping in the other twin bed, would yawn and dress and head down to the kitchen to make coffee. Bobby would leave his sleeping mother, tiptoe down to the kitchen, eat the cereal and drink the juice Eddie gave him, and hurry off to the den to watch television. Dinah would enter, talking softly to her iPhone, plotting the next chapter of her novel. She’d make a piece of toast and a cup of coffee and wander back to her room to write. William would come down the stairs fully dressed in khaki shorts and a striped rugby shirt that he’d purchased of his own accord from Murray’s Toggery, so that when he took Bobby exploring for the day, he would look casual, less like a stuffy old professor.

  Eddie would tidy the kitchen, pack a picnic lunch, and go off with her father and Bobby to look at the boats in the harbor and hang out at Children’s Beach, or if it was raining, visit the Whaling Museum. They’d pick up books from the library and sometimes stay for story time. They’d visit Barrett in her shop if it wasn’t too busy. The Maria Mitchell aquarium was always fascinating to Bobby and the secret candy room at the back of Force Five was a kid’s idea of heaven.

  Sometimes Eddie and Bobby would stop to watch Jeff and the crew building a new house. In spite of the noise of the hammers and saws, Bobby was fascinated. Often, when Jeff took a moment to come to their Jeep to say hello, Bobby would almost explode with excitement. The little boy adored Jeff, especially when he was working. One late afternoon when a storm with torrential rain and gale force wind hit the island, Jeff came over with a present for Bobby, a child’s wooden workbench set. He sat on the floor with Bobby and showed him how to hammer down the pegs and work the pliers. Bobby was entranced; Eddie thought he wouldn’t notice if Santa Claus himself walked into the room. If Jeff was too whipped to stop by, he would always call Bobby and ask how his day went. Later, he would call Eddie.

  “Bobby and I are head over heels in love with you,” Eddie told Jeff.

  “Me, too,” Jeff said.

  Dove would remain in her room, sleeping. Eddie woke her in the afternoon, appearing at her bedside with a strong cup of sugary coffee and a chocolate croissant. Dove would shower and dress and slowly make her way to the back porch. Bobby would take a nap up in the room that was now their bedroom. Afterward, William sat with Bobby in the Book Barn. Sometimes William read to Bobby, and just as often, William worked on his laptop while Bobby, who was a champ at playing by himself, sat at a smaller table, coloring or reading or building with the carpenter set or the Lego set William had bought him, talking and singing to himself.

  Dove said she was feeling better, stronger. Sometimes she went for a short walk, but it was brutally hot and humid, and she always returned quickly and went to her room to rest. Eddie would take Bobby and sometimes Dove for a swim at one of the beaches, and then to Bartlett’s or Stop & Shop for groceries. Even though Dove hardly ate, there were five people to feed, and Eddie enjoyed trying new recipes, especially if she could coax Bobby into eating something new.

  One day Dove, seeming energetic, even hopeful, took Bobby to an afternoon showing of Rally Road Racers at the Dreamland. William and Dinah were both in town, and Barrett was at her store.

  Eddie sat in the Book Barn for a while, but no one came, and people seldom did in the hot afternoons. She went into the house and was seized by the need to clean up and make order. Wearing headphones playing her favorite mix, she zoomed through the house, changing sheets and towels, vacuuming, dusting, moving what seemed like dozens of glasses from tables and bureaus.

  Eddie finished cleaning, took a glass of iced tea out to the back porch, and sat in the wicker rocker. She thought about how she had returned home, and then Dinah had come, and now Dove and Bobby, and it seemed that this house, like the island itself, had a kind of mystical, invisible allure that pulled people to it, and kept people wanting to stay.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the quiet. Did she miss the city and its frenetic glamour? Was she sad not to wear expensive dresses and glitzy, painful heels? Maybe she was just in a summer mood, listening to the sparrows chirp from their hiding places in the lushly leaved trees. Maybe she was different, more relaxed, here with the salty ocean and the rose-scented breeze cooling her bare, tanned arms.

  She’d planned to stay a month and she’d been here over two months. Barrett’s shop was doing well, and Barrett was ecstatic about that, Eddie was deeply happy that she was helping her sister by taking care of their father, and in a way Dinah. She was glad Dinah was here, feeling safe, writing every day, and often having dinner out with friends.

  And now, Dove and Bobby.

  * * *

  —

  Barrett’s shop was doing better than she’d ever dreamed. It kept her furiously busy and the only reason she stayed sane was Janny working afternoons five days a week and until nine on Friday. She was charming with customers, efficient with paperwork, and always glad to run an errand or buy Barrett an iced mocha cappuccino. When the shop was quiet, she helped Barrett dust and organize the shelves, and she’d chat about her various boyfriends and how she was never going to get married, because the wedding would be great, but after that, where was the fun?

  How different this young woman is from Dove, Barrett thought. How fortunate Janny is.

  One afternoon, Janny said, “You know, Barrett, my brother really likes you. I mean really.”

  “I like him,” Barrett answered, keeping her tone pleasant.

  Janny continued, “He’d like to come down here more often, but work is killing him. I mean, you can’t imagine.”

  “I don’t even try to imagine,” Barrett said dryly.

  Once in a while, Barrett would steal a quiet afternoon when Janny was working. She and her father took Bobby and Dove somewhere special, kayaking in the shallow waters at the end of the harbor, building sandcastles at Surfside, swinging and climbing on the playground at ’Sconset. In the evenings, when Eddie arranged for everyone to have dinner together, Barrett insisted on helping in the kitchen, not only because she felt guilty with her sister doing so much work, but because it was a pleasure to talk while working side by side. It would be heaven, she thought, if Eddie moved back to the island for good.

  Thursday evening, Barrett was finishing a sale when Eddie walked in.

  “Thanks,” Barrett said to her customer. When the woman left, Barrett said, “Well, this is a surprise.”

  “I know.” Eddie handed Barrett a cookie. “I made these today. Had to hide a couple so Bobby and Dad didn’t eat them all.”

  Barrett rested against the back wall. “Umm. Delicious. What’s the occasion?”

  “Nothing, really.” Eddie crossed her arms on the counter. “I was just feeling the need for a little sister time. So much is happening. We haven’t had time to talk.”

  Barrett nodded. “I know. But it will be calmer when summer’s over.”

  “Will it?” Eddie gestured around the shop. “Look at this, Bare! You’ve made your dream come true. You’ve created your own world. And it’s only the beginning. You could have this shop for years.”