“Where was she?” Barrett demanded.

  “At the baseball field, no game, just Dove and some men and a zillion cans of beer. They were throwing their empty cans into the middle of the field!”

  “That’s so sad,” Tara said.

  Barrett caught the school bus, begrudging every laboriously slow mile the driver went. Her mind was on fire. Eddie had her car in Northampton but their father walked to the college, so his old Volvo station wagon was in the drive. Barrett snatched the keys from the kitchen corkboard.

  The high school playing fields were out of town on Route 7. Barrett drove carefully, never speeding, and soon she was there. The football team was out, running, barking, scrambling after balls.

  No sign of Dove or men or beer cans. Barrett waited for an hour.

  That evening, when Stearns returned home, Barrett met him at the door.

  “Have you heard about Dove?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I heard.” Stearns brushed by her, took the steps two at a time, and slammed the bathroom door shut. A minute later, they heard the shower running. Barrett called Eddie.

  “Why hasn’t she called us?” Barrett asked Eddie. “How can she live without us?”

  Eddie was thoughtful. “You’ve seen the news. Dove’s life has been tornadoed. Her dad’s going to prison, they’ve lost their house, Dove must be traumatized. She’ll get in touch with us when she’s ready.”

  Their lives rolled on, school, friends, homework, TV, TikTok. Summer. Eddie entered her freshman year at Smith. When Stearns was fifteen, he was hired for the weekends and evenings by a computer shop. Fall came. Christmas came. A new year came.

  Spring came. One early April day as Barrett was leaving school, Curt Waterman, who thought he was Kurt Cobain, drove slowly past the school in his convertible. Dove was sitting in the passenger seat. Barrett raced over. She would have thrown herself in front of the car if necessary.

  “Dove!”

  Dove looked terrible. Her skin was gray, she had circles under her eyes, and she’d lost so much weight she was skeletal.

  The convertible top was down. Barrett threw herself over the car door and hugged Dove.

  Dove froze. “Hi, Bare.”

  “Dove, where have you been?” Barrett demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dove said.

  “Bye, girly,” Curt said, and peeled off, back onto the road.

  “DOVE!” Barrett yelled.

  Dove didn’t look back.

  That night, Barrett sat at the table with their father, mother, and Stearns. If Sabrina hadn’t bothered to cook a meal, at least she was eating with them. The family lived on pizza and tacos, but Barrett was glad to have the four of them together. Having their brother at the table was almost miraculous.

  “What have you been up to, kids?” their father asked.

  Barrett said, “Oh, Dad, I saw Dove today. She doesn’t even look like the same person. She looked terrible.”

  “Where was she?” her father asked.

  “In a car with Curt Waterman. He drove by the school with Dove in the front seat, as if he was showing off a trophy.” Barrett paused. “She smelled like she’d showered in Scotch.”

  Their mother sighed. “I’ve heard that she’s…developed a serious drinking problem. Poor girl.”

  Barrett needed Eddie with her. “We have to do something.”

  Their father shook his head. “I don’t know what we can do. Her parents don’t respond to my calls or texts.”

  Sabrina sighed. “I always thought that family wasn’t as perfect as you children thought they were.”

  * * *

  —

  Summer arrived. Eddie came home and the sisters worked for a children’s camp in Vermont. Two guys were counselors there, too. Kit and Peter. During the long hot, bright days, while they hiked up the mountain, or did art projects in the great barn on a rainy day, Eddie and Barrett knew they were transitioning into adulthood, birds flying out of the nest, leaving home. This was the last time they would feel like children, running joyfully with the little kids, past the flower garden and the vegetable garden and into the clear, cold stream bubbling down the mountain. They watched the children carefully and taught them about frogs and mushrooms, five different types of knots, how to make slime.

  They didn’t hear from Dove, and they never saw Stearns, although he texted from Troy to ask how they were.

  Barrett started at UMass Amherst. Her grades weren’t great, but she didn’t really care. She let herself be carried along by life’s tide.

  A year passed, and then another. Eddie graduated and went to New York to work as an assistant in a publishing house. Barrett attended classes, dated a bit, and worked at a farm stand after school and on weekends. She saved her money and wasn’t sure why, except that it gave her comfort. Stearns continued to attend classes and work at the computer shop. Their mother worked longer hours at the jewelry shop in Pittsfield and their father taught an extra course in English literature and it was as if they were all growing up, changing, becoming more particular in themselves and less part of a family.

  In October, Stearns came by the house.

  Halloween was near. The moon was full, the trees half-stripped of leaves, and the air was pure and bracing. Eddie was home for the weekend. She and Barrett were in the family room watching Stranger Things. As usual, their mother wasn’t home. Their father was in the living room, watching the History Channel.

  They heard their father open the door.

  “Girls,” he called. “Come to the living room.”

  For a moment, the sisters couldn’t make sense of what they saw. Stearns had always been tall, but he’d grown a few more inches and added weight and muscles to his body. He wore canvas trousers and a clean shirt.

  Stearns was a man.

  Next to him sat Dove.

  Dove.

  She was radiant. Her blond hair was held back in a low bun, curls escaping, all glossy and clean and lovely. She wore jeans and a white T-shirt and a thin gold chain around her neck.

  Barrett burst into tears.

  Eddie walked close and pinched her beautiful old friend. Not hard, just enough to have Dove’s skin between her fingers so she could believe Dove was real.

  She didn’t even try to be subtle as she sniffed the air around Dove.

  Dove cracked a sideways smile. “Yeah, I’m sober. Have been for months.”

  “We missed you,” Eddie said, her voice splintering with emotion. “We missed both of you.”

  “Thanks, sis.” Stearns gave Eddie an awkward hug. “We missed you.”

  “Can you stay for a while?” their father asked.

  “Yeah, awhile,” Stearns said.

  Eddie put her arm around Barrett, who was red-faced and trembling. Awkwardly, as if they were new to sitting on furniture, they sank onto the sofa.

  Stearns had been promoted to a full-time junior-level job at the computer company. He would make more money than his father made as a college professor.

  “I’m so proud of you,” their father said. “You’ve found work you love.” He added happily, “And you will be close enough to come home every so often.”

  Dove was going with him. She planned to attend a community college. They’d live in Stearns’s apartment in Troy, which wasn’t that far away, Stearns said, just a drive over the Taconic Trail through the mountains and up past Albany.

  When Dove was asked, she told them that her parents were okay. Her father was in jail, but would probably be out in a year. Her mother had moved to Florida to live with a friend. A male friend, Dove added with a sardonic smile.

  Yes, she said, she’d been living with Stearns for the past six months.

  Yes, she said, it was Stearns who found her, brought her to live with him, and got her sober.

  “Maybe,” she said, “maybe we’ll get married.”

  “What?” Barrett blinked in surprise. “Married? But, Dove, I don’t understand. How could you do all this without even telling us? We always told you everything! You always told us everything! We were your best friends. We could have helped you get sober! We wouldn’t have let you get drunk in the first place!”

  “Things change,” Dove said softly. “Sometimes things change really fast. I didn’t know my father had lost all our money and was a crook. I didn’t know my father would go to prison. I didn’t know we would lose our house. My mother vanished and never gets in touch with me. I lost everything. I am sorry. But I was stumbling in the dark for a while.”

  Eddie leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Okay, then, Stearns. Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell us something, anything, at least that Dove was alive?”

  Stearns shrugged, looking apologetic. “Come on, Eddie, you know how you are. If I’d told you she was okay, you two would be demanding to know how I knew, and where did I see her, and why wouldn’t I take you to see her? And you would have been freaked out if you’d seen her when she was getting sober. It was not a pretty sight.”

  “But she did it with you,” Barrett said accusingly.

  Their father, usually so easygoing with his family, spoke up. “Stearns, it was wrong of you not to tell us. Dove was almost part of our family. Still, we’re all glad that Dove found help with you.”

  * * *

  —

  Later, for days and weeks, Eddie and Barrett would talk and talk and try to understand why Dove hadn’t come to them when her family life exploded. Eddie and Barrett wouldn’t care that her father had skimmed money or that the Fletchers lost their house. They would have supported Dove in that crisis. But Dove had just abandoned them for that druggie Curt Waterman. She hadn’t cared a thing about the sisters. Or maybe it was simply that Dove had been too deeply shocked by the huge changes in her life. She’d lost her place in the world. And Curt Waterman had reached out and grabbed her.

  But Stearns had saved her. Stearns.

  They should have known. It was great for their brother that he had Dove, but it hurt that Dove and Stearns had such an enormous secret. But, they consoled each other, they were all older now, all headed into their new lives and really, it was a good thing that Stearns and Dove loved each other. Dove would really be part of the family when they married.

  A few days before Thanksgiving, their parents sat them down in the living room and with a brisk formality, their mother announced that she was divorcing their father. Sabrina had rented an apartment in Pittsfield. She and her friend Abel Kuiper, the owner of the jewelry store, were leaving for Amsterdam in the spring to learn more about diamonds.

  “I have a good eye for gems,” Sabrina said. “If I hadn’t had children, I could have gone somewhere in the jewelry world.”

  “Where would you have gone?” Barrett asked.

  Sabrina rolled her eyes at her daughter’s innocence. “I mean, I could have been important.”

  Barrett and Eddie studied their father’s face closely, looking for a reaction.

  William caught their looks. “It’s okay,” he told his daughters. “Sabrina and I have talked about this. We’ll be fine here. I’ll continue teaching—”

  “And I’ll live the life I’ve always wanted,” Sabrina said.

  The girls weren’t surprised that their mother was leaving them. Their mother had been leaving them for years. They didn’t feel as betrayed by her as they had felt with Dove.

  * * *

  —

  That Christmas, their father went with them to choose the biggest, tallest Douglas fir they’d ever had. He hung the lights and they decorated the tree and bought presents. Eddie flew home from New York with her luggage full of gifts. The sisters read recipes and planned a feast and bought several bottles of a good champagne. They didn’t receive so much as a Christmas card from their mother, but they hadn’t really expected to get one.

  Stearns and Dove drove over the treacherous Taconic Trail to Williamstown and spent the night before Christmas at the Grants’ house, Dove and Stearns sleeping in his old bedroom.

  Christmas Day, Stearns and Dove gave three small boxes to William, Eddie, and Dove, insisting that they open the presents at the same time.

  Eddie got a pair of booties. Barrett got a small white cap. William got a small silver spoon.

  William said, “I don’t understand.”

  Barrett screamed and jumped in the air.

  Eddie burst into tears.

  The baby would be born in April. No, they didn’t know the gender. Yes, Eddie and Barrett could be aunts and godmothers.

  * * *

  —

  Robert Joseph Grant was born early in Albany on a snowy March night. Stearns, exhausted and exuberant, called his father and sisters and sent videos of the tiny baby boy lying next to his mother. Dove beamed a brilliant smile at the family, and invited them to come visit in a week or so, when she wasn’t so emotional.

  “Keep sending us videos,” Eddie begged. “He changes so fast!”

  But after work, Eddie called Barrett and they shared their fears. They’d heard that new mothers could get depressed, overwhelmed. Would that jeopardize Dove’s sobriety? No, they decided. Dove would be fine. Everything would be fine.

  They made plans for Eddie to come home for Easter to see the baby.

  * * *

  —

  The police came to the pretty Williamstown house on a cold April night. Barrett was in bed, reading. Her father was in his study, reading. Eddie was in New York.

  The sound of the door knocker startled them both.

  William wore old sweatpants and a flannel shirt. Barrett wore yoga pants and a T-shirt.

  It was odd, Barrett thought, as the police, in their uniforms, entered their house, odd that she and her father were dressed so casually for this important event, a visit from the police.

  Stearns had had a fatal accident on his motorcycle speeding on the Taconic Trail. No one was with him. No one else was involved.

  * * *

  —

  Barrett and her father called Eddie. She drove home from New York that night. The three of them wandered aimlessly around the house, making tea, pouring Scotch, setting the glasses and cups down untouched.

  William called Dove. He asked her to come live with them in the Williamstown house.

  Dove let out a bark of a laugh. “In the house where Stearns grew up? Next door to the house where my family was evicted? Oh, no, please don’t ask that of me.”

  Dove sounded odd when she told William that she thought yes, Stearns would approve of cremation and scattering of his ashes over the Taconic Trail. She sounded like a bad actress reading a part.

  Eddie and Barrett called Dove on speakerphone. “Then we’ll drive over to Troy. We don’t want you to be alone now.”

  “My uncle and aunt are here,” Dove replied. “They flew in from Colorado. They’re helping me…get organized. I’m going to live with them in Denver.”

  “But the baby!” Barrett protested. “Our baby!”

  “I need to start over, Barrett.” Dove sounded sad but sober. “I need to get away from so many difficult things. I love you all, but it’s too much. The past is too much. I want to start over fresh now that my baby is here.”

  “But what about us?” Eddie asked, choking on her tears.

  “I don’t know,” Dove replied, and her words seemed weighed down with heavy stones, so that she hardly could speak.

  The memorial service was short. Dove did not attend. She was in Colorado with her aunt and uncle. Their mother did not attend. She emailed William that she couldn’t bear it. But several of the men who worked in the computer company came, driving over the winding treacherous Taconic Trail, wearing suits and wool overcoats. Several of Stearns’s school classmates attended, and many of the high school teachers. Later, William, Eddie, and Barrett climbed Mount Greylock on a blustery, cold day and released Stearns’s ashes into the wind.

  “It’s strange,” their father confessed as they were driving home, “all my life I’ve told my students they would find consolation in their reading. But I’m unable to read now. I stare at the television. I go for walks. But I can’t read!”

  “Words,” Barrett said bitterly. “You think words can explain everything.”

  Her father said, “No, Barrett. I know they can’t.”

  five

  Standing in the Nantucket kitchen, Eddie thought how a person can never know what a day might bring or how quickly life can change. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A therapist had told her that she couldn’t change the past, but she could live more thoughtfully in her present.

  Opening her eyes, she found herself staring at a shelf of self-help books that had been her mother’s. Why were they here? Their mother and father were divorced. Sabrina was with another man. She had obviously helped herself. Her father had obviously unpacked these books three years ago when they moved to the island. He wouldn’t ever look at them. He should get rid of them. He should—

  Eddie had a brilliant idea. Such a wonderfully practical idea that she wanted to applaud herself.

  She hurried back to her father’s study. William sat frozen, elbows on the desk, head in his hands.

  “Daddy,” she said gently. “I have an idea.”

  William lifted his head and smiled at Eddie. “Tell me about it.”

  “We should turn the barn into a used bookstore.”

  Her father frowned. “You’re just trying to move my books out of the house.”

  “True. I am. Now listen. We can put up shelves in the barn and you can organize your books and clear out some room in the house.”

  William pushed away from the desk, rose, and stretched his back. “Eddie, no one will buy my old books.”