When Dr. Flutie, a regular at the Field and Oar bar, asked Marshall what he planned to do when the season was over, Marshall told Dr. Flutie that he and his girlfriend were going back to Portland, Oregon, for a while. His girlfriend had never seen that part of the country. It might be just a visit, or, if they can both find restaurant jobs, it might become something more permanent.

Dr. Flutie says he’s jealous. He may be old (and a bit of a drinker), but even he knows the restaurant scene in Portland is top-notch.

Leo attends the burial with Cruz DeSantis and Cruz’s father, Joe. We’re all happy to see that Leo and Cruz have made up and are back to planning Cruz’s trip out to Colorado after his first quarter at Dartmouth.

“We’re friends for life,” Cruz said when he and Leo reconciled. “Nothing’s going to change that, man.”

Leo has a hard time shaking the feeling that the accident was his fault. When he went to his father and Savannah and told them everything, they assured him he had done the right thing in breaking up with Marissa. Her reaction to the news was beyond his control.

“I should have broken up with Marissa a long time ago,” Leo said. “I should never have been dating her in the first place. If I had just been truthful about things.”

Savannah gave him a squeeze. “You had nothing to do with it, Bear. Your dad and I are both proud of you and love you more than you will ever know. Your mom does too, I promise. The love doesn’t go away. She’s looking down on you every second of every day.”

Savannah is leaving for Manaus, Brazil, on Tuesday and JP realizes how much he’s going to miss her. He’s had dinner at her house once a week since Vivi passed and those are nights he looks forward to. More than a few times, he’s found himself wanting to kiss Savannah, but he’s held back because he’s afraid of muddying the waters of their newly formed alliance and he doesn’t want it to be confusing to the kids. He would love to go with her to Manaus and volunteer, but it’s still too busy at the Cone for JP to travel. By the time Savannah gets back, summer will officially be over and JP will be getting ready to close the shop.

He’ll make his move then, maybe. See what happens.

Lucinda is attending the burial with Penny Rosen. “Someday that will be us,” Lucinda says, nodding at the coffin.

“Someday soon,” Penny says. “I woke up this morning with the worst chest pain.”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, see a doctor!” Lucinda says. “If something happens to you, who will I beat at bridge?”

Penny smiles and decides not to tell Lucy that the tightness in her chest remains to this very minute or that she has been having vivid dreams about her late husband, Walter. She knows that beneath Lucy’s joke about the bridge, there’s genuine concern. Penny will try to hang on for Lucy’s sake. Maybe she’s just hungry. Rumor has it that Joe DeSantis is catering the lunch after the burial. Joe’s chicken salad with pecans and dried apricots in mustardy dressing is as good a reason to stay alive as any.

Marshall Sebring, of Gaston, Oregon, grew up with a mom, a dad, a sister, and a dog—a regular, happy American family—and although he wouldn’t change a second of it, there’s something about Carson’s family that is fascinating in a way that Marshall’s family is not. Her father, JP, owns the Cone; her sister, Willa, works at the Nantucket Historical Association; and her brother, Leo, just graduated from Nantucket High School and is going to the University of Colorado, Boulder. Then there’s Carson’s grandmother and Mrs. Rosen; they’re two tough but elegant ladies—Marshall has served them dozens of times this summer at the club. And there’s Savannah Hamilton, who founded Rise and whose family has owned their house on Union Street for something like three hundred years. Marshall has just met Leo’s friend Cruz and Cruz’s father, Joe, who owns Marshall’s favorite sandwich shop, the Nickel. Marshall feels like he’s standing in a cluster of real Nantucketers, people whose attachments to this island run as deep as tree roots into the soil of the island.

The person Marshall really wishes he’d been able to meet, however, is Carson’s mother, Vivian Howe.

“She was magic,” Carson told him. “But she was my mom, so I took her for granted. I didn’t understand how lucky I was to have her until she was gone.”

Marshall decides when he gets home from the luncheon following the burial, he’s going to call his parents and tell them he loves them.

Lorna O’Malley drives past the cemetery on her way from the hospital to her apartment. The biopsy has come back positive for a malignancy. Lorna has triple-negative intraductal carcinoma—a complicated way of saying breast cancer—at the age of thirty-one, and although the news could be worse (she’s still stage one, they caught it early), it could also be better. Lorna notices JP walking with Vivi’s daughters—they’re all dressed in dark colors, so they must have just buried Vivi. Lorna thinks about calling Amy to let her know that Vivi has finally been laid to rest, but she can’t bring herself to think about death and burial right now. She’ll call Amy later, with her own news.

Pigeon, she’ll say, I’m about to lose me tits!

Amy will cry about it, Lorna is certain. But she will shore up and become Lorna’s person. She will go with Lorna to her appointments, share her Netflix password during Lorna’s chemo, be in the waiting room during Lorna’s surgery; she’ll keep Lorna’s mother, back in Wexford, calm, and she’ll take Cupid for walks. After all the hours Lorna has listened to Amy chatter about JP, Dennis, and, most of all, Vivi, she’d better! Thinking this makes Lorna chuckle. At least she still has her sense of humor.

Amy

On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, Amy and Dennis are enjoying the raw bar special at the Oystercatcher. Amy had been purposefully staying away from the Oystercatcher because she didn’t want to face Carson at the bar—she couldn’t imagine what Carson would think when she saw Amy and Dennis together—but then Amy heard from her client Nikki that Carson no longer worked at the Oystercatcher.

“You’re kidding!” Amy said. “What happened?” She felt a twinge of regret (quickly followed by relief) that she was no longer a part of the Quinboro family dramas.

Nikki shrugged. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Something bad, then, Amy thinks. Carson got fired—or got fired up and quit in a huff. The upside is that Amy and Dennis can return to the Oystercatcher without feeling awkward.

It’s a festive scene—everyone is out celebrating the unofficial last weekend of summer. Amy and Dennis order two rum punches and a dozen Island Creeks from a new cute young bartender with a pierced nose. Dennis lifts his rum punch and says, “I’m taking you on vacation this winter. To the Caribbean. Maybe the Virgin Islands. What do you say?”

“I say yes!” Amy takes a sip of her drink and can already see the palm trees. “If we were the subject of a Vivian Howe novel, what would the title be?” she asks. “The Leftovers?”

“I think that’s already a book,” Dennis says.