For the first time since she disappeared, I cried. I was an only child now, hopelessly insufficient. I picked at the skin, wanting the new sadness I would feel when all of it had flaked away. I wanted all the sorrow I could gather.

FIVE DAYS later, as my parents went busily about arranging the funeral and the transportation of my sister’s body back to New York, the chief of police arrived with the shocking news that Edwin Hastie had been released and that Clive Richardson, while still in custody, was being held not as a suspect in my sister’s death, but on charges related to drugs and paraphernalia that had been uncovered during the investigation. Despite the circumstances surrounding Alison’s death, the chief of police explained, they did not have sufficient evidence to charge the two men, and they could not hold them if they could not charge them. Apparently it had been determined that the window of time between when witnesses saw Clive and Edwin leave Paulette’s Place with Alison and when Officer Cannadine pulled them over on the side of Mayfair Road was not adequate for them to have traveled to Faraway Cay and back.

As you would expect, my parents were incredulous. I remember sitting with my mother on their bed, her patting my back with increasing vigor and turning up the volume on the television as, out on the balcony, my father argued more and more loudly with the chief of police.

“Explain to me, if you can, how you can be so sure the window of time was inadequate,” my father said. He paced back and forth, hands jammed in his pockets.

“In the course of our investigation we have conducted numerous simulations, with boats leaving from every feasible location. The window of time during which the men in question were unaccounted for simply is not sufficient.”

My father snorted. “How can you be so sure about that window? How can you be so confident it wasn’t half an hour longer, or even more?”

“We have three witnesses corroborating the time of their departure from Paulette’s Place. The witness who next saw them is one of our own officers.”

“How convenient for you.”

“I can assure you his testimony is his own.”

“Well, your assurance certainly makes me feel a whole lot better. Now I have complete faith in the—what was it you called it? The course of your investigation?”

“That’s correct.”

My father stopped pacing. He took a step closer to the chief of police and held him in his gaze. “Those men are part of this. Maybe they weren’t working alone. Maybe someone else took her out to that island, I don’t know. It’s not my job to know—it’s your job. But I know one way or another they’re involved, and you know it, too.”

“I understand you are very upset.”

“Oh, yes, upset. That’s just what I am.”

“I have some questions for you, sir, but perhaps we should continue this conversation at a later time.”

“By all means, let’s proceed.” My father spread his hand in withering invitation.

The chief of police hesitated a moment, then continued. “Had you noticed any changes in your daughter recently?”

“What kind of changes?”

“For example, had she been agitated? Had she engaged in any reckless behavior? Had she been not herself or had she perhaps exhibited any signs of depression?”

My father laughed then, cold, hollow laughter. “So that’s the story you want! Can’t have a murder, can we? Bad for business, I’m sure.”

“The only story we want is the truth.”

“The truth is Alison is the very definition of a kid you don’t have to worry about.” He paused. “Was.”

“I understand.”

“Really? Because I’m not sure you do, so you listen very carefully. My daughter was killed here, on your island, and if I get the impression that you aren’t really looking for the truth, I promise you I will get on every news network in America and call for a total boycott of your pretty little island, and I will not rest until every last dive shop and rum bar shuts down.”

“I understand, sir. Thank you for your time.”

TWO WEEKS after Alison was found, we flew home. My father pulled two suitcases through the airport on Saint X, his and Alison’s. How small we were, the three of us, barely a family at all.

“Time to go back to reality,” the man seated beside my mother on the plane said sociably as we pulled away from the gate.

My mother smiled and nodded politely. She closed her eyes and did not open them again until we touched down in New York.

I had a window seat. As the plane lofted into the sky, I pressed my nose to the pane. At first the island filled the window. But quickly it reduced to a thin slash in the pale sea. Within seconds it was gone and we were moving through a vast heath of cloud.

MY BRAIDS turned limp and scraggly. Frizz haloed my scalp. There would be no grand moment of showing the braids off at school, and this disappointment still stung even in light of what had happened. Most of the time, my parents seemed not to notice how wild my hair had become. But at odd moments, one or the other of them seemed to see me vividly; they would look at the braids, then reach out to touch them as if they were some sort of curious relic.

Finally, the night before Alison’s funeral, my father had me stand in front of the bathroom mirror. He unwound the rubber bands, dropped the beads into a plastic bowl, and uncoiled the braids one by one. He worked with exquisite gentleness. I think this was a necessary ritual for him, one he’d put off until he was ready for it. My hair tangled around his fingers. Loose strands floated to the floor.

“All done,” he said hoarsely when the braids were out. Then he wandered off down the hall.

HUNDREDS OF people came to the funeral. High school and college classmates of Alison’s, women who’d served on PTA committees with my mother, colleagues and clients of my father’s. Even, in an uncomfortable gesture, the ambassador from Saint X to the United States.

The funeral is mostly a blur. Too many people. Too much perfume in the air. An itchy gray dress, purchased hurriedly for me by one of my mother’s friends. What I remember most is the beautiful teenagers crying. After the service, they gathered in tight clusters on the sidewalk outside the church. The girls wore black dresses that exposed their legs and cleavage. They must not have owned clothing appropriate for a funeral, or maybe they did but chose these skimpy outfits instead because they relished this rare opportunity to explore a sad, tragic sensuality. They cried in the arms of solemn boys who, cast into this moment, appeared spontaneously to have been made into men. Among them, most beautiful of all, was Drew McNamara. Drew was my sister’s high school sweetheart. They began dating in the spring of their freshman year and remained inseparable until my sister broke up with Drew the week before leaving for college. I had been heartbroken when she did it—I had believed I would scatter rose petals down the aisle at their wedding. Now here he stood, one among them. I looked around at them, these alive girls and boys, so attractive in their grief while I felt so wrong, a freak, in my own.

IN THOSE early months after Alison’s death, the investigation consumed both of my parents, though it consumed them differently. My father took a leave from work; Alison became his full-time occupation. He was in frequent communication with the FBI, and he called the police on Saint X constantly to monitor the progress of their investigation, which he became increasingly convinced was not inept, but rather a dexterous charade intended to preserve the island’s reputation as a place you could take your family, your kiddos and wives and pretty daughters. His desk in the basement was covered with papers and files. At one point, he even hired a private investigator to dig into Clive Richardson and Edwin Hastie, though I don’t believe anything ever came of this.