“But why?” Phoebe said. “They were so pretty.”

“Because,” Delilah said, “I’m never going to wear them again.”

She was declaring her life over, and her sense of fun—which had always been her guiding principle—defeated. All she wanted to talk about was how much she hated Andrea and whether Greg had been screwing April Peck, neither of which interested Phoebe in the slightest. This was how people acted when two of their best friends died tragically—they suffered, they retreated, they regressed. Phoebe was the oddball. She did not want to dwell on Greg and April Peck or Addison and Tess falling in love in the Quaise cottage, or about her visit to Greg and Tess’s house the night before their sail, or about the drowning.

She wanted to move on!

But it looked like she was going alone.

Phoebe wanted something to do. She had agreed to cochair the cocktail party for Island Conservation on August 15. With ten phone calls, the whole event was organized—tent, tables and chairs, caterer, donated beer and wine from Cisco Brewery, swing band, invites. Wheeler Realty was going to be a major underwriter, though Phoebe had cleared this only with Florabel, the receptionist. Addison did not have the attention span to take in the details.

That accomplished, she was ready for the next thing. What was the next thing? She had nearly eight years of energy stored up. Should she resurrect her business? Arrange group cruises through the Mediterranean for the over-sixty-fives? Perhaps join them on the cruise, jump off the ship at the Amalficoast, and take a young Italian lover?

Phoebe ran across the twins by accident. They were in Nantucket Bookworks, standing quietly shoulder to shoulder in front of the chapter books. Phoebe had been adrift in paperback fiction. She thought maybe what her soul was craving was an education. There were so many books she hadn’t read. Madame Bovary, Deliverance, A Room with a View, The Ice Storm, The Corrections, A Handmaid’s Tale, A Thousand Acres, Bastard Out of Carolina, The Emperor’s Children, Bel Canto — God, the list was endless. She picked a pile to start with: I Cannot Get You Close Enough, Prep, The Brambles, Beautiful Children, all from the staff-favorites shelf. Someday in the near future, Phoebe would have her own shelf of favorites. It was a goal. She was all about goals. She wanted to add Catcher in the Rye to the pile, because that had been Reed’s favorite book. Phoebe had read it—it had been required their sophomore year of high school—but she could not remember one single thing about it except for the boy in Holden’s class who would shout “Digression!” whenever the teacher got off the topic. (But Phoebe thought she might even have been remembering that wrong.)

She could not find Catcher in the Rye on the shelf with the other Salinger novels. The woman behind the counter told her it was in the young adult section because it was on so many summer reading lists—and that was how Phoebe discovered the twins. Side by side, dark head buzz cut (Finn) next to dark head bob (Chloe), both in stripy T-shirts and shorts. Phoebe nearly cried out at how darling they were, how quiet and serious. Finn was looking at something called Captain Underpants and Chloe was flipping through A to Z Mysteries. There was something about their silence and composure that made them seem like little adults, a husband and wife, selecting books for a week of evening reading. Because they were twins, Phoebe had an incredibly tender spot in her heart for them. She felt connected to them in a way that she did not feel connected to Drew and Barney. Chloe and Finn were like Phoebe and Reed: a pair, a couple, connected at the hip. At the funeral, Phoebe had said to them, You still have each other. And they had nodded in their composed, adult way. They didn’t need her to tell them what they already knew.

Phoebe did not speak to the twins in the bookstore, or make herself known. They were too perfect. Phoebe wanted to gobble them up; she wanted to vaporize herself and inhabit their flawless bodies.

They were so sad. They were babies abandoned in a basket. Tears welled in Phoebe’s eyes. Could anyone help? Could Phoebe help? Was this it—the thing she was seeking? Was it the twins?

She paid for her stack of books and scanned the store. Where was Andrea? Or… the Chief?

Later, Phoebe called Delilah on the phone and said, “I saw the twins at Bookworks by themselves. As in all alone. Does this seem right to you?”

Delilah said, “It seems negligent. Andrea is unfit. Finn told Barney that Andrea smashed Greg’s guitar against the kitchen counter, right in front of the kids.”

“You’re kidding,” Phoebe said.

“They should be living with us,” Delilah said. “I should have fought for them.”

Fought for them, Phoebe thought.

Phoebe saw the twins again a few days later, out in Sconset. They were eating ice-cream cones on a bench in the pocket park adjacent to the Sconset Market. Phoebe was in her car; she had just enjoyed the world’s most elegant lunch of lobster and mango salad, crème caramel, and a crisp Sancerre with her cochair, Jennifer. Phoebe was a little high from the wine; she wasn’t certain at first that the two children on the bench were the twins. Out of the corner of her eye… yes, she thought so. She looped around, enjoying Sconset. It was adorable, this little town, with its rose-covered cottages and the cafés and the tennis club, and the magnificent summer homes on the bluff, which ended with the candy-striped lighthouse and the rolling green acreage of Sankaty Head golf course. Phoebe only came to Sconset on special occasions, and there hadn’t been many special occasions in the past eight years.