Wednesday morning arrives without consulting what happened in our kitchen. The gulls begin before six. A delivery van reverses outside Finley’s. Somebody somewhere drops a bin lid, and I wake with my heart hammering before I remember where I am.
It is 5:20. I lie in the brass bed for thirty seconds, listening to the harbor sounds — gulls, the distant chug of a fishing boat, the deeper hum of the ocean. The window is open, and the air smells like salt and cedar and the faintest trace of lavender from the garden below.
Marina is in custody. Dale’s account is being checked. Thomas is still in the woods. The case has an answer, but nobody gets to wake up as the person they were before it.
I get up. I wash my face. I pull on clean clothes — a blue shirt and jeans, the nicest outfit I own, which isn’t saying much, but it feels right for a day like this. A day when the world has shifted and I need to look like I belong in the new shape of it.
The kitchen is warm when I come downstairs. Agnes is already at the stove — eggs, bacon, toast, a substantial breakfast for people who have not slept enough. The farmhouse table is set for four: Agnes, me, the Hendersons. There are fresh roses in the vase. The scone basket is full — lemon poppy seed today.
“You’re up early,” I say.
“I haven’t slept much,” Agnes says. “I read the copy of George’s letter again. Then I put it away and peeled potatoes. They were more cooperative.”
“Again?”
“I wanted to know whether I had stopped making excuses for him,” she says. “It appears to be a job I’ll have to do more than once.”
“And have you?”
“He could have told the police. He could have told Thomas’s family. Instead he left me a few sentences and let death make the decision for him.” She slides an egg onto a plate. “Writing it was something. It wasn’t enough.”
“What will you do?”
“Tell the truth about him when I’m asked. Even when I want to tell a better story.”
The Hendersons come down at 7:30. They’re a pleasant couple — early sixties, retired teachers, on a coastal road trip to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. They sit at the farmhouse table and eat eggs and bacon and lemon poppy seed scones and talk about the tide pools they visited yesterday and the lighthouse they’re planning to see today.
They know there was an arrest last night. Agnes told them enough to decide whether they wanted to stay. They chose another night, and now Mr. Henderson wants to know how long the walk to the lighthouse takes. We answer him. Ordinary questions deserve answers too.
After breakfast, I take the empty plates to the sink. Mr. Henderson has scraped them so thoroughly that I can almost hear him telling his wife not to make more work for us.
Dina calls about Friday’s breakfast boxes. She has heard about Marina. She asks whether we want to cancel the order.
“No,” I say. “Eight again?”
“Ten, if you can.”
I write it down before she can mistake my silence for uncertainty. Ten is more than eight. It is also a number I can understand this morning.
When the Hendersons leave for the lighthouse, I go out to the porch.
Agnes is on the porch with Clover. Her eyes are tired. The chair beside her has a cushion on it, angled toward the view. She put it there for me.
“Dina?” she asks.
“Ten boxes for Friday.”
“Sit.”
I sit in the other rocking chair. The porch creaks gently beneath me. The garden is bright with roses and lavender, and the conservatory gleams in the morning light, and the harbor is blue and sparkling below the hill.
“I have to tell the guests enough to decide whether to stay,” Agnes says. “I don’t have to turn what happened into breakfast conversation.”
“That seems fair.”
“And I want you to know the job is yours after this. If you want it. We will put proper terms in writing.”
“I want it.”
“You can decide again later. The Portland people haven’t vanished because last night was difficult.”
She has remembered the flyer. It is a small mercy, being allowed to have a future that is not a reward for helping her survive the past.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Now sit for five minutes. The dishes will wait.”
Clover stretches across the space between the chairs and places one paw on my shoe. Neither Agnes nor I moves it.
After a while, Agnes asks whether I want more coffee. I do. The question is ordinary, and the answer costs me nothing.
I go inside. I tie on my apron. I pull out the flour and the butter and the blackberries — the last of the summer crop, dark and sweet, from the garden behind the conservatory.
I measure the flour for Friday’s order. Ten boxes. The number is a small thing to trust, but it is somewhere to begin.