herself on the fallen log, then glanced again at Willa, now on her knees checking something in the grass Edith could not see.
The focus of Willa’s manuscript had a great deal to do with their current circumstances. Edith’s mother and Willa’s father died within three months of each other just the previous year. Now Willa’s mother lay paralyzed by a stroke in Pasadena, where she had gone to visit Douglass. Edith’s father was also in California, under the care of Edith’s younger sister.
Life seemed suddenly fragile. Neither Willa nor Edith needed Mr. Brown’s final dive to remind them of that. But family ties held fast even past death. The more one strained against them, Edith guessed, the tighter they held. Tentacles, they felt at times, tendrils at others, as capable of choking life out as of bringing it in. The trick, Edith guessed, smiling at Willa, who continued to pat the ground around her knees, lay in staying easy in their grip. And, Edith supposed, in remembering that blood lines were not the only things fastening one to life and to each other.
“E YES like those,” Rob Feeney pushed away from his desk for the second time that afternoon, “don’t belong on Grand Manan.”
“What?” Jason Dobbs, the young man the shipping company had placed under Rob for training, looked up from his desk.
Rob realized he had spoken aloud. “That man Brown,” he said now, “he didn’t really belong on Grand Manan.”
“Brown?”
“Yes,” Rob rose to pull a paper cup from the dispenser on the wall behind his desk and fill it with water from the cooler. “He had the look of a man who knew death,” Rob swung back to his desk, the cup in his hand, “knew it and didn’t mind it.”
Jason put down his pen and frowned.
“Oh, never mind me,” Rob settled in his chair, grinning at the confusion on the young man’s face. “I’m just thinking out loud. I saw him, you know, on the passage over.”
“Oh, right,” Jason turned back to his work. He had learned some time ago that Rob Feeney occasionally talked to himself and that when he did, he didn’t really want to engage in conversation. He was just turning things over. Personal things. Memories of his father. A tough guy, Jason had heard, who died at sea. Memories of the war. Jason didn’t much know what to do about those and didn’t want to know. His own life took all his energy.
“L OOK what I found,” Willa rose and came back through a cut in the trees, one hand extended, palm up and cupped. Edith slid off the log and trotted over to see.
It was a button. The right size for a shirt and a crimson so rich, it was almost burnt carmine.
“It would go well on a red shirt,” Edith held the button for a moment in her fingers. “Where did you find it?”
The button had been lying by itself just a few feet beyond where the trail once again became obvious, then split immediately to encircle a thicket. The two paths seemed equally well traveled. The button had been on the path to the right, lying just off to the side, cushioned by decaying leaves. Willa prodded the area with a stick while Edith slipped the button into her pocket. She stood for a moment working it like a worry bead, letting her fingers sense what they could from its shape, size, solidity, and smoothness, before letting it drop into the safe confines of her pocket.
Tell me about your owner, Edith’s fingers pressed the question. The button grew warm but remained silent.
“A FTER Willa discovered the button, we searched hard all the way back to Whistle Road,” Edith assured Winifred Bromhall later that evening, “but the button was all we found.”
“And what do you think of Miss Briggs? Is she a likely suspect, as everyone seems to think?”
Winifred was picking the scallions out of her salad and placing them on the edge of her plate. Winifred can do anything she wants and be beautiful doing it, the thought flitted across Edith’s mind.
“Certainly not,” Willa’s answer