cheeks and wispy blond hair tucked back into a simple ponytail. The pear-shaped diamond, studded with rubies, on her hand sparkled in the sun that streamed through the window. Emily had recounted the story of the ring to me once. It had belonged to a woman Jack’s grandfather had loved a long time ago. I don’t remember the details of the tale entirely, but it exuded love from decades past. You could feel it when you looked at it. “Twenty months old yesterday,” she said. “Can you believe it?” Her happiness, so apparent, may as well have been written all over her with a permanent marker.
“I can’t wait to see them!” I said. It was a true statement, and yet if I was honest with myself, I’d admit that I was apprehensive, too. For every milestone of their lives would be a reminder of my loss.
“Sorry, Claire,” she said suddenly. “I know you’ve been through so much this year. Is it too hard for you to be around…?”
“Babies?”
“Yeah,” she replied cautiously. “I don’t know how you’re holding up so well. I’d be in pieces.”
There was no sense lying to an old friend. “I am in pieces.”
“Oh, Claire,” she said, her eyes narrowed, reflecting my pain. “I’m so sorry. I just grieve for you. Listen, if it’s hard for you to see the babies, just let me know. I just fed them, so we can go out for lunch instead. We don’t have to go back to the house.”
I placed my hand on Emily’s arm and gave it a firm squeeze. “I want to see them. It would break my heart not to.”
“You’re amazing, you know,” she said, navigating the car out of the ferry terminal. “You really get friendship.”
“What do you mean?”
“My aunt Bee has always said that contrary to what most people think, the definition of a true friend is not someone who swoops in when you’re going through a rough patch.” She shook her head. “Anyone can do that. True friendship, she says, is when someone can appreciate your happiness—celebrate your happiness, even—when she’s not necessarily happy herself.” She looked at me with appreciative eyes. “That’s you, Claire.”
My eyes brightened. “Thanks, Em.”
She turned her gaze from the road for a moment. “I really mean that.”
“I bet they’re huge now, the twins,” I said, pausing to look out the window. The island’s lush evergreens whooshed by. “What’s it like, motherhood?”
Emily sighed, clasping the wheel a little tighter. “It’s frightening and wonderful all at the same time. And exhausting. I’ll tell you, honestly, for about a month after their birth, I secretly wanted to send them back.”
I giggled.
“I’m not lying, Claire,” she said. “I’ll never forget the moment when Jack came into the bedroom one night and one of the babies was crying in his arms; the other was crying in her crib. It was somewhere around two a.m. I was so tired. Sick tired. I sat up and dangled my legs off the side of the bed, and all I could think was, I’ve made the worst mistake of my life.” She shook her head. “But I got through it. The adjustment period, that is. Now I can’t imagine life any other way.” She turned down the winding road that led to her aunt’s property, and gave me a quick smile.
“I bet Jack is a wonderful father,” I said.
“He’s amazing with them,” she agreed. “He’s taking them on a walk along the beach right now. We got one of those double jogger strollers with those enormous turbocharged wheels that can handle the barnacles.”
“How’s your aunt Bee?” I asked. I wasn’t certain of her age—late eighties, possibly nineties, even—but she didn’t fit the mold of an elderly woman. When I’d visited Emily on the island the first time, Bee had offered me a shot of whiskey.
Emily sighed. “She hasn’t been well,” she said. “The doctor says it’s her heart. They have her on all kinds of medications now. She’s in bed most of the time. I take care of her during the day, and we have a nurse who tends to her at night.” She shook her head. “Bee just hates being cooped up in the house. I caught her trying to sneak down to the beach yesterday afternoon. The poor thing is so frail, she nearly fell off the bulkhead.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “It must be so hard to see her deteriorate.”
“It is,” she replied. “And it sounds strange, but the house feels different without her at