like the idea of Chase driving himself. She’d hired his physical therapist, Derrick, to drive him from Princeton to Dewberry Beach and had tried to find a private nurse to look in on him during the summer, but he’d refused, reminding Kaye that the doctors had released him until a November follow-up appointment. It worried her, being so far from his cardiologists, but she had finally agreed, though reluctantly. The kids would arrive shortly after Chase. The bedrooms had already been prepared for their arrival, with fresh linens on the beds and sachets tucked underneath the pillows. Lavender for Stacy and Ryan, eucalyptus for Brad, lemon for Connor, and rose for Sophie. She’d spent a ridiculous amount of time at Dewberry Beach Gifts selecting the scents, but it made her happy to do so.
She planned to take her grandchildren to Applegate’s Hardware where they would select a plastic bucket and an assortment of toys for the sand, along with their very own beach towel, a tradition started when Stacy and Brad were their age. After whole days spent crabbing at the pier, or swimming at the local pool, or racing plastic boats on the salt pond, Kaye imagined the family coming together for dinners outside on the deck. New memories would be made and a whole new generation of Bennetts would come to love the shore as much as Kaye did.
Feeling the cool salty air on her skin as the breeze shifted, Kaye turned her attention to the pond just beyond the fence, watching the grass stir as a dragonfly emerged.
Yes, it would be a wonderful summer.
Kaye took her empty coffee mug inside and retrieved her fancy new cell phone from the pocket of one of Chase’s old cardigans. For years she’d carried an old flip-phone, usually forgotten in her purse or left on the charger, until the day she had been needed and couldn’t be reached. She’d been swimming laps in the pool that Saturday morning, her phone stowed securely in her locker and her mind on something mundane. After her swim, she’d luxuriated in a long, hot shower using the fancy glycerin soap and lotion set she’d bought herself for her birthday the week before. A whole day had stretched before her with nothing to do, and she’d toyed with the idea of booking an hour-long massage. She’d reached for her phone to book the appointment and was surprised to see fifteen text messages, all marked urgent, and a dozen voice messages, pleading with her to return the call.
That was how she’d found out that her husband had collapsed at his desk, and that if the secretary hadn’t left her headset in the office by mistake, he would be gone.
To this day, the thought that jerked her from sleep and left her reeling and gasping for air was the fact that when her husband had needed her the most, she had been scheduling a massage. She’d had no feeling that he needed her, no sixth sense that the man she loved with every bit of her heart hovered, alone, between life and death.
Real life was nothing like the movies.
Kaye unlocked the phone and skimmed her contacts for her daughter’s cell number. She tapped the green phone icon at the bottom of her screen.
Then she listened to it ring.
Two
Seventy miles away, in the small condominium she shared with her husband and two children, Stacy Madigan stood at the counter in the small hours of the morning, slicing oranges for her son’s soccer team. She heard the chirp of her cell phone and, thinking it might be a weather update for Connor’s game, glanced at the screen. When she saw it was her mother calling, she let it roll to voicemail and returned to her work.
Her husband Ryan appeared in the kitchen just in time to catch the last ring. He was normally a night owl, so she was surprised to see him up and dressed, his hair still damp from a shower. He stumbled to the cabinet to retrieve his favorite MIT ALUMNI coffee mug.
“Why is your mother calling you?”
“I don’t know.”
He paused, holding the carafe over his mug. “Why didn’t you pick up?”
“Because my mother never calls to ‘chat.’ She calls to direct, organize, or interrogate. You remember I told you that my brother and I used to call her The General when we were growing up? The name still fits.”
The relationship Stacy had with her mother had always been a complicated one, threaded with expectations that Stacy