Instead, it was the middle of the day and she had just taken a pie out of the oven when the phone rang, and it was Thomas telling her that he was coming home from the church office. That surprised her in and of itself because he did not call her when he was working. And he didn’t come home early for much of anything.
She knew that her mother had told Thomas because it was easier for her to break it to him than it was for her to tell Anna. But what her mother didn’t know was that she and Thomas had spent the entire drive from their quiet row house through town and up the winding drive that led to the Lighthouse Inn in silence.
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him. And it wasn’t just grief, though there was plenty of that.
Jacob was like a brother to them both.
Rachel and Jacob had been married since Anna was thirteen. She could hardly remember life without him.
“Are you all right?” he asked, directing the question to Rachel.
The words turned over in Anna’s head, echoed, because, of course, Rachel wasn’t all right, but it was also the most obvious question to ask, and for some reason Anna hadn’t said it.
“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be all right again.”
Her sister put her hand on the antique sideboard that sat by the door, as if she was bracing herself on it. And then she took it off as quickly as she placed it there.
Because Rachel was never still for long.
“Can I get you coffee? Tea?” She directed the questions at both Anna and Thomas.
“Yes, thank you,” Thomas said at the same time Anna said, “I’m fine.”
But Rachel looked relieved at having something to do, and Anna felt that yet again she had profoundly failed at being the one who was more insightful about her own sister.
Her mother was sitting on the couch, pale and resolved. Anna and Rachel’s mother was always resolved. She was rarely still, though, and seeing her like that reinforced the wrongness of everything.
Her niece, Emma, was sitting there looking numb. Frozen.
Emma was a kid who’d had to be too serious, too quickly. Self-sufficient, self-reliant. When Emma was younger, Anna had helped with her often, so that Rachel could be there for Jacob when he had surgeries, and Wendy could be there for Rachel.
She’d gotten older, though. And she hadn’t needed Anna to watch her anymore.
But suddenly she felt like Emma might need her now.
When Rachel returned with the drinks, she handed one to Thomas. “I guess... Maybe I shouldn’t... His body was so broken,” Rachel said, “I guess that it’s silly to grieve when he needed to be free of it.”
“The Bible says that there’s a time to mourn, Rachel. You don’t have to hold back grief.”
Thomas went on, his words building on one another, weaving themselves into a sermon, which was easy for him to do.
He always knew the right thing to say. His voice was calming, comforting.
But not to her. Not anymore.
Anna sank down onto the floral couch, next to her niece.
Emma stretched her lips into a poor imitation of a smile, and Anna tried to return it.
“My mom won’t let me go upstairs,” she whispered. “She doesn’t want me to see him. Um... His—his body.” The last word broke. And something broke in Anna, too.
It was almost a relief. To feel broken. To feel pain instead of numbness.
“She’s trying to protect you,” Anna said.
“My dad’s dead. I can’t be protected from that.”
That word slipped like a shard of glass through Anna’s chest and embedded itself in her heart.
There were just some things in the world you couldn’t be protected from. No matter how hard you tried. You could do all the right things, say all the right things... And still...
She looked over at Thomas.
And still...
“Thank you,” Wendy said, directing her thanks at Thomas. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”
Those words settled over Anna like concrete. Made her feel like she was weighted down to the spot. But they also triggered something inside her. That pastor’s-wife instinct that she knew so well. That was such a practiced role she could put it on like a coat when she wanted to. That was the Anna that they needed. Not the Anna that was broken up, struggling.
She’d hidden that Anna for the past two years, and there was a reason for that.
Purpose turned over inside her and it lit a spark of motion. “I have a pie in the car,” she said. “I’ll bring it in. Of course, Thomas and I will help arrange the funeral and get the word out at church.”
Rachel looked startled that Anna had spoken. “Thank you,” she said.
Anna smiled. Serene. Not too big. Not happy. Reassuring. The smile she knew so well. A smile for sad times. One that she’d used so many times before.
“It’s what we’re here for.”
But somehow, the words felt wrong, and so did she.
Because the shape of their family had changed, a great gaping hold left where Jacob had once been.
And Anna had no idea how they were going to go on.
2
This is not the ocean that I know. In California the water sparkles like a jewel in the sun, and here, if there is sun, it is swallowed whole by the mist, the clouds and the relentless gray of the sea. I fear I have made a mistake.
—FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, JANUARY 15, 1900
RACHEL
Rachel had lost track of how many events they’d hosted at the Lighthouse Inn. They always used the kitchen as the staging area, and expanded to the dining room when the event was to be held outside.
There was a strange sort of sameness in what was happening now. Her mother looking at lists. Her sister putting last-minute touches on baked goods.
Her daughter, Emma, looking on.
But this wasn’t a wedding. It wasn’t a bachelorette party, or a birthday party.
It was a funeral.
Her husband’s funeral.
She was staring down at a list of food meant to feed the guests of her husband’s funeral.
“Do you think this is enough bread?” She looked across the table, laden with baskets of rolls, at her mother.
“I would think so,” Wendy replied.
Rachel had stayed up all night baking, because there was nothing else to do. Make bread. Over and over again. Batch upon batch of rolls, each one feeling imperative.