I kneel, too, the sand damp and cold through my jeans. Cassie shows me the moon shell from the hospital, now nested in the palm of her hand. She places it at the center of the growing pile, then arranges the others in a sunburst around it.
“Do you think she can see it?” Cassie asks.
I want to lie, to give her the comfort of an easy answer, but the words won’t come. Instead, I just say, “I hope so. She’d love it.”
Nathan glances at me, and I see the echo of my own exhaustion in his face. He sits on the sand, cross-legged, like a kid waiting for the tide to decide what to do with him.
“She believed in me more than I believed in myself,” I say, not really meaning to. The admission floats out over the water and is gone before I can call it back.
Judy plucks a shell from the pile and turns it over in her hand. “She saw something special in you,” she says. “I see it too.”
I study the sand at my feet, the way each grain clings to the skin, refuses to let go. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“Neither do I,” says Judy. Her laugh is soft but real. “As you know, there’s no manual for these sorts of things.”
Cassie looks up, mouth set. “We just keep going. That’s what Sara said. Even if we don’t know what we’re doing.”
She’s right, of course. She’s always right.
We sit in the dying light, letting the wind work on us, until the sun is nothing but a blood-orange stain on the lip of the world. Cassie adds the final shell to her memorial, then stands and brushes the sand from her palms.
Nathan stands, too, and for a moment I think he’s going to say something else, but then he just shrugs and offers me a hand up. His grip is firm, grounding. When I’m upright, he lets go, not making it awkward.
We walk the beach as a unit, a small, imperfect constellation, until the dark is complete and the first stars begin to prick the sky. I keep the notebook pressed to my ribs, the promise I made to Sara heavier now than ever.
When we reach the car, I glance back at the pile of shells—moonlit, solitary, but defiant in its smallness.
“I think she’d be proud,” I say to no one in particular.
Cassie nods, and Judy smiles.
We drive home in silence, the sound of the ocean trailing behind us, the horizon waiting for what comes next.
Part III
33
Diane
The church on the corner of Bay and Lillian looks like every church I’ve ever seen in a beach town: weathered clapboard, stained-glass windows, roofline trimmed with faded red shingles, and the suggestion of a steeple more imagined than real. The parking lot is already overflowing, so Nathan swings onto the grass, skirting a puddle that mirrors the low, swollen sky. For a moment we just sit, watching the line of strangers snake up the front steps and into the yawning doors.
Inside the car, it’s too quiet. Cassie has her chin pressed to her knees, not crying but not quite composed either. The shell from the hospital rides in her jacket pocket, a lucky charm or maybe an anchor. Nathan adjusts the collar of his shirt like it’s a noose, but when he looks at me, there’s only steadiness in his eyes. I want to tell him it’s okay to fall apart, that I might need him to, but the words stick to my teeth and refuse to budge.
“I didn’t think this many people would come,” he says, voice thin and full of apology. “Maybe we should’ve picked a bigger place.”
“I think Sara would hate that,” I manage. My mouth tastes like dust and panic. “She liked things small. Manageable.”
Cassie reaches for my hand. Her grip is dry and certain. I squeeze back, careful not to let her see how much I’m shaking.
The three of us make our way across the parking lot, wind clawing at the hem of my skirt, the air tinged with the same ocean salt that clung to Sara’s hair in summer. There are faces at the door already, some familiar, others not, but all etched with the identical mask of bereavement, as if grief were a dress code.
Just inside, the vestibule is crowded and overheated, the walls papered with community flyers and the leftovers of last Sunday’s bake sale. A teenager with a stack of programs stands by the guest book, eyes flicking from my face to Cassie’s and back again, unsure whether to offer condolences or just a polite smile. I take a program anyway. The cover is cheap white card stock, the kind that wilts if you hold it too long. Sara’s name is printed in block letters above a watercolor of the sound. I have to blink twice before the letters stop swimming.
We find seats halfway down, wedged between a family I vaguely remember from the marina and a pair of men in dark suits who seem allergic to sunlight. The sanctuary is filled beyond capacity, every pew jammed with people and stories and the unbearable hush of collective waiting. Cassie clings to my hand; Nathan sits on my other side, his jaw clenched so tightly it looks carved.
The air in the church is thick with lilies, their sweetness so aggressive it borders on offensive. The altar is drowning in white and yellow arrangements, and somewhere beneath their shadow sits the casket. It’s made of plain, pale wood, almost humble, like a piece of driftwood the sea spat out. There is no photo, no video montage, just the casket and the lilies and the hush.
At the front, Judy is already crying. Her shoulders hitch in silent spasms, the tissue in her hand shredded to confetti. The woman beside her rubs circles on her back, but Judy doesn’t seem to notice.