“You’re welcome here,” Lindy Bloom said. “There’s no prerequisite to join us.”

When the basket came to Caroline, she took a moment to study the contents, even though she’d put the thing together. Ordinary objects. Things encountered every day. In her work, Caroline had made presentations to high-powered design professionals and creative directors, to the world-renowned designers themselves. Yet speaking to the group of women in Oysterville felt far more intimidating.

She took out a cockleshell, pinkish brown with ridges, a common find on the beaches in the area. “I’m drawn to this one,” she said, holding the shell in her palm. “It reminds me of my old family nickname—C-Shell. I nearly forgot about that until I came back here. Now I’ve turned it into the name of the clothes I’m designing.” She took a breath and looked around the room. “I have to tell you, I’m blown away by everything I’ve heard. And although I’ve never been in an abusive relationship, I have had an incident like the one Ilsa described.”

Without even looking at her sisters, she could sense them sitting up as if someone had stuck a ramrod up their backs. “It was a long time ago, and I didn’t speak up, either, but it still haunts me sometimes.” She knew her sisters were going to be full of questions, and she’d answer them later. Maybe. Memories were powerful. They could haunt and torment and plague the soul with what-ifs and should-haves. She gripped the shell so tightly, she could feel its sharp edges biting into her.

“But that’s not why I wanted to create a group like this. My life has been touched by domestic violence in a serious way. One of my closest friends was a victim. I wish I could tell you she’s a survivor, but she didn’t make it.”

She took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. She shut her eyes and the memories swept in, fresh as yesterday. “When I was a designer in New York, I worked with a beautiful model who I thought was at the top of her game in the fashion world. One day I noticed bruises on her. She brushed off my concern, and I didn’t press her. I wish . . . I should have pushed harder, but I didn’t know. I didn’t realize . . . and then not long afterward, she came to me in a panic with her two kids. They needed a place to stay. I tried to help. I thought I was helping. Then one day I came home and found her dead of an overdose. I had no idea she was using drugs. I can’t help but think it’s related to her being abused. Now I’m taking care of her children and I’m overwhelmed. I’m trying my best to help them deal with what happened.”

She knew she would forever be haunted by the promise she had made, sincerely and naively, to her friend. She was plagued by questions, doubts, uncertainty. Should she have called the police right away? Should she have pressed harder, bullied Angelique into opening up? Was there some other choice she could have made that might have changed the outcome?

“I miss my friend,” she said, closing her eyes and picturing Angelique in all her glory. “She was more than beautiful. She had so much will and grit, maybe so much that the world looked past what was going on inside. I know I did. And now I’ve lost her, and everything happened so fast I haven’t really mourned her. My worst fear is that I won’t do right by her children.”

Taking another steadying breath, she pressed the shell between her hands and continued talking to the group. “I’m grateful to be here and proud of my sisters and friends for helping me organize this. I’ve always known Georgia and Virginia were older and wiser than me, but I never realized how much wiser.” The story had come out in a jumbled rush. Had she said too much? Did she sound like a blithering idiot?

When she looked around the circle, she saw only acceptance. “I’m hopeful that if I gain a better understanding of what happened to the children’s mother, I might be able to help and protect them.”

There was more talk. More eating of cookies. And at the end of the evening, every person present agreed to come the following week. As they were putting the room back together and boxing up supplies, Caroline felt a wave of hope. “It’s a start,” she murmured to no one in particular. “I’m glad we started.”

Before going to bed that night, Caroline slipped into the children’s room. Checking on them was a nightly habit now. Flick and Addie slept with sweet abandon, their breathing light and untroubled. Flick liked to sleep with the binoculars she’d bought him, his new prized possession. He claimed they helped him see the stars at night. Addie stuck with Wonder Woman, always.

Soft light from the hallway fell across their faces, and their utter vulnerability struck Caroline with an aching mixture of love and sadness.

Angelique, they’re wonderful, she silently told her friend. I wish you could see how fast they’re growing, how much they’re learning day by day. They miss you so much. I miss you.

Their world is so different here. It’s the world where I grew up. It was safe. I never had to think about being safe, growing up. I just was.

That’s what I want to give them, Angelique. A childhood where safety is not just a goal, but a given.

Part Three

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

—John Banville

Chapter 14

The first time Caroline went to the old Jensen place, she was twelve going on thirteen. It was the very start of summer—three glorious months of no more teachers, no more books, no more homework, no more bells, no more dress code or walking in a straight line. The summer people were already arriving in their shiny cars with surfboards and picnic hampers, streaming from the cities to escape the heat and the traffic.

The wind in her face as she rode her bike down the shady lane felt like pure freedom, cool and sweet, flowing out endlessly behind her. The fat tires of her beach cruiser rattled over the dappled road, and she had to keep checking to make sure the jars of her mom’s strawberry-rhubarb jam were nestled safely in the front basket.

Mom had sent her to deliver the homemade jam to old Mrs. Jensen as a thank-you, because Mrs. Jensen had made a nice donation to the town library, which was one of Mom’s pet projects. Caroline was going to earn five bucks for making the delivery. If she had been a better person, like her perfect sister Georgia, she probably would have given the five to the library as well. But she wasn’t Georgia. She wasn’t perfect. She needed the money to buy fabric at Lindy’s shop, the most special place on the whole peninsula. She had an awesome idea for a summer dress, her grandmother’s old sewing machine was oiled up, and she couldn’t wait to get started on it.

The Jensen place was a grand mansion, or apparently it had been back in the day. The house was covered with flaking greenish paint, with a wraparound porch and gabled windows. There was a railed walkway along the roofline overlooking Willapa Bay. In one of Caroline’s treasured childhood books, A Little Maid of Nantucket, she’d learned that the rooftop lookouts were called widow’s walks on account of women whose men went out whale hunting. Left behind, the wives used to walk around up there, watching for their men to come back. This made no sense at all to Caroline. Why couldn’t the women find something better to do? Like sew a gown, one of those fancy ones with hoopskirts and layers of crinoline.