Lizzy closed her eyes, sighing. “I’ll take care of it, Evvie.”

Evvie shook her head. “No, ma’am. You’ve had enough for one day. You look . . .” Her eyes narrowed on Lizzy’s sooty jeans and streaked face. “You’ve been out to the orchard, haven’t you? I thought the man from the fire department told you not to bother anything?”

“I didn’t. I just—”

“Wait.” Rhanna held up a hand, cutting Lizzy off. “Why was there a fireman here?”

Lizzy swallowed a groan. She didn’t want to get into this tonight. And she didn’t want Evvie getting into it either. She shot her a silent plea to let her handle it, then turned back to Rhanna. “The shed burned last night. And part of the orchard.”

Rhanna’s face went blank. She looked at Evvie. “Burned?”

“Right to the ground.”

“Do they know how it started?”

Lizzy waved the question away. “We can talk about it in the morning. Let’s just make the bed, okay? You’re not the only one who needs sleep.”

But sleep didn’t come easily when Lizzy finally slipped into bed. Snatches of her conversation with Andrew kept running through her head. He’d surprised her tonight. But then he’d always had a way of surprising her. Tonight was different, though. He hadn’t batted an eye when she asked if he believed in ghosts. Instead, he talked about regrets and chains, about leaving this world with unfinished business.

Outside, the moon was high and full, splashing the bedroom walls with thin, milky light. Lizzy’s eyes slid to the nightstand, to Althea’s Book of Remembrances. She turned on the lamp, reached for the book, and flicked the button on the little brass closure. There was a whiff of something like licorice as she turned to the first unread passage, and a square of waxed paper containing a sprig of flattened leaves and tiny purple flowers.

Basil . . . for the mending of rifts.

My dearest Lizzy,

Of all the lessons I’ve recorded in this book, this will surely be the hardest for you to read. You have always been one to hold your wounds close, to chew on a hurt until all the flavor has gone out of it, and then to chew on it some more. But some wounds are more damaging than others. Some wounds sink down into the bone, festering out of sight, feeding on the anger until there’s nothing left to knit back together. You become the wound, and it becomes you.

But healing comes when you let it. And it’s time, little girl.

For years, I watched you nurse the rift between you and your mother, watched you feed it, and water it, and help it grow. And then when she left—the way she left—that rift grew some more. It was a betrayal. A final act of abandonment. And it hurt. Because you didn’t think she could hurt you anymore. Believe me when I tell you I understand. No rift in the world runs so deep as one between mother and daughter. But bridges can be built across the widest chasms, even when all we have to build with are broken pieces.

You may not believe it now, but a time will come when you’ll want to build that bridge, when you might even need to. It won’t be easy, and if I know anything about you, it’s that you’ll fight it tooth and nail. Sometimes we find it hard to forgive someone else because we haven’t learned to forgive ourselves. I can’t tell you how to do that. But I can tell you there is no peace in blame. We must find a way to lay it down and be free.

Your mother was always different, from you and from me. From most of the Moons, I suppose. Nothing prepared me for her sullen moods and wild ways. I used to wonder if it was my fault, wonder if unhappiness could be passed down to a child, like blue eyes or a heart defect. She was such a restless spirit, but a sensitive one too. She claimed once to see things. She never said what, so I was never sure it was true, but there were times when she wouldn’t sleep for days. She would wander the house like a ghost. I never knew what to do with her when she got like that. And then she’d come out of it, and go on one of her tangents, making a show of herself in some public place, like she was lashing out at the whole world. I didn’t know what to do with her then either.

You were easier. But then, mothering isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s meant to stretch us, and Rhanna did that. And before it’s over, I suspect she’ll stretch you as well. Let her. Help her find her way back if that’s what she wants. Maybe she’ll help you do the same.

A—

TWENTY-FOUR

August 9

Lizzy tossed aside a wadded sheet of Bubble Wrap and began unpacking the supplies for the batch of baby soap she’d promised Louise Ryerson. The FedEx guy had delivered just after nine, and she’d wasted no time marching the box out to the shop, glad for an excuse to be out of the house—and away from her phone. Luc had been texting her nonstop, his messages growing increasingly impatient. At some point she would need to respond. Just not now, when she had a half dozen fires to put out, and no real endgame in sight.

Evvie had been sullen over breakfast, grumbling about Rhanna between bites of toast and scrambled egg. How sadly mistaken Rhanna was if she thought she was going to sleep till noon and then wander down for breakfast. They weren’t running a hotel.

The criticism was perfectly valid, but the truth was, Lizzy was relieved that Rhanna hadn’t come down for breakfast. She hadn’t decided yet how much to say about the fire—or what might have incited it. The Gilman murders had rocked Salem Creek to its core, but Rhanna had taken them especially hard. She’d stopped painting, and started leaving the house at first light, staying gone until the wee hours, as if being in the house—or anywhere near the farm—had suddenly become unbearable. They never knew where she went, or what she did during those absences. Unless the police happened to bring her home, which they did from time to time.

No one was really surprised that Rhanna turned out to be a problem. She’d shown her colors early on. Troubled, the guidance counselor at Salem Creek High had labeled her in her freshman year. Disruptive and a handful. In her sophomore year she quit school to become a folk singer, only to turn up pregnant a few months later. There’d been a fresh round of whispers when she handed the baby off to Althea to raise. But it was her grand finale at the coffee shop that had left the entire town slack-jawed.

The last thing Lizzy needed was a repeat performance of her mother’s greatest hits. And that’s what would happen if Rhanna got wind of her recent preoccupation with Heather and Darcy Gilman, and then connected the dots to the fire. She had agreed to one night. As long as she stuck to that, she wouldn’t need to say anything. Rhanna would leave and that would be that. But could she do that? Make her leave, today, with no money and no place to go?

Help her find her way back if that’s what she wants.

Althea’s words were still fresh. So were Andrew’s. But what about what she wanted? Why should Rhanna be allowed to complicate things?

She was still wrestling with the question, head bent as she checked off items on the packing slip, when the shop door creaked open and Rhanna appeared. She was barefoot, dressed in a short denim skirt and a tie-dye T-shirt knotted at the waist, and carried a mug in each hand.

“I thought you might like some coffee.” She held out one of the mugs, going out of her way to avoid brushing Lizzy’s fingers.

It was a thing she had: an aversion to being touched. Haphephobia, they called it—an anxiety disorder usually associated with sexual assault and other physical traumas. But Rhanna hadn’t experienced any physical trauma when her symptoms appeared. Lizzy had chalked it up to Rhanna’s chronic need for attention, expecting that, like so many of her mother’s ploys, it would eventually fall by the wayside. Apparently, it hadn’t.

She was holding her mug with both hands now, inhaling the steam with an expression of pure bliss. “I take it Evvie isn’t a morning person. I think I got five words out of her while the coffee was brewing. And that was her telling me to be sure to wash my mug when I was finished. What’s with the accent?”

“It’s Creole mostly. She’s from Baton Rouge.”

“Baton Rouge? How in the world did she end up here?”

“She keeps bees and sells the honey. Althea started carrying it in the shop. One day she invited Evvie for a visit, and they hit it off. She never went back.”

Rhanna shook her head. “Leave it to Althea to buddy up with a Creole-speaking beekeeper from Louisiana.”

Lizzy flashed her a look. “Was that snark?”

“No.”

“Because I don’t really think you’re in a place to judge anyone. You weren’t exactly the poster child for normal.”