Page 87 of The Summer We Started Over

“Please.”

“I’ll help you.” Eddie lifted Dove from the chair and waited as Dove steadied herself.

“Can I bring you anything from town?” Barrett asked.

“Actually, it would help a lot if you went to a drugstore and bought some disposable incontinence bed pads.”

“Oh, damn, Dove,really?” Barrett sounded horrified.

Dove burst into laughter. “I know, right? Incontinence bed pads wasn’t a game we ever played.”

Because Dove was laughing, Eddie started laughing, and Barrett couldn’t help herself. She laughed, too. For a moment, there in the kitchen in a farmhouse on an island, they were three friends again, sisters more than friends, and they laughed because they were terrified and heartbroken but they were together again, and they would laugh as long as they could.

Dove went upstairs to sleep. Barrett returned to her shop. Eddie put together a casserole and went up to Barrett’s bedroom, shut the door, and sat on her bed, leaning against the headboard. She opened her journal and began to write. It was odd, she thought, how the only place she could be honest about her feelings was in the journal. She could write,this is too hard,andmaybe Dove won’t really die,andhow can I be Bobby’s mommy?

After a while, she went to her Web browser and looked up the poems of Khalil Gibran.

—

At nine o’clock, Barrett closed her shop and drove home. She entered the house, carrying a white pharmacy bag filled with bed pads and boxes of chocolate, which she hoped Dove could eat.

“We’re in here,” Eddie called from the family room.

William sat in one overstuffed chair and Dinah had kicked off her sandals and was curled up in the other one. Eddie and Dove were seated on the sofa in front of the television. Eddie had the remote in her hand and had obviously paused the TV.

“We’re watching John Mulaney,” Dove said. “He’s so funny.”

Barrett said, “Hi, everyone!” and sat next to Eddie, trying to hide the pharmacy bag by stuffing it beneath the sofa.

“Barrett.” Dove leaned forward to look past Eddie. “You don’t have to hide those. We’ve told your father and Dinah about it. About me.”

“Also,” Dinah said sweetly, “I think I see a box of Ferrero Rocher sticking out of the bag. I think our little group would be cheered up by a bite or two of chocolate.”

Barrett was speechless. How could Dinah think of chocolate when Dove was right there, so ill and thin?

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Dove said. “Dinah’s had a difficult day. Her stalker is on the island. He sent a message through her website that he’s here and would like to see her, at her convenience.”

“What are you going to do?” Barrett asked.

“We were just discussing that,” her father said.

Barrett glanced at Dove. How could anybody think about anything with Dove so sick?

Dove seemed to read her mind. “I realize I’m the most important person in this room, Barrett, but we’ve spent enough time moaning about my problems. It cheers me up to hear what’s going on with everyone else.”

Eddie elbowed Barrett in the side. “What about those chocolates?”

Barrett drew out the white paper bag and passed the chocolates around. She watched as Dove took one, but then only held it in her hand, fiddling with the gold wrapper.

—

The new Book Barn family developed their own routine.

In the morning, Barrett rose and zipped off to her store. Eddie, sleeping in the other twin bed, would yawn and dress and head down to the kitchen to make coffee. Bobby would leave his sleeping mother, tiptoe down to the kitchen, eat the cereal and drink the juice Eddiegave him, and hurry off to the den to watch television. Dinah would enter, talking softly to her iPhone, plotting the next chapter of her novel. She’d make a piece of toast and a cup of coffee and wander back to her room to write. William would come down the stairs fully dressed in khaki shorts and a striped rugby shirt that he’d purchased of his own accord from Murray’s Toggery, so that when he took Bobby exploring for the day, he would look casual, less like a stuffy old professor.

Eddie would tidy the kitchen, pack a picnic lunch, and go off with her father and Bobby to look at the boats in the harbor and hang out at Children’s Beach, or if it was raining, visit the Whaling Museum. They’d pick up books from the library and sometimes stay for story time. They’d visit Barrett in her shop if it wasn’t too busy. The Maria Mitchell aquarium was always fascinating to Bobby and the secret candy room at the back of Force Five was a kid’s idea of heaven.

Sometimes Eddie and Bobby would stop to watch Jeff and the crew building a new house. In spite of the noise of the hammers and saws, Bobby was fascinated. Often, when Jeff took a moment to come to their Jeep to say hello, Bobby would almost explode with excitement. The little boy adored Jeff, especially when he was working. One late afternoon when a storm with torrential rain and gale force wind hit the island, Jeff came over with a present for Bobby, a child’s wooden workbench set. He sat on the floor with Bobby and showed him how to hammer down the pegs and work the pliers. Bobby was entranced; Eddie thought he wouldn’t notice if Santa Claus himself walked into the room. If Jeff was too whipped to stop by, he would always call Bobby and ask how his day went. Later, he would call Eddie.

---