If you can’t round up some other guests for a round of bridge, euchre or crazy eights, play solitaire.

What drew Mae away from the river? She was so close she could feel the freedom of it, no despair, no fear; she was so close she could almost taste the release—and then it wasn’t raining anymore. The sun edged its way out from behind a cloud that had, moments before, seemed so dense there was the possibility the sun would never be seen again, at least not by Mae, whose intentions had been so clear. Until everything had changed. She had gasped and stumbled backward, and the water that would have taken hold of her had rushed past without her.

It was her parents’ island, she supposes—when she allows herself to think of the moment at all, which is less and less with each day that passes—that brought her back. She saw not its shape but the idea of it, the tips of the pine trees she knew skirted the little bay beyond which the ruined foundation of the fishing camp sat. She knew she wasn’t alone, understood suddenly that it didn’t matter if she couldn’t remember very much about her mother. Her mother had loved her. She had loved her so much. And part of the reason she had loved her so much was because Mae, simply by existing, had made it so that Virginia had never been alone, even in her most difficult moments.

Mae had placed her hand on her stomach. I’m sorry. And she had known that, just as she forgave her parents for their mistakes, just as Gabe, in his way, had forgiven his father for his mistakes over and over, had crossed the river so many times in the hopes that things would be different, her child would forgive her for this.

What was important now was for Mae to make sure there weren’t too many things to forgive.

She had stretched her hand out toward the islands she could now see in the clearing mist. “There,” she had said to the child in her future. “There are the islands.” She pointed at Island 51 and her hand shook but she kept it held high. “Gabe lived there. He was my best friend. And I miss him.” She would tell the story of Gabe to the baby one day. She would talk about her friend, the lost boy. She would not let the hurt of it color the memory. Because if she didn’t talk about Gabe, she wouldn’t be able to talk about her own childhood. She wouldn’t be able to tie a new rope to the old oak tree on the shore and say to her child that once, a long time ago, she swung on this rope with a friend and she was happy.

It was her parents’ island that had brought her back, but it was also herself. She was the one who stepped away from the water. There was no one there to save her, and so she saved herself. She turned away from the river, walked down the road, splashed through the puddles, and went home. She knew, finally, why her mother had loved the rain so much. It wasn’t perfect; it didn’t have to be. When it rained, everything else was washed away. Everything you did that day became a gift, sometimes even an act of bravery that no one else would know about, ever, because everyone else was hiding inside.

It wasn’t easy. Even if she wasn’t really alone, even if the child was there with her, silently waiting, even if she had Viv, and the bridge ladies, it wasn’t easy to keep her loneliness at bay. At night, in her bed without Gabe, that was the worst time. She tried sleeping in other rooms but he was in all of them. She gave up and decided to wait. Time would heal this, wouldn’t it?

She went for a walk every day in the opposite direction from the path she had followed that dark afternoon. And every day, as she returned home to the empty inn, she felt a little better. But she also felt surprised, with every passing day, that Gabe hadn’t returned.

Then, late one afternoon, as she rounded the corner on the road that led her to the inn’s driveway, she heard a barking dog. Not Gabe, no. But hope.

* * *

George’s Buick is there, and Bud is running around the yard. He’s covered in mud, he’s digging holes happily, he’s peeing against the birdbath once again. Mae starts to run, through the mud, through the rain that has started up again, but more softly. She runs through the imperfect world she lives in, the one her child will soon live in. It’s the only world she has to offer. She’ll have to try to find a way to explain that one day, without making happiness seem impossible.

“I’m sorry,” George begins. He’s about to say, “And there are things you need to know,” but she interrupts him, points down at her stomach. “You’re going to be a great-grandfather.”