I shrugged. “Sure,” I said. “Do you skate?” He had the tall, lanky, hair-in-your-eyes look that kinda said skater, so it was a reasonable question.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll break my neck.”

I laughed and then skated over to him, stepped off the board. “Here,” I said. “Give it a try. You’ll be fine.”

He smiled nervously and put his foot on the board. And when I looked up into his face, his eyes looked really funny. Like his pupils were huge. Big black disks in the center of blue. Whoa, I thought, maybe he will break his neck if he’s going to try skating all messed up on whatever he’s messed up on. He stepped onto the board and just stood there and that’s when I noticed Ally walking down the driveway carrying a wicker lunch basket.

“My sister can do some good driveway tricks too,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, you should ask her about it sometime.”

Ally sat on the low wall near the house and just watched us. She gave me a funny, skeptical look—the kind that said, “That boy can’t skate,” and I almost laughed out loud.

Sometimes she could get that kind of look our father had where he would just stare blankly and then ask what kind of boats you’d sailed. Graham didn’t look like he could keep himself upright on a skateboard, so I doubted he had any sea legs. And things like sea legs were pretty important to Ally, who still sailed with our dad quite a bit.

“So, um. How do I do it?” Graham asked.

“Skate!” I said.

He looked a little confused and then put his foot on the board and pushed along the pavement. The driveway sloped down and curved into the woods. By the time he had reached the end of the slope he had fallen off. He lay there on his back dramatically while I trudged down the driveway. Then I stood over him with my hands on my hips. He was gazing up into the sky with a weird look on his face, a half smile, his eyes drifting from left to right as they followed a cloud.

I looked back at Ally, who was grinning and shaking her head. Then she headed back toward the woods with her basket to pick berries.

I said “All right, captain head case, point taken. You cannot skate. Hand over the board.”

I shrugged and hopped back on the board and skated around his body, then up the driveway and retrieved his camera from where he left it, handed it to him. But I get you, I thought. Behind those dilated eyes is a great big secret.

I rode my blue vintage Schwinn along the winding coastal road to work, feeling the wind blowing my hair around my shoulders. My baby-blue helmet was buckled beneath my chin and I had on my powder-blue silk shirt Mom had bought me and my jean jacket, and my backpack was full of homework. Always so much homework. Sometimes I wished I could be like Sydney and never have to study. It’s not like I couldn’t get good grades, but I had to concentrate and work twice as hard as she did. I knew working hard was one of the best qualities a person could have, but I still felt dumb sometimes. It’s not easy to have a little sister who is so brainy.

I thought about college applications while I rode. I hoped admissions at Emerson would appreciate how hard I’d been working, hoped it reflected in the transcripts I’d be sending. I knew that my recommendations would be good but worried about my grades in English and science, worried that my essay might be a little boring. I started working on it over the summer even though it wasn’t due for several months. I’d even shown it to Sydney—who had actually had some good suggestions and helped a lot. Guess Syd couldn’t wait for me to get out of the house, wanted to make sure she got me into school and away.

I think Syd and I were like two sides of the same coin. She wouldn’t work at anything that didn’t interest her but she had some kind of crazy memory for information. I would work at everything as hard as I could but things slipped my mind all the time. It was hard to keep hold of facts. I liked practical things better and I felt like there was always enough going on to keep me busy. I was like that since we were little. I often felt like Sydney did things and I just watched her do them and made sure she didn’t get hurt. For example she’d never wear a helmet if she was riding a bike. She almost never wore one when she was skating.

That might seem brave, but another word for it is reckless—or maybe even stupid. I liked to have fun too, but I didn’t think the fun came from the possibility that you might get hurt. If Daddy said to put on a life jacket when we were on the boat and it was stormy, I put on a life jacket. I wore a helmet when I rode my bike. Syd thought things like that made me scared or wimpy, but I enjoyed what I did.

I loved biking away on the hills or along the ocean and being alone and away from everyone, feeling free and smelling the salt air and thinking about nothing. I really did think about nothing. I’m not embarrassed to say it. It was a gift. Most people can’t stop thinking about who they are or what they’ll do or what people think about them but I could. I could stop thinking about upsetting things and think about nothing. I could accept the world just as it is and live in it just fine. When life gives you blueberries, bake blueberry muffins!

I always thought one day, maybe when we’re older we’d become better friends and see how what we thought were opposite qualities actually complemented each other. Just like Mom’s and Dad’s.

The leaves were just beginning to change color and the stunning yellows and flame reds whizzed past and crunched beneath my tires in the gutter. The breeze smelled like wood smoke and crisp fall air and it was still warm where it was sunny. I loved days like that. The bright hot sun and the high round clouds made me feel free, like I could do anything.

When I arrived at Pine Grove, I locked my bike out front and then went in to say hi to Ginny. I would be changing linens for the first hour and then would relieve the other receptionist at the front desk. Maybe if there were few calls or little to do I’d get to do some schoolwork before biking back home. The place always smelled like vanilla candles and cinnamon, and the old wood was polished shiny and clean, and the wide plank floors creaked a little beneath the traditional braided rugs Ginny had bought down at the antiques market. The whole place was cozy and charming, like stepping into the past.

The sofa in the lobby was also an antique and Ginny had made a log cabin quilt to throw over the arm. It all looked so perfect and made me happy we live in New England. I honestly couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d like to live. Rockland suited me fine and I was proud my family had lived there for generations; it seemed to make the memories all sweeter and deeper, all of us decades after decades going to the same schools, walking down the same roads.

I looked out the windows at the beautiful ocean. It was always so quiet and peaceful there. I was lucky to get paid to sit in that pretty room. Work was usually fun and laid-back. A few guests checking in, a phone reservation or two. But that evening, there must have been something wrong with the telephone connections at the front desk, or maybe a wireless tower had gone down nearby.

Because a few times every hour I would get a call and no one would be on the other line.

I would answer. I would say, “Hello, hello?” And there would be nothing but silence and then a cold quiet click.

I responded to the call in the late afternoon. Shocked to hear it on the scanner. And I fully expected it to be some contractor who’d had too much to drink at Kelley’s Dockside Happy Hour. But it wasn’t. There was already a small crowd there. It was a chilly day, but bright, and the sun was just beginning to get low in the sky—reflecting out across the water. You never would have known on a day so normal and beautiful that something could go so horribly wrong. People never expect it, but in my experience, that’s when it happens.