Mina sighed. Yes, a cup of hot tea would be lovely. Especially one that she didn’t have to make herself. She was about to say so when she remembered the incinerated teakettle. She felt a new flush of humiliation creep up her neck.

“No, thank you, dear. You’re kind to offer. But really I’m perfectly fine. Don’t worry about me. You already have your hands full. Are you going back to the hospital today?”

Evie checked her watch. “Oh, shit.” Her face colored. “I mean sheesh. How’d it get so late? The doctor’s only there until noon, and I have to take the bus again unless Finn has put some gas in the tank.”

“Well, you certainly don’t want to miss the doctor.” Mina pushed off the afghan and heaved herself to her feet. “Take my car keys. I’m not going anywhere, and in case you can’t get your mother’s car started, you’ll have a backup.”

“You sure?”

“Oh my, yes. I should have offered earlier. Besides, I haven’t driven it in days and it’s like an old dog that needs to be walked every once in a while. As soon as I find my purse—” Mina glanced around the living room. Where had she left it?

“I saw it. Hold on.” Evie disappeared into the kitchen. She came back a moment later with Mina’s handbag.

Of course. Now Mina remembered setting it carefully on the quilted placemat on the kitchen counter, determined not to lose it again. What on earth was the matter with her?

“Thank you so much,” Evie said when Mina handed her the car keys. “This is so generous of you. You really are a peach.” Evie started to go but turned back. “You sure you’re okay? Is there anyone I should call to come stay with you?”

“Stay with me? Pshaw. If there’s anything I know how to be, it’s alone. You go. Hurry.”

“Thank you.”

As Evie started out through the dining room, Mina noticed for the first time that she had on loose red-and-blue-plaid flannel pants. Were those pajama bottoms?

“You’re going out in those?” she asked.

Chapter Twenty-five

You’re going out in those? Mrs. Yetner’s parting shot was a zinger—a gibe masquerading as an innocent question. Evie would have bristled had it come from her own mother. But she loved it coming from Mrs. Yetner. She gave her startled neighbor a quick hug and chuckled as she hurried back to her mother’s house to shower and dress for the hospital.

When Evie pulled the shower curtain, two roaches ran down the drain. In the shower, she let hot water run hard, pounding her sore shoulders and neck. Was that man really going to arrest Mrs. Yetner? More likely he’d said that to rattle her. If that had been his intention, it worked.

Right after Evie had helped Mrs. Yetner off with her boots, she’d looked out and seen the officer and Frank Cutler talking, their heads bent. The man had acted like a police officer, but since when did police badges say SECURITY? Maybe he was a private security guard.

The golf ball was no figment of Mrs. Yetner’s imagination. When Evie had picked it up and scraped dried mud off its dimpled surface, she could tell that it was no ancient relic, either. Still, it could have been lying in the marsh for months, and there was no way to tell whether Mr. Cutler had been the one who’d launched it.

Before Evie left for the hospital, she made sure all the windows were shut and set up roach bombs on the bathroom and kitchen floors. SUPER FOGGER, the label read. PRO GRADE. The bomb didn’t just have a warning label. It had a warning booklet that peeled off the can: Hazards to humans and domestic animals. Environmental hazards. Danger of explosion. Leave the premises for at least four hours. Ventilate thoroughly before reentering.

The label almost talked her out of it until she noticed on the kitchen ceiling four translucent wormy creatures, which sadly she recognized as moth larvae. As she rushed out of the house, bombs activated, locking the door behind her, Finn was in the driveway raising her mother’s garage door. He waved to her.

“Hey,” she said, heading over to him.

“Everything okay?”

“We had a little excitement.” She hadn’t realized, but she was out of breath.

“I heard. Something about a golf ball.” He shook his head and picked up a red square gallon gas can from the ground by his feet. The contents sloshed. “This should be enough to get you to a gas station. And the fix to your front steps is only temporary, but at least you won’t kill yourself coming and going.” He unscrewed the gas cap and inserted the can’s long yellow spout into the opening.

As he started to pour, Evie smelled the pungent gasoline odor. She glanced at her watch. She had just enough time to stop for gas on her way to the hospital.

“There,” he said, pulling out the spout. “Hop in and give it a whirl.” He came around, pulled open the driver-side door, and gestured with a welcoming hand. Then he hesitated. “Hold on. Stay back.” He crouched alongside the car. Unhooking a flashlight from his tool belt, he played the light under the car, around and behind the rear wheel.

“What?” Evie stepped closer. Then she smelled it. The odor of gasoline had gone from strong to overwhelming. She put her hand up over her face.

“Your mother’s car didn’t run out of gas.” Finn stood and faced her, brushing his hands off on his pant legs. “Gas ran out of it.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Long after the girl had gone, Mina could feel Evie’s strong arms around her and a faint fruity smell that Mina finally placed. Raspberry.

It had been a while since Mina had been properly hugged. Not since her sister. Mina sat at the kitchen table as memories flooded back. She and Annabelle, young, walking arm in arm to Sparkles. Annabelle supporting her in the shallows, helping her learn to float on her back. Buttoning the long row of tiny mother-of-pearl buttons on the back of Annabelle’s wedding dress.

Their last embrace might have been one of the last times that Mina visited Annabelle in the nursing home, a few weeks before her sister slipped into a coma and was moved to the hospital where Mina had promised her she’d never end up.

Mina had arrived that day and found Annabelle parked in the corridor outside her room, hunched over a locked-in tray-table in what the nurses called a geri-chair. Asleep? Mina couldn’t be sure.

Her sister’s once lustrous auburn hair, now white and wispy, was neatly pulled back into a bun at her neck. Her eyeglasses were anchored with a band that went around her head. The blouse and pants Mina had bought for her a few weeks earlier were already swimming on her.

When she’d stepped closer, she heard Annabelle muttering. She had to stoop to make out the words. “Don’t say that.” A pause. “You already . . . had your chance.” The words came out in short intense spurts, on puffs of breaths like Annabelle was trying to blow out a match. “You just be quiet.”

“Hello, dear,” Mina said, laying her hand gently on her sister’s arm. She kissed the top of her head and breathed in shampoo scent. Even if the staff couldn’t keep Annabelle from sliding into oblivion, at least the attention to hygiene was excellent.

Annabelle lifted her head and blinked, an unfocused look in her eyes, then coughed weakly. Mina could hear her labored breathing. Pneumonia and heart failure would eventually be the official cause of death.

Mina lifted her sister’s hand and pressed it against her own cheek. “Hello, Annabelle.”

Finally her sister’s gaze connected with hers. “Hello, dearest,” Annabelle said. The flicker of recognition was still there, thank God. That sweet smile. Then Annabelle raised her arms and gave Mina what she didn’t know would be her last hug.

“Who were you talking to?” Mina had asked.

“Talking to talking to talking . . .” Annabelle gave a vague wave of the hand. Her once long, tapered fingers were knotted with arthritis, the way that Mina’s were becoming. “Friends.” Annabelle blinked twice, her gaze wandering until it anchored once again on Mina. “Imaginary friends.”