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thought of crossing campus with Andy at my side seemed easier than flying solo. His strong hand at the small of my back, maneuvering me down the hallway, a guaranteed seat at lunchat a table full of athletes and cheerleaders, outgoing people who’d carry the conversation …
    “Yeah,” I said. “Why not?”
    Andy smiled again. It seemed so easy for him—smiling, making conversation. Yes, mini-golf would be remarkably more tolerable with Andy close by.
    “Just let me tell my mom.” I left Andy standing in the kitchen, finishing off his apple. Upstairs, my mother’s door was still closed. I hesitated before opening it, listening quietly for any movement. There was nothing.
    The door swung open silently, and I found my mother just as I had envisioned her—on her back in the bed, a pillow over her eyes.
    For one terrifying moment, I was certain she was dead. But then she breathed, and the pillow shifted, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.
    On her bedside table sat the bottle of sleeping pills our family doctor had prescribed. The lid was off.
    I pulled the door closed and headed back downstairs, more slowly.
    Andy looked at me expectantly. “That was fast.”
    “Yeah … she was sleeping. Let me just leave a note.” I took a pad of paper and a pen from the junk drawer and scrawled, Out with Andy. Home later. Love, S .
    I left it on the counter. I had no idea if my mother would even come downstairs tonight; we didn’t have any guests, so there really wouldn’t be any reason for her to, but Daddy would probably see the note when he came in from the garden.

    One of the good things about living on an island is that you can walk pretty much anywhere in town. From our B&B, it was a short five blocks to the mini-golf, and as we headed over, Andy took my hand, as if we had tacitly agreed to pick up right where we’d left off last spring.
    I knew all the neighbors, of course, and I collected a half-dozen smiles and as many waves from eager-looking islanders who seemed relieved to see me back among the living. Andy returned their greetings, waving broadly, as if he were the grand marshal of the Rose Parade.
    The mini-golf was as crowded as it ever got. A mix of tourists with their screaming kids yanking on their arms, begging for quarters for the vending machine, and teenage locals who formed their own little circle a clear step away from the visitors gathered around the ticket booth.
    It was understood that tourists go first. Locals held open the doors to restaurants for them, took a step back if a group of them was heading for the ice cream stand, kept the shop lights on as long as they wanted to browse.
    The tourists were our livelihood, so I guess it was natural that life on the island kind of revolved around them, but we got pretty tired of it sometimes. It was like we lived in Disneyland; there was very little private space, and almost everything was about making a buck.
    Of course we knew the owners of the mini-golf: the Carpenters, a nice older couple who’d never had any kids of their own and seemed to enjoy all of their customers—tourists and locals—equally. That was one of the reasons the islandteens liked to hang out here; there were no dirty looks from the proprietors. Most of the island kids were pretty broke, except during high season, when tourist money lined our pockets from summer jobs, so the town’s businesses usually viewed us as a burden rather than as genuine paying customers.
    To an extent, they were right; after all, our friends were the waiters and waitresses, the tour guides and ice cream scoopers, and we had an unspoken agreement to give each other free sodas and fries, bigger servings of ice cream … when the owners weren’t looking.
    But the Carpenters didn’t employ any teenagers. They worked the ticket booth themselves, handing out the putters and brightly colored golf balls. And though Mrs. Carpenter was a kind lady, she kept a shark’s eye on the equipment, making