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death of a spouse was number one on a list of things that caused stress—and what had she done that morning but invited more stress into her life?
    “I have to go to the grocery store,” Connie said.
    Meredith said, “Would it be all right if I came along?”
    Connie watched Meredith bouncing on her toes, as she used to on the end of a diving board.
    “Okay,” Connie said. “But you have to wear your hat and glasses.” Connie was terrified of getting caught. What would happen if someone discovered that Meredith Delinn was
here,
living with
Connie?
    “Hat and glasses,” Meredith said.

    Connie drove the six miles to Stop & Shop while Meredith made a list on a pad of paper braced against her thigh. Connie’s fear subsided and a sense of well-being sneaked up on her, which she normally only experienced after a very good massage and three glasses of chardonnay. She opened the sunroof, and fresh air rushed in as she turned up the radio—Queen, singing “We Are the Champions,” the victory song of the Merion Mercy field-hockey team, which she and Meredith had both played on for four years. Connie grinned and Meredith turned her face toward the sun, and the car was a happy place for a moment.
    In the store, Connie sent Meredith for whole-wheat tortillas and Greek yogurt while she waited at the deli counter. She sent Meredith for laundry detergent, rubber gloves, and sponges, but then Meredith was gone for so long that Connie panicked. She raced through the store with her cart, dodging the other shoppers and their small children, everyone moving at a snail’s pace, drugged by the effects of the sea air and sun. Where was Meredith? Connie was hesitant to call out her name. It was unlikely that she’d left the store, so what was Connie afraid of? She was afraid that Meredith had been handcuffed by FBI agents. Meredith should rightly be in the aisle with the Windex and the paper towels, but she wasn’t there, nor was she in the next aisle, nor the next. Connie had only had her old friend back for a matter of hours, and now she was missing. And Connie wasn’t even sure that she wanted Meredith to stay—so why was she now panicking that Meredith was gone?
    Connie found Meredith standing in the bread aisle, holding a bag of kaiser rolls.
    Connie flooded with relief, then thought,
This is ridiculous. I have to get a grip.
“Oh, good,” she said. “I thought I’d lost you.”
    Meredith said, “There was a
USA Today
photographer who staked out the Gristedes by my house, and there was a guy from the
National Enquirer
who frequented the D’Agostino down the street. I couldn’t go shopping for eggs. Or toothpaste.”
    Connie took the rolls from Meredith’s hands and dropped them in the cart. “Well, no one’s following you here.”
    “Yet,” Meredith said, adjusting her sunglasses.
    “Right. Let’s not press our luck.” Connie headed for the checkout. She was grateful not to know anyone in the store. She and Wolf had made a conscious decision not to engage in Nantucket’s social scene. They attended parties and benefits and dinners at home in Washington all year long, and Nantucket was a break from that, although Wolf still had a few friends on Nantucket from summers growing up. His parents and grandparents had belonged to the Nantucket Yacht Club, and once or twice a summer Wolf was called on to sail, or he and Connie were invited to a cocktail party or barbecue in the garden of a friend’s ancestral summer cottage. But for the most part, Connie and Wolf kept to themselves. Although she had been coming to Nantucket for over twenty years, Connie often felt anonymous. She knew no one and no one knew her.
    As they stood in line, Meredith handed Connie three twenty-dollar bills. “I’d like to chip in for expenses.”
    Connie considered waving the money away. The television reporters had made it clear that—unless there was a cache of funds at some offshore bank—Meredith Delinn had been left penniless. “Do