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work. Maybe when Martha had settled in more, she’d be friendlier. Cindy hoped so. She hadn’t come here to feel as lonely as she did at home with Max gone. And Martha looked so sad and lost, Cindy wanted friendship for her sake too.
    “Registration is in that big building right there.” She pointed. “I’d be happy to help you with your—”
    “Please.” Martha held up a ringless hand. Cindy still wore As Good As It Got
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    her wedding band, though she had considered taking it off in case some of the women here objected that she still considered herself firmly attached. It was just that she hadn’t taken the ring off since Kevin slipped it on her finger twenty-one years ago, on June 30. “I’d like to be alone.”
    “Oh. Sure.” Cindy backed away, wanting to ask why the hell Martha and Ann had come to a camp crowded with women if they wanted to be alone? “No problem. Just offering. I’ll see you later, I guess.”
    Martha didn’t answer. She moved around to the back of her car, opened her trunk and just stood there, staring inside.
    Cindy’s heart broke. This woman’s husband must have left her for real.
    “You know . . . ” She walked over to Martha, put her hand on the woman’s shoulder, felt her flinch and moved it off quickly. “This is really hard for all of us. We’re all in this together, for the next two weeks. I just think if you—”
    “Thank you. I’m okay.”
    Cindy felt a twinge of annoyance at the curt dismissal and had to stop herself from saying Fine in an injured tone and making this into more than it needed to be.
    Martha hauled her suitcase out of her trunk, slammed the lid and lumbered toward the registration building. Halfway there, she stopped, stood frozen for several beats, then turned and plunged down the path toward the shore, leaving her suitcase, which hesitated, then slowly toppled over onto its side.
    Oh gosh. Cindy moved quickly toward the administrative cabin, then broke into a jog, then a run, passing Ann, who was still trying to drag her suitcases over the gravelly path.
    Someone should know Martha was on her way down to the 40 Isabel
    Sharpe
    sea, in case she was crying or, God forbid, tried to kill herself. Someone with experience in how to handle women in pain. So far Cindy had struck out twice, and a third time might mean an end to Martha’s inning.
    Whoever their fourth roommate, Dinah, was, Cindy hoped she’d turn out to be more of a friend than Martha and Ann were ever likely to be.
    Martha stumbled on an exposed root then walked faster and faster through a small clearing, past a large shingled building with a wooden sign that read REGISTRATION, and under it, a red sign on white cotton, WELCOME, with the W like a sea gull in flight, until the path dead-ended perpendicular to another path along the rocky edge. A woman was coming toward her from the right along the oceanside path, wearing some cute shorts/top combo straight from an L.L.Bean cata-log, calling a greeting and smiling.
    Martha whirled in the other direction and strode toward an area where the pines grew larger and the alders reached shoulder height. Ahead on the path she saw another woman, this one shapely and fit, blond hair long and thick, wearing tight jeans and layered tops. Martha hesitated, feeling like a video game character escaping predators, and plunged through a growth of alders, their leaves catching and pulling the fringe of her shawl, creepy fingers holding her back.
    Eldon. She missed Eldon. She didn’t want to be here, she wanted to be home waiting for him to wake up and come to her. Why had she enrolled?
    Because Eldon had chosen this place for her and she had to keep reminding herself that he’d have wanted to take care of her. He could still wake up. And having come so close to As Good As It Got
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    death, he’d rethink his life and his priorities. She and Eldon had found that rarest of treasures: true love, the kind that never died, never wavered. Its power would bring