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babies about the same age. Those babies—Beth’s son, David, and Lynne’s twins Kevin and Kyle—grew up together and became best friends, just like Beth and Lynne. Every week, she and Lynne went grocery shopping together. They shared clothes and divided and exchanged their perennials and occasionally Beth had to call on Lynne to remove the dreaded garter snake from her periwinkle patch.
    Lynne had become such a part of her life, Beth said, she couldn’t imagine going on without her, though she supposed that, like Lynne’s husband and sons, she would have to adjust.
    “It really is true that life comes with a guarantee of death, I’m afraid.” Beth gripped the podium, her voice shaking with grief and, Carol suspected, an innate fear of public speaking. “I kept hoping if I loved her hard enough that I could keep her with me, but not even love, I’ve learned, can postpone the inevitable. Wherever Lynne is, I know she’s in a better place and I hope you—Sean, Kevin, and Kyle—can find comfort in knowing she is finally out of pain.”
    By the time Beth returned to her pew, Carol had dissolved into tears, weeping over the totality of loss and the gnawing hunger of unremitting heartache.
    The church was silent as local musician Jake Fenster hooked a Spanish guitar around his neck and began strumming a slow song that sounded familiar, although Carol couldn’t quite place it.
    Beth’s husband, Marc, and one of Sean’s brothers pushed Lynne’s coffin down the aisle and everyone rose. Sean followed, along with the boys. Next came Mary Kay and Beth. Carol slipped out of her Blahniks with the four-inch heels, drew a pair of flats from her bag, and joined them.
    Beth gave her a big, hard hug. “Ready to say good-bye to our girl?”
    Carol’s nose went hot. Trusting her Blahniks to Jeff, she joined the other pallbearers taking their positions by Lynne’s casket. Kevin and Kyle stood in the front. Beth and Marc shored up the middle. She was next to Mary Kay, who said, “We’ll get through this.”
    “We have no choice.”
    They lifted and adjusted the coffin’s weight on their shoulders. It was heavy. Too heavy. Carol had to shift her feet to keep it from sliding off. She staggered a bit on the top step and for one brief, panicked second as her knees wobbled, she was sure she was going to drop it and ruin everything until Mary Kay reached out and steadied her with a firm grip.
    “Link arms,” she said. “We can do it if we do it together.”
    Carol entwined her arms with Mary Kay’s and they proceeded down the steps, carrying Lynne toward the black open hearse and her final resting place in the Old Town Cemetery, where she would join DeeDee Patterson and her sisters from the original Ladies Society for the Conservation of Marshfield.
    Not until Jake walked behind them, strumming on his guitar and singing, did Carol peg the tune Lynne had chosen for her final exit.
    “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. Vintage Lynne.
    It was good to be home.

Chapter Four
    W hat is it about funerals that leave people so famished?
    Beth bustled about her dining-room table, refilling the hot mulled cider and checking on the state of the balsamic chicken wings, fast disappearing. She put down the pot and fetched the chicken-wing tray, pleased with how guests were loading their plates and returning for seconds. It had been a tremendous amount of work, setting out such a spread, but with rain streaming outside her windows and cold wind blowing, the menu of soups and warm homemade bread, chicken wings, and hot cider had hit just the right spot.
    Of course, she’d had some help. Mary Kay ordered a raft of authentic smoked salmon from her native Alaska and for that Beth had made her mother’s special cream cheese with capers, red onions, and fresh chopped dill. Carol had brought from New York four dozen bagels that Tiffany sliced and put out, along with several bottles of good wine also from the back of Carol’s town car.
    Beth’s