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bought two blocks of ice from the fish market to hold the food.
    Bluefish were running, so Julia had picked some up. She and Jenny made a classic summer dinner: grilled fish, red potato salad made with vinaigrette and grain mustard, butter-and-sugar corn on the cob, and fresh peach ice cream from Paradise Ice Cream for dessert. They ate outside, on the porch, with candles in hurricane lamps. The wind began to shake the trees, and they could hear the surf smashing over the sandbar.
    “I want to get married in a hurricane,” Jenny said.
    “With a tent in the yard that can blow away?” Julia said.
    “Yes! And Timmy and I will wear wetsuits instead of a suit and a gown, and we’ll all go swimming at the peak of the storm. Maybe we’ll say our vows in the water.”
    “That’s romantic.”
    “You’re the best mom.”
    “I want everything to stay just like this,” Jenny said.
    Julia nodded because she knew exactly what she meant.
    “I’ll go away to college in a couple of years,” Jenny said. “We won’t be together.”
    “What? You think I’m not moving to college with you?” Julia asked.
    Jenny laughed and snuffled. “Don’t joke.”
    “I’m not.”
    “If I get into Brown, Providence isn’t so far. An hour and a half.”
    Julia nodded. Jenny had thought this through. They were still holding hands on the table, and Jenny wouldn’t let go. Julia had thought Jenny’s biggest worry was what would happen with Timmy. He probably didn’t have a chance at Brown, but they’d been talking about his applying to other schools in Rhode Island.
    “Mom, what if I decided not to go?”
    “To Brown? First of all, it’s so hard to get into—I think you have a great chance, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Also, just because Dad and I went there doesn’t mean you have to. There are lots of other great choices.”
    “No, I mean not go to college at all.”
    “Why would you say that?”
    Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know. What if I just stayed home and worked?”
    “I’d say you’re giving up a really good chance at life and finding out who you are. Sorry if I sound corny and motherly, but that is my job.”
    “I love what we have,” Jenny said. “I love being home. What if I was away and something happened to you?”
    “I’m healthy. I’m going to live a long time and be a great old lady. You don’t have to worry for decades and decades.”
    “Promise?”
    “Cross my heart.”
    “But still . . .”
    “Jenny, I know how you feel. You’re making me remember exactly what it was like. I loved my parents, too. I remember some nights, lying in bed, knowing they were safe in the next room, closing my eyes tight and just wishing so hard that we could just stay like that, the way we were right then, forever.”
    “That’s exactly how I feel.”
    Jenny moved her hands over the candles as if casting a spell.
    “Let us be this way forever,” she chanted.
    “Let it be so,” Julia said. “The spirits have spoken.”
    Jenny laughed. She seemed to shake off her dark mood, and jumped up from the table. They cleaned up the dishes, and Jenny disappeared into her room to call Timmy. The storm picked up, and wind howled off the water. The first rain started to fall, pelting the shuttered windows. The lights flickered, but stayed on.
    “It’s here!” Jenny said, running into the kitchen.
    “Let’s call Dad before the lines go down,” Julia suggested. They dialed his cell, and it went straight to voicemail. Jenny left a message telling him he was missing a great time. Julia decided to try his room at the Brown Palace Hotel. The operator rang his room, and he picked up.
    “We just wanted to say hi before the hurricane knocks the power out,” she said.
    “How’s it look so far?”
    “It’s blowing hard.”
    Jenny ran to check the anemometer. “Steady forty, gusting to sixty-five so far! Can I talk to him?”
    “How are the depositions going?” Julia asked.
    “Good, but very busy. I’m