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stepped inside.
    “ How’d you know it was me?” I asked Goldie’s grandmother.
    The old woman winked. “The birds told me.”
    My mother smiled and reached out a hand. “I’m Sarah’s mother. Daniella Richardson.”
    Nana did something that shocked me. She brushed away my mother’s offered hand and engulfed her in a hug. My mother didn’t quite know what to do.
    I hid my face so that I wouldn’t burst out laughing.
    What an odd sight they made―my tall, slim mother gripped in a bear hug by a short, plump Indian woman.
    “ Call me Nana,” the old woman said. “Everyone does. I’m so glad you came to visit me.” She smiled. “Daniella. That’s a very pretty name.”
    “ Thank you,” my mother replied.
    Goldie tugged at my hand. “Let’s go down to the beach.”
    I looked over my shoulder and saw Nana opening the basket my mother had brought. She pulled out a lemon muffin and bit into it hungrily while they chatted about our move to Canada. Watching the two women, I was happy that my mother had someone she could talk to. I knew that she missed her parents who were vacationing in Italy.
    We brought Shonda with us down to the beach and watched the little girl play in the sand at the water’s edge. She found some baby crabs in a small pool of water and brought them over to show us. She was a happy child with big black eyes. Sometimes she would gaze across the bay and I wondered if she was thinking of her brother.
    “ Do you miss Robert?” I asked Goldie.
    She nodded and stared out toward Fallen Island. “I miss his laughter the most. He was always telling funny jokes. And playing pranks on Nana. One time he hid her herbs and when she went to hang them in the kitchen, she thought she’d never picked them at all. So she went back into the garden and cut some more.”
    “ What did Robert do?”
    “ He hid those too,” she replied with a wide grin. “When Nana went to hang the second bunch, she thought she was losing her mind because she couldn’t find them either. She walked around the house muttering ‘Now where did I put those darn herbs? I picked them, didn’t I?’ It was hilarious. ”
    I laughed at her impression of her grandmother.
    “ What was Robert doing?” I asked.
    “ He pretended he was asleep on the couch. But when Nana went back out into the garden a third time, he burst out laughing.”
    “ Did she catch him?”
    Goldie nodded. “You should’ve seen her. She marched back into the house with two buckets full of herbs, caught him laughing and realized right away what he’d done. Then she put the buckets on the floor by the couch and the next thing he knew, Robert was being hauled up by his ear.”
    I giggled. “Was he grounded?”
    “ No, Nana had a better punishment. She made him sit down at the kitchen table, then gave him a ball of twine and some scissors. She told him he had to divide each kind of herb into three piles, tie them with twine and hang them. It was so funny.”
    “ I bet he didn’t think so.”
    “ Well, first he complained. Said he didn’t want to waste his time hanging weeds . Then Nana told him that the three piles represented the three times she wasted going out to the garden to pick them.”
    “ Did he do it?”
    “ What do you think?” she asked wryly. “Can you imagine anyone not doing what Nana tells them to do?”
    Her laughter was infectious. I giggled so hard my sides ached. And Goldie laughed until she looked like she was going to cry.
    Suddenly, a branch snapped behind us.
    We stifled our giggles and turned around.
    “ What are you laughing at?” my mother asked, stepping out from the trees. Beside her stood Nana.
    I gave her an innocent smile. “Nothing, Mom. Just girl stuff.”
    Goldie muffled a snicker beside me and I jabbed her.
    “ Your mother has invited me for tea,” Nana said, her eyes strangely serious.
    Goldie and I exchanged thrilled looks.
    Then we watched her grandmother and my mother stroll side-by-side down the