T WAS AMAZING HOW MUCH TIME IT TOOK TO DISMANTLE a life. Once Angie and Conlan had decided to end their marriage, details became what mattered. How to divide everything in half, especially the indivisible things like houses and cars and hearts. They spent months on the details of divorce, and by late September it was done.

Her house--no, it was the Pedersons' house now-- was empty. Instead of bedrooms and a designer living room and a granite-layered kitchen, she had a sizeable amount of money in the bank, a storage facility filled with fifty percent of their furniture, and a car trunk full of suitcases.

Angie sat on the brick hearth, staring out across the gleaming gold of her hardwood floors.

There had been blue carpeting in here on the day she and Conlan had moved in.

Hardwood, they'd said to each other, smiling at the ease of their agreement and the power of their dream. Kids are so hard on carpet.

So long ago...

Ten years in this house. It felt like a lifetime.

The doorbell rang.

She immediately tensed.

But it couldn't be Con. He'd have a key. Besides, he wasn't scheduled to come by today. This was her day to pack up the last of her things. After fourteen years of marriage, they now had to schedule separate time in the house they'd shared.

She got to her feet and crossed the living room, opening the door.

Mama, Mira, and Livvy stood there, huddled together beneath the entry roof, trying to keep out of the rain. They were trying to smile, too; neither effort was entirely successful.

"A day like this," Mama said, "is for family." They surged forward in a pack. The aroma of garlic wafted up from a picnic basket on Mira's arm.

"Focaccia," Mira said at Angie's look. "You know that food eases every trouble."

Angie found herself smiling. How many times in her life had she come home from school, devastated by some social slight, only to hear Mama say, Eat something. You'll feel better.

Livvy sidled up to her. In a black sweater and skintight jeans she looked like Lara Flynn Boyle on Big Hair Day. "I've been through two divorces. Food so doesn't help. I tried to get her to put tequila in the basket, but you know Mama." She leaned closer. "I have some Zoloft in my purse if you need it."

"Come, come," Mama said, taking charge. She herded her chicks to the empty living room.

Angie felt the full weight of it then: failure. Here was her family, looking for places to sit in an empty house that yesterday had been a home.

Angie sat down on the hard, cold floor. The room was quiet now. They were waiting for her to start talking. They'd follow her lead. That was what family did. The problem was, Angie had nowhere to go and nothing to say. Her sisters would have laughed about that on any other day. Now it was hardly funny.

Mira sat down beside Angie and scooted close. The rivets on her faded jeans made a scraping noise on the floor. Mama followed, sat down on the brick hearth; Livvy sat beside her.

Angie looked around at their sad, knowing faces, wanting to explain it for them. "If Sophie had lived--"

"Don't go there," Livvy said sharply. "It can't help."

Angie's eyes stung. She almost gave in to her pain right there, let it overwhelm her. Then she rallied. It wouldn't do any good to cry. Hell, she'd spent most of the last year in tears and where had it gotten her? "You're right," she said.

Mira took her in her arms.

It was exactly what Angie needed. When she drew back, feeling somehow shakier and steadier at the same time, all three women were looking at her.

"Can I be honest here?" Livvy said, opening the basket and pulling out a bottle of red wine.

"Absolutely not," Angie said.

Livvy ignored her. "You and Con have been at odds too long. Believe me, I know about love that goes bad. It was time to give up." She began pouring the wine into glasses. "Now you should go somewhere. Take some time off."

"Running away won't help," Mira said.

"Bullshit," Livvy responded, offering Angie a glass of wine. "You've got money. Go to Rio de Janeiro. The beaches are supposed to be great. And practically nude."

Angie smiled. The pinched feeling in her chest eased a little. "So I should buy a thong and show off my rapidly dropping ass?"

Livvy laughed. "Honey, it wouldn't hurt."

For the next hour, they sat in the empty living room, drinking red wine and eating, talking about ordinary things. The weather. Life in West End. Aunt Giulia's recent surgery.

Angie tried to follow the conversation, but she kept wondering how she'd ended up here, alone and childless at thirty-eight. The early years of her marriage had been so good....

"That's because business is bad," Livvy said, pouring herself another glass of wine. "What else can we do?"

Angie drifted back to the here and now, surprised to realize that she'd left for a few minutes. She looked up. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Mama wants to sell the restaurant," Mira said.

Angie straightened. "What?" The restaurant was the hub of their family, the center of everything.

"We were not going to speak of it today," Mama said, shooting Mira an angry look.

Angie looked from face to face. "What in the hell is going on?"

"Don't you swear, Angela," Mama said. She sounded tired. "Business at the restaurant is bad. I don't see how we can keep going."

"But... Papa loved it," Angie said.

Tears sprang into her mother's dark eyes. "You hardly need to tell me this."

Angie looked at Livvy. "What's wrong with the business?"

Livvy shrugged. "The economy is bad."

"DeSaria's has been doing well for thirty years. It can't be--"

"I can't believe you're going to tell us how to run a restaurant," Livvy snapped, lighting up a cigarette. "What would a copywriter know about it?"

"Creative director. And it's running a restaurant, not performing brain surgery. You just give people good food at good prices. How hard can--"

"Stop it, you two," Mira said. "Mama doesn't need this."

Angie looked at her mother, but didn't know what to say. A family that only moments before had been the bedrock of her life felt suddenly cracked.

They fell into silence. Angie was thinking about the restaurant... about her papa, who had always been able to make her laugh, even when her heart had felt close to rending... and about the safe world where they'd all grown up together.

The restaurant was the anchor of their family; without it, they might drift away from one another. And that, the floating on one's own tide, was a lonely way to live. Angie knew.

"Angie could help," Mama said.

Livvy made a sound of disbelief. "She doesn't know anything about the business. Papa's princess never had--"

"Hush, Livvy," Mama said, staring at Angie.

Angie understood everything in that one look. Mama was offering her a place to hide out away from the painful memories in this city. To Mama, coming home was the answer to every question. "Livvy is right," Angie said slowly. "I don't know anything about the business."

"You helped that restaurant in Olympia. The success of your campaign made the newspapers," Mira said, studying her. "Papa made us read all the clippings."

"Which Angie mailed to him," Livvy said, exhaling smoke.

Angie had helped put that restaurant back on the map. But all it had taken was a good ad campaign and some money for marketing.

"Maybe you could help us," Mira said at last.

"I don't know," Angie said. She'd left West End so long ago, certain that the whole world awaited her. How would it feel to be back?

"You could live in the beach house," Mama said.

The beach house.

Angie thought about the tiny cottage on the wild, windswept coast, and a dozen treasured memories came to her, one after another.

She'd always felt safe and loved there. Protected.

Maybe she could learn to smile again there, in that place where, as a girl, she'd laughed easily and often.

She looked around her, at this too-empty house that was so full of sadness; it sat on a block in a city that held too many bad memories. Maybe going home was the answer, for a while at least, until she figured out where she belonged now.

She wouldn't feel alone at the cottage; not like she did in Seattle.

"Yeah," she said slowly, looking up. "I could help out for a little while." She didn't know which emotion was sharper just then--relief or disappointment. All she knew was this: She wouldn't be alone.

Mama smiled. "Papa told me you would come back to us someday."

Livvy rolled her eyes. "Oh, great. The princess is coming back to help us poor country bumpkins run the restaurant."

A WEEK LATER ANGIE WAS ON HER WAY. SHE'D SET OFF for West End in the way she started every project--full speed ahead. First, she'd called her boss at the advertising agency and asked for a leave of absence.

Her boss had stumbled around a bit, sputtering in surprise. There had been no indication at all that she was unhappy, none at all. If it's a promotion you want--

She'd laughed at that, explaining simply that she was tired.

Tired?

She needed time off. And she had no idea how much. By the time the conversation had wound around to its end, she had simply quit. Why not? She needed to find a new life, and she could hardly do that clinging to the hemline of the old one. She had plenty of money in the bank and lots of marketable skills. When she was ready to merge back into the traffic of real life, she could always find another job.

She tried not to think about how often Conlan had begged her to do this very thing. It's killing you, he always said. How can we relax if you're always in overdrive? The doctors say...

She cranked up the music--something old and sweet--and pressed her foot down on the accelerator.

The miles sped past, each one taking her farther from Seattle and closer to the town of her youth.

Finally, she turned off the interstate and followed the green Washington Beaches signs to West End.

The tiny town welcomed her. Light glinted off streets and leaves that were still wet with rain. The storefronts, long ago painted in bright blues and greens and pale pinks to reflect the Victorian fishing village theme, had, in time, weathered to a silvery softness. As she drove down Front Street, she remembered the Fourth of July parades. Every year the family had dressed up and carried a DeSaria's Restaurant banner. They'd tossed candies to the crowd. Angie had hated every moment, but now... now it made her smile sadly and remember her father's booming laugh. You are part of this family, Angela. You march.

She rolled down her window and immediately smelled the salty tang of sea air mixed with pine. Somewhere a bakery had opened its doors. There was the merest hint of cinnamon on the breeze.

The street was busy but not crowded on this late September afternoon. No matter where she looked, people were talking animatedly to one another. She saw Mr. Peterson, the local pharmacist, standing on the street outside his store. He waved at her, and she waved back. She knew that within minutes he would walk next door to the hardware store and tell Mr. Tannen that Angie De-Saria was back. He'd lower his voice when he'd say, Poor thing. Divorce, you know.

She came to a stoplight--one of four in town--and slowed. She was about to turn left, toward her parents' house, but the ocean sang its siren call and she found herself answering. Besides, she wasn't ready for the family thing yet.

She turned right and followed the long, winding road out of town. To her left, the Pacific Ocean was a windblown gray sail that stretched to forever. Dunes and sea grass waved and fluttered in the wind.

Only a mile or so from town it became a different world. There were very few houses out here. Every now and then there were signs for a so-called resort or a collection of rental cabins perched above the sea, but even then there was nothing to be seen from the road. This stretch of shoreline, hidden amid the towering trees in an out-of-the-way town between Seattle and Portland, hadn't been "discovered" yet by the yuppies, and most of the locals couldn't afford beach property. And so it was wild here. Primitive. The ocean roared its presence and reminded passersby that once, not so very long ago, people believed dragons lived in the uncharted waters. It could be quiet sometimes, deceptively so, and in those times tourists were lulled into a false sense of safety. They took their rented kayaks out into the rolling water and paddled back and forth. Every year some of those tourists were simply lost; only the bright borrowed kayaks returned.

Finally she came to an old, rusted mailbox that read: DeSaria.

She turned onto the rutted dirt driveway. Giant trees hemmed her in on either side, blocked out most of the sky and all of the sun. The property was covered in fallen pine needles and oversized ferns. Mist coated the ground and rose upward, gave the world an impossibly softened look. She'd forgotten the mist, how it came every morning in the autumn, breathing up from the earth like a sigh made visible. Sometimes, on early morning walks, you could look down and not see your own feet. As children, they'd gone in search of that mist in the mornings, made a game out of kicking through it.

She pulled up to the cottage and parked.

The homecoming was so sweet and sharp she swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. The house her father had built by hand sat in a tiny clearing, surrounded by trees that had been old when Lewis and Clark passed through this territory.

The shingles, once a cedar red, had aged to the color of driftwood, silvery soft. The white trim was barely a contrast at all.

When she got out of the car, she heard the symphony of her childhood summers--the sound of surf below, the whistling of the wind through the trees. Someone somewhere was flying a kite. The fluttery thwop-thwop sent her back in time.

Come on over here, princess. Help Papa trim these bushes back....

Hey, Livvy, wait up! I can't run that fast....

Mama, tell Mira to give me my marshmallows back....

It was here, all those funny, angry, bittersweet moments that made up their family's history. She stood there in the watery sunlight, surrounded by trees, and soaked them all in, the memories she'd forgotten.

Over there by the giant nurse log that sprouted a dozen smaller plants was where Tommy had first kissed Angie... and tried to feel her up. There by the well house was the best ever hiding place for hide-and-goseek.

And there, hidden in the dark shade of two gigantic cedar trees, was the fern grotto. Two summers ago, she and Conlan had brought all the nieces and nephews out here for a campout. They'd built a fort amid the huge ferns and pretended to be pirates. They'd told elaborate ghost stories that night, all of them gathered around a bonfire, roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.

Back then, she'd still believed that someday she'd bring her own children here....

With a sigh, she carried her luggage into the house. The downstairs was one big room--a kitchen off to the left, with butter yellow cabinets and white tile counter-tops; a small dining area tucked into the corner (somehow all five of them had eaten at that tiny table); and a living room that took up the rest of the space. A giant river rock fireplace dominated the north-facing wall. Around it were clustered a pair of overstuffed blue sofas, a battered pine coffee table, and Papa's worn leather chair. There was no television at the cottage. Never had been.

We talk, Papa had always said when his daughters complained.

"Hey, Papa," she whispered.

The only answer was wind on the windowpanes.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It was the sound a rocking chair made, on a hardwood floor, in an unused room....

She tried to outrun the memories, but they were too fast. She felt her control slipping away. With every breath she took, it seemed that time marched on, moved away from her. Her youth was leaving her, as impossible to grasp as the air she breathed in her lonely bed at night.

She let out a heavy breath. She'd been a fool to think things would be different here. Why would they? Memories didn't live on streets or in cities. They flowed in the blood, pulsed with your heartbeat. She'd brought it all with her, every loss and heartache. The weight of it bowed her back, exhausted her.

She climbed the stairs and went into her parents' old bedroom. The sheets and blankets were off the bed, of course, no doubt stored in a box in the closet, and the mattress was dusty, but Angie didn't care. She crawled up onto the bed and curled into a ball.

This hadn't been a good idea, after all, coming home. She closed her eyes, listening to the bees buzzing outside her window, and tried to fall asleep.

THE NEXT MORNING, ANGIE WOKE WITH THE SUN. SHE stared up at the ceiling, watching a fat black wolf spider spinning its web.

Her eyes felt gritty and swollen.

Once again she'd watered her mattress with memories.

Enough was enough.

It was a decision she'd made hundreds of times in the last year. This time she was determined to mean it.

She opened the suitcase, found a change of clothes, and headed for the bathroom. After a hot shower, she felt human again. She brushed her hair into a ponytail, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a red turtleneck sweater, and grabbed her purse off the kitchen table. She was just about to leave for town when she happened to glance out the window.

Outside, Mama sat on a fallen log at the edge of the property. She was talking to someone, moving her hands in those wild gestures that had so embarrassed Angie in her youth.

No doubt the whole family was arguing about whether Angie could be of any use at the restaurant. After last night, she questioned it herself.

She knew that when she stepped out onto the porch, all those voices raised in disagreement would sound like a lawn mower. They would spend an hour arguing over the pros and cons of Angie's return.

Her opinion would hardly matter.

She paused at the back door, gathering courage. Forcing a smile, she opened the door and went outside, looking for the crowd.

There was no one here except Mama.

Angie crossed the yard and sat down on the log.

"We knew you'd come out sooner or later," Mama said.

"We?"

"Your papa and me."

Angie sighed. So her mother was still talking to Papa. Grief was something Angie knew well. She could hardly blame her mother for refusing to let go. Still, she couldn't help wondering if this was something to worry about. She touched her mother's hand. The skin was loose and soft. "So what does he have to say about my being home?"

Mama sighed in obvious relief. "Your sisters ask me to see a doctor. You ask me what Papa has to say. Oh, Angela, I'm glad you're home." She pulled Angie into a hug.

For the first time, Mama wasn't dressed to the nines and layered in clothes. She wore only a cable-knit sweater and an old pair of Jordache jeans. Angie could feel how thin she'd gotten and it worried her. "You've lost more weight," she said, drawing back.

"Of course. For forty-seven years I eat dinner with my husband. Alone is hard."

"Then you and I will eat together. I'm alone, too."

"Are you staying?"

"What do you mean?"

"Mira thinks you need someone to take care of you and a place to hide out for a few days. Running a restaurant in trouble is not easy. She thinks you'll be gone in a day or two."

Angie could tell that Mira spoke for others in the family, and she wasn't surprised. Her sister didn't understand the kind of dreams that sent a girl in search of a different life... or the heartache that could turn her around and send her home again. The family had always worried that Angie's ambition was too sharp somehow, that it would cut her. "What do you think?"

Mama bit down on her lip, worried it in a gesture as familiar as the sound of the sea. "Papa says he's waited twenty years for you to take over his baby--his restaurant--and he doesn't want anyone to get in your way."

Angie smiled. That sounded so much like Papa. For a second, she almost believed he was here with them, standing in the shadows of his beloved trees.

She sighed, wishing she could hear his voice again, but there was only the sound of the ocean, roaring up to the sand. She couldn't help thinking about last night and all the tears she'd shed. "I don't know if I'm strong enough yet to help you."

"He loved to sit here and watch the ocean," Mama said, leaning against her. "We have to fix those stairs, Maria. That's what he said first thing every summer."

"Did you hear me? Last night... was hard."

"We made a lot of changes every summer. This place never looked the same two years in a row."

"I know, but--"

"It always started with the one thing. Just fixing the stairs."

"Just the stairs, huh?" Angie said, finally smiling. "The longest journey begins with a single step and all that."

"Some sayings are simply true."

"But what if I don't know where to start?"

"You will."

Mama put an arm around her. They sat that way a long time, leaning against each other, staring out to sea. Finally, Angie said, "How did you know I was here, by the way?"

"Mr. Peterson saw you drive through town."

"And so it begins." Angie smiled, remembering the web that connected the residents in this town. Once, at the homecoming dance, she'd let Tommy Matucci put his hands on her butt; the news had reached Mama before the dance was over. As a girl, Angie had hated that small town feeling. Now, it felt good to know that people were looking out for her.

She heard a car drive up. She glanced back at the house. A forest green minivan pulled into the yard.

Mira got out of the car. She was wearing a faded pair of denim overalls and an old Metallica T-shirt. In her arms were a pile of account books. "No time like the present to get started," she said. "But you better read 'em fast--before Livvy realizes they're gone."

"You see?" Mama said, smiling at Angie. "Family will always show you where to begin."