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The sky was slowly dimming. Punk would begin to worry if I didn't get back soon. Over the years, I've observed one logical flaw in my otherwise rational grandmother: When someone she loves doesn't arrive at her expected hour, Punk's mind goes straight to death and/or dismemberment without stopping for "probably stuck in traffic." I checked the screen on my camera to make sure the pictures were in focus and then hurried back to our spot.

Punk waved as she watched me approach. "And how did you find our friend Horn?"

"Intriguing and mysterious." I sat down beside her on our quilt.

"In what way this time?"

"I found a peculiar message in the sand. Look." I showed her the images on my camera screen.

"Are they symbols or letters, do you think?"

Punk took a closer look. "That's Hebrew."

"Really?"

Punk grinned as she studied the picture. "Do I have to break out my slides and make you watch them all again?"

"No! No! Anything but that!"

We both laughed about the infamous slide show—four trays loaded to the gills—that Punk had put together after she and Pop toured the Holy Land. The whole family had to sit for hours watching as she clicked through them, meticulously narrating each one. She'd spent twenty minutes on the Western Wall alone.

"How about that fire?" she said.

We dug a pit in the sand and laid a fire with split logs I had carried from the boat. Punk handed me some matches from a straw tote bag with orange leather straps and a bright yellow pineapple embroidered on the front. When it comes to her clothes, Punk prefers ocean-washed colors—seafoam green, pale aqua, soft cream—but, she always says, "We can be bolder with our accessories."

Punk and I sat together, listening to the surf lap against the sand as our fire crackled under a sky growing softer and darker by the minute. Staring into the flames, I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, just as Punk was doing.

After a long, quiet while, I finally asked, "Why'd it have to be her, Punk? How could such a light just go out?"

Punk reached over and stroked my hair. "Leni's light didn't go out, Edie. It just moved to a place where you can't see it, for now anyway. Same as Pop. And even though every preacher from here to yonder will say we should rejoice in their reunion with the Almighty, that's a tall order when your heart is breaking. 'They're' in a better place, but you're in a mighty painful one."

I used a long stick to punch up our fire. "My grief counselor says time heals all wounds."

"Your grief counselor's an idiot."

I couldn't help laughing, despite the somber weight of our conversation. As always, Punk took no prisoners.

"Some wounds never heal, Edie, and that's a fact. We never get over them. But we do learn to carry them with us, to move along, broken wings and all. Remember that tote bag I brought back from Italy when Pop took me for our anniversary?"

I smiled and nodded. "Hand-tooled leather in a color you called cognac."

"That's right. It was stunning—still is. And it could hold all the shopping I could do in a day. Trouble was, once I carried it all over the place, I'd need a BC Powder for my back at night."

"But you kept carrying it."

"Of course I did. So what if it weighed a little heavy and caused me pain? It was beautiful and filled with wonderful memories from our trip. They bring me even more joy now than they did back then. Grief is the same. It may take you a while to get strong enough to carry it, but one day you'll wake up and realize it's not so heavy anymore. The happy memories lighten up the hurt. It's the proverbial mixed bag, sweet girl. To completely get over Leni, you'd have to leave her behind, forget what it meant to have her for your best and truest sister-friend since childhood. That would be a far greater loss than what you're experiencing now."

"I just feel so stupid."

"Why?"

I punched at the burning logs again and sent a spray of orange glitter into the darkening sky.

"Because we couldn't see it, Punk. Leni used to say, 'Miracles can happen, even on a Tuesday.'

That was her version of 'Anything's possible.' We believed it too. We just didn't understand what it meant. We saw only the 'wonderful' things that might come our way, not the awful ones. We never saw the awful coming."

I felt a familiar sickening swell rise up from some deep pit in my stomach, stinging my eyes and making me queasy. I hated that swell. I hated my fear of it even more.

"Edie," Punk said, taking my face in her hands. She put her arms around me and let me cry till I didn't need to anymore.

Together, we watched the glow of our campfire, listening to it pop and crackle as the gulf swished and sighed against the shore. Tomorrow would bring a new day. But right now, on our favorite slip of sand in the whole wide world, Punk and I were in no hurry to let this one go.