Beatrice Farrington does not wait for people.

People wait for Beatrice.

The drive out had been quiet.

Kelsey sat beside me with her hand over her purse, watching the shoreline and the old stone walls along the road.

Neither of us mentioned the boys — not because we had forgotten them, but because for the first time since I’d met them they were exactly where they should be: warm, fed, occupied, safe with someone Kelsey trusted.

That was what let us look backward.