Madeline pulled to a stop well out of the way. The wrecked car was an older sedan, and it sat sideways to the road, its hood crumpled into a power pole, the side banged and creased, skid marks making figure eights on the road. Three kids stood huddled Under blankets, their faces somber and frightened. Madeline recognized them from Garceau’s—summer people, college kids. Too late, too late, Madeline thought. We’re always too late to realize our mistakes, all of us.

The ambulance crew was working on the front passenger’s side, which was crumpled from the force of the impact. One of the crew was the basket-making woman. Madeline recognized the man from the gas station, too. He and John Fitzgerald were carrying a stretcher toward the car. John’s expression was bleak. Madeline felt sick.

She heard sirens approaching from the south and within minutes, two state police cars arrived. Then Paul’s car appeared on the horizon, headed north from Crosscut. He pulled over and Madeline ran toward him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Madeline had decided as she ran just to say it, flat out. “I think Randi’s in the car. I think it’s bad. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

His face went blank. “No. That can’t be her, she’s supposed to be at work in fifteen minutes. I don’t even know whose car that is.” His eyes widened with a further realization. “Greyson?”

“I don’t know,” Madeline said, and felt her hands begin to shake. Paul looked as if he was going to be sick. Madeline took a ragged breath. “I’m going to see if I can find out anything.” She was terrified to go closer, terrified of what she’d learn, but she headed across the highway anyway.

A policeman stopped her before she got to the other side. “Ma’am,” he barked. “Stay back. Get back in your vehicle and move along.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But we heard it was our friend in the car, his girlfriend. I—we need to know.” She looked back at Paul who stood with his arms wrapped around himself.

“I can’t help you. Get back in your vehicle. You’re in the way.”

“I’m sorry, I am. But—is she alive? Is it Randi?”

“I don’t know who it is, and I don’t know their condition.”

“But there’s a woman in the car?”

After a moment the officer nodded, his eyes steely. “Yes, ma’am, there is.”

“Is there a child, too? A little boy, about five?”

“The child is fine. He’s in the ambulance. Now go.”

Madeline ran back across the road. “I don’t know for sure if it’s Randi,” she told Paul, grabbing one of his hands with both of her own. “I think so. But there was a boy who’s okay. He’s in the ambulance. The officer wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

Paul closed his eyes. When he opened them again he looked marginally less ill. “Thank you.”

More emergency vehicles arrived—another ambulance, a fire truck—and the crew cut the car’s dash away, then positioned a board Under the woman in the car and slowly drew her out. Randi’s braids dangled toward the ground, and even from across the highway Madeline thought she heard the faint clack of beads and jangle of tiny bells. She made an involuntary sound, a whimper, and Paul tightened his grip on her hand. When the second ambulance had roared away with Randi in it, John Fitzgerald headed across the highway.

“Not supposed to do this,” he said, looking at Paul. “But I’m going to. She’s alive, but she’s all broken Up. I think she’ll survive. I hope to God so, but it’s going to be a long haul.”

Oh, Randi, Madeline thought. Little fool. Please don’t die. Please don’t.

“Greyson?” Paul asked.

“He’s all right, basically, but Raylene’s got her hands full with him. They don’t want to give him anything, but they’re afraid he’s going to hyperventilate. Poor kid.”

“Can I see him?” Paul asked.

Madeline felt shakier than ever—relief that Greyson was all right, and that Paul had stepped in so surely. She had to see Grey with her own eyes.

John considered. “Maybe. I’ll talk to Raylene.” He strode off.

Madeline kept her eyes on the broken car. She thought of Randi’s husky voice that always drew her in against her will, her curvy, perfect body in snug jeans, that river of beaded braids flowing down her back, her bare feet Up on the dash of the Buick, toes wiggling. There was something so human and innocent and alive in that. She thought of Gladys and Arbutus’s fondness for her, the granddaughter of their old friend. They would be devastated by this. Live, Madeline willed.

A few minutes later a woman she’d never met strode toward her carrying Greyson, who was swaddled in a blanket. “We left it Up to him,” she said gruffly.

“Paul,” Greyson said in a reedy voice, his fair skin paler than ever, and held his arms out. Paul scooped him Up and hugged him. But then John came back with a question about Randi’s insurance—or lack of—and Paul gently transferred Grey to Madeline. His legs clamped around her waist and he buried his face in her neck. She felt him trembling.

“Hush now, sweetheart,” she said into his hair, which was damp with sweat, though his skin felt cold. “Everything will be all right. Don’t worry.” Her heart was pounding and her hands were still trembling ; she had no way of knowing if things would be all right, but she had to say it. She walked a small distance off and then back again, rubbing Greyson’s back. Some of the tension left his body as she paced, and the trembling had mostly stopped by the time Paul finished talking to John.

Paul reached out to touch Greyson’s head as if to reassure himself that he really was all right, and Madeline felt Greyson relax a little more in her arms. “Hey, kiddo,” Paul said softly, his voice cracking a little. “How are you holding Up there?”

“Okay,” Greyson whispered, but his chin began to tremble and his eyes filled with tears. He stretched his arms out and Paul gathered him close again. Madeline touched Raylene’s arm and drew her aside.

“I’m wondering what will happen with Greyson.”

Raylene made a face. “Not sure.”

“Would it help if I took him home with me?” She assumed Paul would be following the ambulance wherever it took Randi, and then he’d have his job at the prison and Garceau’s to deal with, whereas she had nothing but time to spare. “I take care of him sometimes, I’m Madeline Stone, I came Up here to—”

“I know who you are.” Raylene studied Madeline, and then she said, “Maybe so. Maybe that’d be the best thing. Hate to disrupt him any more than he already has been. Let me talk to John. Randi’s conscious, just. If she gives her okay, I think we can do it.”

Randi did, and John said he thought it’d be good if Madeline could take Greyson for the time being. Paul said he was going to follow the ambulance to the hospital and would let her know as soon as he found out anything.

“But Mommy’s in the car!” Greyson cried when he Understood everyone was leaving.

“No, she’s not,” Madeline reassured him. “They got her out and took her straight to the hospital, really fast. They’re going to take care of her, and I’m going to take care of you.” She took one of his hands but he jerked it away.

“Noooo. Mom. Mommy!”

Paul said soothing things and stroked Greyson’s hair as he walked him toward the Buick, but Greyson continued wailing. Paul gave Madeline a lost look. She shook her head, not knowing what to suggest, and held her hands out to take him again.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” Greyson wailed, twisting in her arms. She swallowed hard, but kept walking.

After two days, Madeline took Greyson to see Randi.

“Mommy!” he cried, breaking loose of her hold on his hand, running across the room, and clambering Up the side of Randi’s bed. Madeline caught him before he could fling himself on her. The emotion in him was so raw, it chastened her. Was it really she who had thought with such cold certainty that he should be taken from Randi, that she was Unfit to raise a child? It was true, in a way. And in a way, he had been taken from her. So Madeline was right. But she saw now that this rightness was nothing.

“Careful.” She found an edge of the bed to set him on. “Your mom’s pretty sore, you can’t jump on her.” She could see the outline of a cast beneath the sheet. Randi’s right arm was in a cast, too, and her face was badly bruised. The injuries went beyond that and Madeline wondered again about bringing Greyson so soon. But she decided it would be better to let him see her, no matter how bad it was. Better to know and see than worry and wonder.

It was huge, all this deciding on behalf of someone else. How had Emmy done it?

Sometimes Madeline wondered—had she been a burden, changed the course of Emmy’s life? Was she the reason Emmy never got married; was a child—a sometimes nervous, needy child—too much for the handful of men Madeline remembered Emmy dating? Had she ever regretted her decision to take Madeline in some corner of her heart? Now she knew. You just did a thing like this, regardless of fear or doubt. Of course Madeline had changed Emmy’s life. But then, everything did. A random cup of coffee, an overheard conversation, a chance meeting in a grocery store. But how, oh how, had Emmy known what to do from moment to moment?

Madeline told herself she would just take it one small step at a time, inch along from hummock to hummock, like working her way across a bog. First fix Greyson an egg and a piece of toast for breakfast, then drive him to see Randi. Then—lunch. After that, the next thing, which she would figure out when she got closer to it.

“Hey, little man,” Randi said in her husky voice. She seemed groggy.

“Mom, it was so scary when the car skidded, Leon was hanging on to me and everybody was yelling and then you were the only one who couldn’t get out, and then the ambulance came and you still couldn’t get out and I was scared.”

“It was pretty scary,” Randi said, her eyes half closed. Probably she was full of painkillers.

“Mom. Wake Up!”

Randi opened her eyes with some effort, smiled at Greyson. “Sorry, kiddo, I’m kinda beat.”

“But when are you coming home?”

“Dunno, Grey.” Her eyes were drifting shut again. “Be a little bit, I think. You staying with Madeline?”

“Uh-huh. She has a kitty, he’s named Marley. He purrs a lot, he slept with me, I slept on the couch, that couch is scratchy. I want to get a kitty, Mom. Can we?”

“Mmm.”

Madeline put a hand on his shoulder. “Your mom’s pretty tired. Let’s let her sleep.”

“No. I want to talk to my mom, we just got here.”

“I know, Peanut—”

“Don’t call me that, you’re not my mom!”

Madeline took a deep breath. “You have to let her sleep so she can get better.”

“No!”

Randi’s eyelids fluttered open. “Hey, Grey, you be a good boy for Madeline, okay? You do what she tells you, sweetie. Your mom kinda screwed Up, so—I can’t come home for a while.”

“But Mom—”

She grinned. “Don’t but Mom me, my butt’s big enough already.”

He giggled. A joke of theirs.

“Give me a kiss.”

Madeline gave him a boost and he put a solemn smack on her cheek.

“Thanks, kiddo,” she said sleepily. Greyson looked as if he would break down sobbing. Oh, the desolation in his face. Madeline really did not know if she was equal to this, but that was beside the point.

“That kiss is going to help her sleep better,” she said, scooping him Up. “That’s the best thing you can do for her. She’s got to rest, but I’ll tell you what, we’ll come back in a little while and say goodbye before we drive home. We’ll go shopping and find a little present to give her. How about flowers, what do you think?”

He said nothing, just shifted around in her arms Until he was looking over her shoulder, back at Randi.

“So we’ll go get something to eat, some lunch. How about McDonald’s, how would that be?” In Sault Ste. Marie, you could get fast food. There was a McDonald’s, a Burger King, a Subway, a Taco Bell. Also Walmart, Kmart, gas stations with rows of pumps. It seemed so strange.

“Okay,” he said listlessly.

“Okay, then!”

Greyson sighed and wrapped his legs around her waist, rested his head on her shoulder. She patted his back as she walked down the hall. Eventually—right?—he’d get Used to her, and to the situation. As Used to it as he could.

“I hate tuna fish,” Greyson said, poking at it tearfully.

“It’s good for you. Try and eat it.” She closed her eyes as she sipped her coffee. It tasted good. It was wonderful to feel the thick, stubby little espresso cup with its diminutive saucer Under her fingertips. Frivolous, maybe, but true. This must be where the real pleasures in life lay, in these tiny, momentary pleasures. When she opened her eyes, Greyson was sitting slumped over his sandwich, his hands limp between his legs, tears trickling down his cheeks.

“Hey, what’s the matter? You’re tired out, aren’t you?” Of course he was, what a stupid question. Tired, desolate, terrified. And faced with tuna. His face had a pallor she should have paid attention to sooner. She hoped he wasn’t getting sick in addition to everything else. “Listen, forget the tuna. How about a grilled cheese? Or some soup?”

“I’m not hungry,” he whispered. She sighed, let her shoulders slump to match his. Oh, whatever were the two of them going to do? Greyson just sat, the tears trickling down, his thin shoulders shaking a little.

“Hey now,” Madeline said, reaching over and pulling him off his chair and into her lap. “It’s been a rotten couple of days, no doubt about that. But this silent crying thing, it really gets to me, you have to cut that out. You could yell a little maybe, huh? A little primal scream? What do you say? A little rage therapy? I don’t know, I’ve never tried it myself, I’ve always been like you, pretty much, so well behaved. Too well behaved, that’s what we are. But I’m thinking it’s time for Us to break out. It warrants a shot. Because life beats a person Up sometimes, and maybe all you can do is shout back. I don’t know, what do you think?”

Greyson relaxed into her like ice melting, and did not answer. She had not expected him to, had only wanted to distract him a little from his anguish. She swayed side to side, talking and talking, any nonsense she could think of, sipping the espresso, nibbling at the tuna in tiny bites.

After a time he seemed to doze off—or surrender to a sort of comatose fugue, Madeline wasn’t sure which—and she fell silent. She ate both sandwiches, slowly, and had his cocoa for dessert. Read the little paper menu the café left folded on every table. Looked out the plate-glass window across the street at the Locks. A freighter was passing through—had been passing in its stately, inimitable way ever since they’d sat down. She stared at it awhile, and at the wall of the building next door, built of blocks that might have been limestone or sandstone—something native, and very old.

The menu said that Sault Ste. Marie was one of the oldest cities in the United States. It was founded by the French in 1668 and named for the rapids of the St. Mary’s river, or le Sault, in French. So this was why everyone said “the Soo.” These facts lent a dignity to the tired old city that Madeline hadn’t accorded it before. She noticed two tattoo parlors, a windowless bar, and a check-cashing place on the walk to the café. But now the fact of the town’s age, the way the afternoon sun shone on the old cut stones of the next building, the lingering, descriptive Utility of its old name, made it seem beautiful.

She sat for a long time. Ever since she came here nothing had gone the way she’d planned or imagined or expected. It had all been a washout more or less, involving varying degrees of disaster. And yet still she did not want to leave. And now there was Greyson.

He had settled in with her at Butte’s, and no one wanted to disturb that, even though other people had stepped forward to help. Roscoe and Annie wanted him to come stay with them in Halfway, but Greyson had clung to Madeline—well, to Marley—when that was suggested the first night. “I’m Used to it here right now,” he had said plaintively, hugging Marley close with both arms. “It’s close to our house, here.” Reluctantly, Roscoe and Annie had let the situation stand.

Madeline knew it bothered Paul that Grey wasn’t staying with him, but it was Unrealistic. Paul worked ninety hours a week and spent at least another five commuting, and he couldn’t just quit, that wouldn’t do anyone any good. He’d come over after he closed last night to tuck Greyson in, and they talked a little before he left. She could tell he felt guilty and frustrated, and sad, too, that he couldn’t keep Greyson with him. She thought the guilt was misplaced, the frustration Understandable, and the sadness endearing, but she didn’t know how to say any of that. Instead she said, “I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re so close with him. I don’t know what I’m doing, not really. And he loves you. We’ll be bugging you constantly. I don’t think I could do this alone.” Paul had nodded and seemed marginally less anguished.

Madeline was glad Greyson was with her, and she was scared. But if the Soo could survive and have this subtle, hidden beauty, maybe so could she. She and Greyson would survive together, for whatever time he needed her.

After a time she woke Greyson enough to set him on his feet, took his hand, and walked back to where she’d left the car parked. Time to go home. Time to get on with life as it was now.