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“And you’re certain nobody else was named in the will?” Emily asked.

“Nobody else. It’s actually much easier this way. A cleaner cut, if you like. It isn’t unusual for everything to be directed toward one family member, especially when there is a connection on both sides, as is the case with you and Annie.”

“Yes, we quite surprised everyone by marrying a pair of cousins. Although you’d never know John and Henry were related. I’ve never met two men less alike, in looks or personality.”

At this, Mr.Keogh Sr. offered a small smile. “And yet you and Annie are so alike. In every way.”

“Not every way, Mr.Keogh. We had our differences.” Emily sighed as she pushed the last form across the desk. “It seems too easy, doesn’t it,” she said quietly. “Too clinical for something that will bring such enormous change to Dorothy’s life.”

“That is what the legal system is for, Mrs.Gale. We hope we never need to use it, but are immensely glad of its clarity when we do.”

“I presume there’ll be a sizable trust fund for Dorothy when she comes of age?” It offered Emily some comfort, at least, to know that the child’s financial future would be secure, even if her present was as turbulent as a winter storm.

Mr.Keogh Sr. straightened his necktie and cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. I was coming to that. Unfortunately, things aren’t quite as you might have hoped.”

“Oh?”

He leaned forward, his voice low as he spoke. “It has come to light that your brother-in-law’s business affairs were rather…troubled.”

“Troubled?”

“He was in serious financial difficulty.”

Emily’s jaw tensed. “How serious?”

“As serious as it gets, I’m afraid. There is no delicate way to say this, Mrs.Gale, but John was essentially bankrupt.

Loans taken at exorbitant interest rates, poor investments made—the list goes on.

We’ve uncovered a rather grim paper trail of final demands and arrears.

While he successfully rode out the initial tremors of the financial crash, the aftershocks appear to have caught up with him.

He’d evidently kept the severity of the situation from your sister. ”

An awful thought occurred to Emily that the boating accident might not have been an accident after all.

She’d heard stories of desperate men taking the most drastic action to end their financial struggles after the crash, unable to face the shame of bankruptcy or poverty.

Yet, while she’d never especially liked John, he would surely never hurt Annie or Dorothy.

“I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” Mr.Keogh continued. “But I can assure you that there is no suggestion of foul play.”

Emily looked up, a flush of guilt spreading across her chest as he’d appeared to read her thoughts. “Gosh. No. Of course not.”

“The rogue wave that struck the boating party was a complete anomaly. A freak of nature. Nobody could have predicted it, or planned for it. It was a tragic accident. Nothing else.”

Emily reached for a glass of water and pushed the thought from her mind, relieved to have some certainty on the matter.

“Take a moment, Mrs.Gale. I’m sure this has all come as a huge shock.”

The financial revelations were, indeed, a shock, but not entirely surprising.

John had always pushed things to the edge with his investments and business dealings.

He was a man of risk and reward. A man who thrived on the thrill of the chase.

John Gale was the exact opposite of Henry.

One a man of capitalism and industry, one a man of community and nature.

For sisters who’d seen eye to eye on almost everything since they were little girls, and had even married men who were cousins, their husbands could not have been more different.

But it wasn’t John and Henry who’d caused them to drift apart. The blame for that lay elsewhere.

“What does it mean in practical terms?” Emily asked as she glanced over at Dorothy, who was still happily lost in her imaginary world of rainbows and lions.

“I’m afraid it means that the house and all assets will be liquidated to pay John’s debtors. There is, in effect, nothing left. No inheritance. No trust fund.”

Emily nodded and drew in a long breath.

“I’m so sorry to share such difficult news with you, Mrs.Gale. It is never easy when a loved one passes away. To leave a complicated financial situation, such as that left by your brother-in-law, only makes matters all the worse.”

“I can take some things from the house, though? Small sentimental things? For Dorothy.”

Mr.Keogh Sr. steepled his hands and leaned across the desk. “Whatever isn’t there to be itemized will never be missed.”

“Thank you. It won’t be much. Just a few trinkets and mementos.”

“Of course.” He paused for a moment before opening a file on his desk.

“There is one other small matter, Mrs.Gale.” He pulled a slim envelope from a file and pushed it across the desk.

“Your sister left a letter, to be given to Dorothy on her sixteenth birthday, in the event of her death before such time.”

Emily looked at the envelope, almost afraid to touch it. Dorothy—Sixteen was written on the front in Annie’s neat handwriting.

“She added it to her file shortly after Dorothy’s birth,” Mr.Keogh Sr. continued.

“Did she say what it was about?”

He shook his head. “She just left instructions for it to be given to you, as Dorothy’s guardian, in the event of her death. It’s not uncommon, actually. It never ceases to amaze me how organized people are. All eventualities covered. No stone left unturned.”

Emily reached for the envelope and slipped it inside her purse. It felt like a living thing, the words inside beating against the paper like wings, desperate to be freed. She felt suddenly hot, hemmed in, anxious about being so high up.

“Is that everything?” she said.

“That’s everything, Mrs.Gale. Thank you for your patience. I know it can’t have been easy.”

Emily hurriedly gathered up her gloves and hat, and told Dorothy to put on her coat. “Come along, Dorothy. We’re all done here.”

“Are we going to Kansas now?” the child asked, as if going to Kansas were as simple as going to the grocery store.

“Not yet, dear. We’ve a few more things to organize first. And there’s somewhere I want to show you.”

Emily thanked Mr.Keogh Sr. again and was glad to take the elevator down to the reassuring solidity of the ground floor.

While she hadn’t planned to take Dorothy across the city, she needed fresh air and had a sudden longing to return to the place on the shores of Lake Michigan where she’d first stood as a little girl newly arrived in Chicago.

If she went back to the start, perhaps she would find that eager little girl again, and the vibrant young woman she’d become.

When they arrived, Emily guided Dorothy to the shoreline, offering words of caution and direction as they picked their way over the seaweed-slick rocks.

“This is where we came when we first arrived in Chicago,” Emily said.

“My mother and father, your Auntie Nell, your mother, and me. Back then we called it Rocky Shore. It was known as Rocky Ledge Beach for a while until it was given its new name, Rainbow Beach, after the war. I liked to come here and pretend that Lake Michigan was the Atlantic Ocean, and that if I looked hard enough, I’d be able to see Ireland. ”

“Did you?”

Emily smiled. “No, dear. It’s too far away. But when I closed my eyes and listened to the water, I imagined I was back on the shores of Lough Inagh, where we lived before we came to America.”

“Mommy used to tell me stories about Ireland. She said we would go there one day, but that won’t happen now, will it.”

Emily was about to say that she would take her, but stopped. She shouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.

“Perhaps not. But I’ll tell you the stories and teach you the songs. I’ll even show you how to play the fiddle if you like.”

At this, Dorothy brightened.

Emily drew in a deep breath. She felt fortified by the fresh brackish air, strengthened by the sound of the water as it lapped at the shore.

When she closed her eyes, she was a little girl again, standing with her sisters on the shores of Lough Inagh, their hands linked together like the chain that held the iron cooking pot over the turf fire: Nell, Annie, Emily, in descending order of size.

Emily was the youngest—an Irish twin to Annie, each born at the bookends of the same year—but she wasn’t the youngest child in the family.

That honor belonged to sweet baby Joseph. God rest him.

She remembered the tips of her ears burning with cold beneath her bonnet, the last curl of turf smoke rising from the cottage chimney as they’d said goodbye to their home.

She remembered the moody roiling Atlantic; the sting of salt spray on her cheeks; a damp woolen shawl draped around her shoulders—the smell of turf still entwined between the fibers; a turnip-faced man with a bodhrán kicking up a hoolie belowdecks; and the reassuring tug of the piece of Connemara marble in her pinafore pocket as their immigration cards were stamped and she’d walked toward a new life, her hand in Annie’s, the promise of a place called America taking root in her heart.

She opened her eyes. “Come along,” she said, turning to Dorothy. “Let’s find some pebbles and build a cairn. See how tall we can make it.”

While Dorothy searched for the perfect pebbles to build their tower, Emily studied her reflection in the water, searching beyond her dull complexion and tired eyes and the silver hairs at her temples that aged her beyond her years.

She knew she was still in there somewhere—Emily Margaret Kelly—dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, a sense of wonder in her eyes, the distant murmur of adventure ringing in her ears.

“Where are you, dear Emily?” she whispered to the water. “Wherever did you go?”