It's early Sunday morning, and Beth is sitting on Petra's living-room couch, waiting for her to return from the kitchen with herbal tea. She pulls a speck of black fuzz off the couch cushion and flicks it to the floor. Petra's couch is white and many years old, but it still looks brand-new without a single stain, only one of many signs in the room of a woman who lives without a husband or children.

Opposite the couch sits Petra's meditation chair, a low, espresso-colored rattan seat with a high back and a white cushion (again, no stains). A beautiful, handwoven pink-and-gray blanket is curled around the seat, revealing the shape of where Petra was sitting only moments before. A lavender candle burns on the low, round coffee table next to a copy of Cook's magazine and a deck of tarot cards. The room is spa.r.s.ely decorated-a black-and-white photograph of Petra with her siblings and parents, a painting of a sunrise over the ocean, a wooden carving of a sperm whale, a jade plant in a large, blue ceramic pot on the floor, its branches decorated with tiny gold-ball Christmas ornaments, a gla.s.s bowl filled with colored sea gla.s.s. There is no TV.

Petra walks into the room, still in pajamas, barefoot, toenails painted bright pink, and hands Beth a steaming-hot mug. She sits cross-legged on her chair, wraps the blanket around her, sips her tea, and leans forward, directing herself toward Beth.

"So this is incredibly cool," Petra says.

"This is crazy, not cool."

"Well, it's kind of mind-bending cool, but I think it's cool."

"Petra, this is unbelievable, impossible."

"It's a lot to process," Petra says.

"It's pure coincidence."

"Or not."

"It has to be."

"Why does it have to be?"

"So you believe in this kind of stuff?"

"What stuff is that?" asks Petra, knowing full well what Beth is referring to.

"You know, channeling dead people. Talking to ghosts."

Petra laughs and tucks her hair behind her ear.

"I believe in divine beings and spirituality."

"But what does that mean?"

"I believe that we're more than flesh and bone, that we are all spirits living here on Earth for a spiritual purpose."

Beth sighs and sips her tea. Her own experience with religion, with concepts and beliefs about spirituality and life after death, is extremely limited. Her mother wasn't a churchgoer. Beth's not even sure what denomination her mother might have belonged to. For a while when Beth was a teenager, she and her mother went to different churches on the weekends, sometimes even to other towns, with the purpose of at least exposing Beth to organized religion.

She remembers little about any of them. There were strange choral songs that she didn't know the words to and statues of Jesus nailed to the cross that gave her nightmares. That's about all. They usually went for jelly doughnuts after. She remembers the doughnuts. Then one weekend the church field trips stopped, and her mother left it up to Beth to choose. She was about sixteen. She chose to sleep in on Sundays.

When her mother died, Beth wished she hadn't made that choice. She a.s.sumed her mother was in heaven, but she had no religion to help her believe in heaven as a real place. She could only imagine heaven as a part of the sky filled with puffy, white clouds and chubby, naked babies with wings. And it was hard to include her mother in that image. It still is.

"Okay, what about what Olivia believes?" asks Beth. "Do you believe that's even possible?"

"Yeah, I do. I sometimes experience the presence of spiritual energy when I meditate."

"So do you hear actual voices?"

"No, but some people do, and some people see images, visual flashes. For me, it's not like hearing or seeing, it's more a sudden knowing, but the knowledge doesn't come from me."

"That's what we call thinking, Petra."

"It's not. It's different, it's information I wouldn't normally think, or it's communicated to me in a style that's not mine. It doesn't come from me, it comes to me or through me. It's hard to explain."

"Okay, but even if I believed in this, why would this boy's spirit choose me? I mean, why not communicate directly with his mother?"

"I don't know. Maybe his mother wasn't open to receiving him. Too much grief blocking the channel."

Beth looks around Petra's living room-the tarot cards, the rose quartz crystal in the shape of a heart hanging from a string, sparkling in one of the windows, the meditation chair. If the spirit of a boy named Anthony was looking to channel his story through a woman on Nantucket, why not use Petra? Why not choose someone who believes in this stuff?

"Yeah, but why me? Before writing this book, I had no connection to him or autism."

"We're all connected, even if we don't know how. Maybe his communicating through you gives you something that you need in this lifetime."

"Me? Like what?"

"I don't know. Maybe the chance at a new life, a creative life. Maybe it's a lesson, something in the story you've written that you need to learn."

Writing this book has given Beth access to a part of herself that she'd forgotten about, the creative dreamer she stored away in the attic so many years ago. But a lesson for her? Her book is about autism. It's not about her. She shakes her head.

"Did you ever feel like you were tapping into something or someone else while you were writing?" asks Petra.

"Not exactly."

Hearing the obvious uncertainty in her own voice surprises Beth. She never heard any voices. She didn't. But at times when she'd write, hours would go by, a whole morning and afternoon, and it'd feel like only a few minutes. And sometimes she'd read back what she wrote and think, How did I come up with this? How did I know how to write this? And there were the dreams. Those full and vivid dreams about Anthony.

"But, Petra, I wrote this book."

"I know you did, but maybe his spirit provided you with inspiration, guidance toward an intended path, some necessary truth."

Beth chews on her thumbnail and concentrates hard on what Petra just said. "Okay, but if I was going to be a conduit for someone's spiritual message, why would it be for this boy and not my own mother or my grandmother or my grandfather? Why this boy?"

"I don't know. Again, maybe there's a reason you're connected. Maybe there's something in what he's saying for you to learn. Or maybe Olivia's just a mother who really loves and misses her son, and there's something unresolved with him."

Beth sips her tea and thinks for a minute.

"She wants to know what purpose his life served."

"There it is. And your book reminds her so much of him, she sees the story you've written as her chance to understand why he was here and heal. What about that?"

Beth nods.

"I can live with that."

"Okay, then what do you think about her feedback? Do you think you have the right ending?"

There it is again, just like when Olivia was in Beth's living room, that electric, sick, sinking feeling.

"I don't know. I'm not sure of anything right now."

"I would go back to the library and try to write a little more. See if Anthony has anything more to say. It can't hurt."

"There's something else," Beth admits.

Petra raises her eyebrows and waits.

"Every time she said, 'You don't have the right ending yet,' I swear I felt a zap and my stomach dropped to my knees. I'd just ended things with Jimmy."

"Interesting." Petra taps her mug with her index finger. "Are you having second thoughts?"

"I don't know, but every time she said, 'You're not done,' it was like a lightning bolt. She was talking about me and Jimmy, not the book."

"So maybe you and Jimmy aren't done."

"Petra, she was talking about the book. She doesn't know anything about me and Jimmy."

"Yeah, she was talking about the book, but what you heard was Jimmy."

Beth sighs. She thought her book was done. She thought she and Jimmy were done. Now this woman she barely knows walks into her house and suddenly she's questioning everything.

"You can believe the spiritual stuff or not," says Petra. "Call it a wild coincidence if you want. I believe in it, and I believe in you. Go write. You don't have the right ending yet."

There it is again. Lightning bolt. Woozy stomach. Jimmy.

"I don't know, I'll think about it." Beth checks her watch. "I need to get going."

"Come here."

Both women stand and hug close, heart up against heart.

"Thanks for the talk," says Beth.

"Anytime."

Beth pulls on her coat, grabs her bag, and waves as she walks out the front door, still uncertain of everything, including the smooth, round moonstone necklace in her pocket.

CHAPTER 36.

Olivia is sitting at her kitchen table, reading. She had planned to sit and read from one of her journals, but she opened the mail first, and she unintentionally got sucked into reading an advance reader copy sent to her from Louise, a book called Believing in Bliss: Twelve Steps to Finding Happiness from Within. She finishes the first short chapter, closes the book, and studies the cover, surprised by her interest in it. She sets the book aside for now.

She sips her coffee, thinking about Beth. Still no word from her. Every day, Olivia prays that Beth decides to write just a little bit more. Olivia can think of little else, consumed and desperate with the desire to read more of Anthony's words, to hear his voice, to have the answer she needs.

Why were you here, Anthony?

She sips her coffee and sighs. Her journal will have to do for today. She opens it and finds one of her favorite entries.

December 7, 2008 Today we had David's father and brother over to watch the Patriots game. Artie is really going deaf, but he refuses to admit it and get a hearing aid, so the TV volume was on screaming loud all day long. And they all yell a lot when they watch the game, especially when it's against the Jets (and it doesn't matter if they're winning or losing, they yell either way). So with all that noise, I knew Anthony would be avoiding the living room today.

I spent the first part of the afternoon in the kitchen. I made an antipasto, chicken Parm, and lasagna for supper. Anthony doesn't like being in the kitchen when I'm cooking. I think it's all the noise I make banging pots and pans and dishes, and maybe all my unexpected moving around, and maybe even the smells. I don't know for sure why, but when I'm cooking in there, he tends to steer clear.

So with the men hollering at the loud TV in the living room and me busy cooking in the kitchen, I worried Anthony would be out of sorts in the house. It was a nice day, so after lunch I sent him outside.

I'm so glad we got that new, fancy Fort Knox lock for the gate so he can be outside alone on the deck or in the yard, and we don't have to worry about his bolting G.o.d knows where. I don't ever want to have to search the neighborhood for him again. It's the worst feeling, not knowing where he is, if he's hurt or scared, if we'll be able to find him before something awful happens. And I hated ringing some of the neighbors' doorbells, watching their human faces change to stone as I explained what was happening. He's a sweet, nonverbal boy on the autism spectrum, not an escaped s.e.x offender.

So I knew he was outside and that he couldn't leave the yard, but I didn't know what he was doing out there, and I didn't check on him for a long time when I probably should've. I would normally poke my head out every few minutes, but today I felt greedy-I just wanted a few more minutes of peace and quiet. A few more. A few more.

And it was interesting but of course not surprising to notice that David didn't get up off the couch once to see how Anthony was doing. He a.s.sumes I'll do it. I chopped and stirred and boiled and resisted the urge to check on Anthony in the yard, and I didn't tell David to do it or fight with him because he didn't think to do it himself.

I finished cooking the chicken Parm, had the lasagna baking in the oven, and even made the antipasto, all without interruption. No screaming from outside. That was good, but sometimes quiet that lasts too long is just as bloodcurdling as one of his screams, and I started to fear what he might be doing out there. He could be naked and playing with his own p.o.o.p. This spring, he decapitated all the newly bloomed tulips. You never know. But most likely he's just swinging on his swing or playing with the sand in his sandbox or lining up his rocks.

I finally went outside, and he was lying on his back on the deck in a square patch of sun. His arms were by his sides, palms up, his feet splayed, his eyes open. He was just lying there, staring at the sky.

The square of sun was big enough for two, so I decided to lie down next to him. It was a crisp fall day, cold in the shade but warm enough to be comfortable without a coat in the sun. In fact, the deck boards were hot, and the heat felt like heaven on my sore back.

The sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud anywhere. I looked over at Anthony looking up at the sky and wondered, How long has he been lying like this? Has he been doing this the whole time? What is he looking at? There are no clouds, no birds, no planes. What could be capturing his attention for so long? What's going on in that head of his?

I started to feel antsy, like I should get up and do something. I thought, I can't just lie here. I should be accomplishing something. I still had a sink full of dirty dishes. I should pretend to care about the Patriots and join the men in the living room for a while. I should throw in a load of laundry.

And I felt guilty for ignoring Anthony for so long. I thought I should get him up, redirect him, get him engaged in doing something he should be working on. I thought (with dread) about his upcoming IEP meeting. He's so behind. He has so much to work on, so much to learn.

But luckily, for some reason, I stopped myself. I decided to continue to lie there and do what Anthony was doing, seemingly nothing, for as long as he wanted to do it. So we lay there on the deck, side by side, only a couple of inches separating his entire body from mine, and watched the unchanging blue sky.

My mind wandered all over the place at first. I imagined all those dirty dishes sitting in the sink, not even soaking in water, begging me to come wash them. I worried about his IEP meeting and thought about everything that I need to do to prepare for it. But I stayed. And I eventually let it all go. I did nothing, and I experienced simply being-the blue sky, the warm sun, the cool air, the hot decking, and Anthony next to me.

At some point, I looked over at him, and he had the biggest smile stretched across his face. G.o.d, his smile makes me so happy. And so there we were, the two of us lying on the deck together, smiling at the sky.

And then the sun moved on, and our square turned to shade. Anthony sat up and shot me a sideways glance and a pleased grin that I swear said, Wasn't that AWESOME, Mom? Didn't you have the best time looking up at the sky with me?

And then he screeched and flapped his hands and ran into the house.

Yes, it was, Anthony. It was one of the best times I've ever had.

CHAPTER 37.