"Hey, Dad," Rosie said. "Noreen, this is my father, Kent Stockton. Dad, Noreen Kelly, one of the neighbors I've been walking with."

I held out my hand, and he kissed it, dirt and all. "Now, there's a nice Irish name," he said. "Can I get you two girls a sandwich?" he asked.

"Right, Dad," Rosie said. "Like you've ever made a sandwich in your life."

He grinned.

"I've got to get going anyway," I said. "I'm meeting someone for dinner."

"Wait," Rosie said. "At least let me give you a few more lavender plants. You can dig them in yourself and water them, and I'll check on them before we walk tomorrow. Just let me dump these weeds in the compost and we'll load up the wheelbarrow."

Rosie filled the wheelbarrow with lavender plants, and threw in some lavender moisturizer and a kit for making lavender scones. "Everything else is in the kit-all you have to do is add the buttermilk. Oh, and the egg. Do you want me to grab one from the Supremes?"

"I don't think so," I said.

Rosie's dad grabbed the handle of the wheelbarrow. "I'll wheel it home for you, little lady," he said. "It'll do me good to get some exercise. And that way I can wheel it right back and save you the trip."

"Thanks," I said. He was adorable, sweet, and gentlemanly. Why didn't they make men like this in my dating demographic?

"Great," Rosie said. "See you in the morning, Noreen, and thanks so much. And Dad, if you see the chickens, will you shoo them back this way?"

"Will do, my darling daughter." Rosie's dad lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow and started to sing in an old-fashioned baritone as he pushed it along. "Lavender's blue, dilly dilly. Rosemary's green. When I am king, dilly dilly. You shall be queen."

My eyes teared up. Until that moment, I'd completely forgotten my own father used to sing a version of that same song to me when I was a little, little girl. I missed him all over again.

Kent Stockton and I were almost to the end of the path when we heard the first scream.

It was a woman's scream, and it sounded like it was coming from the direction of my house.

MY MOTHER WAS still screaming when we found her. She was standing up on one of my dining room chairs while Rod Stewart and the Supremes circled her like covered wagons in an old western. still screaming when we found her. She was standing up on one of my dining room chairs while Rod Stewart and the Supremes circled her like covered wagons in an old western.

"Have you got some breakfast cereal handy?" Rosie's dad asked.

I was already heading for the Special K. As soon as I had the box in my hands, the chickens abandoned my mother and made a bee-line for me. I threw the box to Rosie's dad, who caught it and started shaking it like he'd done it a million times before.

He reached his free hand up to my mother. "Kent Stockton," he said.

"Get them out of here," my mother yelled. "Now!"

"A pleasure to meet you," Rosie's dad said. "Perhaps I can make you a sandwich later."

"Mom," I said, once my mother had finally gotten off the chair and had a little bit of time to settle down. "What are you doing here?" Even with the screaming and the chickens, the two large suitcases camped out in my front hallway had not escaped me.

My mother reached up to stroke the earrings she was wearing. They looked like turtles. Or maybe flattened armadillos. "Why aren't you at work?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

Leave it to my mother to find a way to turn the tables. "Why did you leave my front door open?" I countered.

"I was just airing things out a little," my mother said. She was sitting on my couch, and I was across from her on a chair. "How was I to know you had livestock issues?"

"I thought you were on Nantucket," I said. "I was just making plans to go see you." This last part wasn't quite true, but I had come as close as thinking about calling my sister to plan a visit.

"You know I don't like strange guest rooms," my mother said. "Anyone could have slept there. There was a damp smell, too."

"Mom, it's an island. It's supposed to smell wet."

"Your sister had to go home for a day anyway. Jenny broke a wire on her braces and Jason forgot something he couldn't live without. They dropped me off on the way back. I told her not to wait. Good thing I know where you hide the key."

I'd completely forgotten about Sherry. I looked at my watch. "Mom, I'm supposed to be meeting someone for dinner."

My mother sighed a long, martyred sigh. "Sure, dear, go right ahead. Far be it from me to get in the way of your love life. I'll just find something in the freezer and pop it in the microwave. I don't need much."

SHERRY KEPT HER cell on the table as we talked. cell on the table as we talked.

I couldn't resist nodding at it. "Waiting for a call?" I asked.

"Not really," she said. We each took a sip of our wine.

"So," she said.

"So," I said.

"What's it really like not to be working?"

"It's great," I said. "Well, it's sort of great and sort of disorienting. Why, are you thinking of taking a buyout?"

"Maybe," she said. "Rumor has it that the VRIF won't be on the table much longer. Plus, the company's changing so much. Everybody's posturing, embellishing their job descriptions. You know, trying to make themselves look valuable so they don't get edged out by Olympus. I heard an assistant who stuffs papers into folders for meetings is now calling himself the Director of Portfolio Development."

I smiled. "That's actually fairly brilliant."

Sherry shook her head. "It just not the same there. And it's anybody's guess who'll be left at the end of the year anyway."

I nibbled at a spring roll. "I'm sure you'll make the right decision," I said.

We each took another sip of our wine.

"So," Sherry said. "Are you seeing anyone these days?"

This was a tough one. On the one hand, if she should happen to mention it to Michael, I wanted him to eat his heart out with jealousy. On the other hand, Rick hadn't exactly called yet, and just in case he never did, there was always the off chance that Michael would miss me, dump Sherry, and apologize for weeks, even months, until I finally forgave him.

"Here and there," I said. "How about you?"

Sherry leaned forward. I braced myself. "Yeah," she whispered. "But we have to keep it on the down low. He works on campus. You know..."

I took another gulp of my wine.

"I know, I know," Sherry said. "You never think you're going to do it, until you do it. But I don't think I'll be there much longer anyway, so it's really just a technicality. And where else do you meet anyone but the office anyway?"

A better person might have suggested Fresh Horizons small-group counseling sessions, but I just nodded. Maybe I was such an awful person I wanted to keep all the unemployed guys to myself. In a minute I'd be getting territorial with the tilt-and-clean vinyl replacement windows salesman.

Sherry sighed. "Have you ever met someone you feel like you've known forever? You know, you have all the same references from the past, and you have so much fun sharing all your old goofy stories?"

I was starting to get a sore neck from all the nodding, but I didn't know what else to do.

"Oh, God," Sherry said. "He had me in stitches the other night. When he was in high school, his hair was so wavy-he called it a tragedy of epic proportions."

Until that moment, I'd never really understood the expression about your eyes bugging out of your head, but I could feel mine doing just that.

Sherry didn't seem to notice. "He had to wash it every night before he went to bed and sleep with one of his sister's nylon stockings pulled down over his head."

"So he could get that cool surfer dude look?" slipped out of my mouth before I had time to stop it.

Sherry just nodded and reached for her wineglass. She took a quick sip and started to laugh. "He's so funny. He told me about a girl in his junior high who lost her garter belt in the hallway. He took it home and slept with it for years."

My jaw actually dropped. "He wishes," I said. "That sounds totally made up to me."

Sherry ran her fingers through her hair. She had new blond highlights, and she looked like she'd dropped a few pounds, too. "No, he's not like that at all. He's really honest, probably the most honest man I've ever met."

After I finally said good-bye to Sherry, I parked my car at the bottom of Wildwater Way and took a flashlight out of my glove compartment. I circled around my street in the dark until I reached my step quota for the day. At the moment, it seemed like the only thing I could control in this crazy, crazy world.

I was on my way back to my car, when I saw another car idling just behind mine. I froze. Maybe someone had been watching my every move, waiting until I got my mileage in before he mugged me. My heart kicked into overdrive.

Hannah came tiptoeing down the street, flip-flops in hand and her white shorts glowing under the streetlights. The car window rolled down, and music and girls' laughter spilled out.

"Shh...," Hannah whispered. "Come on, you guys, my parents will completely kill me if they catch me."

I waited until they'd pulled away, then climbed into my own car. Technically, I knew I should tell Tess. But then Tess would tell Hannah I'd seen her, and I'd be right in the middle. And did I want to be responsible for Hannah missing more of her last summer before college? I mean, I'd done my fair share of sneaking out myself when I was Hannah's age, and I'd turned out okay.

I drove right by Tess's driveway and pulled into my own. When I let myself into my house, it was like traveling through a time tunnel. My mother was sitting on my couch waiting up for me, just like I really was back in junior high, with or without my garter belt. "Hi, Mom," I said. "I hope you found something decent to eat."

"So when am I going to get to meet that boyfriend of yours?" she said.

I froze. Here it came. First the boyfriend, or lack thereof, then the job, or lack thereof. When I finally got around to calling my sister, I was certainly going to give her a piece of my mind. I mean, nice of her to just dump my mother on my doorstep without any warning. She could at least have given me some time to get my stories straight.

"Why don't you invite him to dinner tomorrow night? I'll do the cooking. I'll give you a grocery list in the morning, unless you want me to drive you to work and keep the car."

I had half an urge to tiptoe back out and try to catch up with Hannah and her friends.

Day 18

12,222 steps

"SHE JUST SHOWED UP AT THE DOOR WITHOUT ANY WARNING?" Tess asked. Rosie and I had already checked on my new lavender plants, which I was thrilled to learn I'd planted correctly, and we were all walking down Wildwater Way.

"Actually, she was standing on top of one of my dining room chairs when I found her."

"My dad said Rod and the girls scared the bejesus out of her," Rosie said. She sounded just like her father when she said it. "And that she was screaming bloody murder." Rosie was up in front of us, and she turned around and started walking backward, like a student guide on a college tour. "Sorry about that. Is she okay?"

"She's fine," I said. I wondered how fine she'd be once she found out I didn't exactly have either a job or a boyfriend to invite to dinner. It crossed my mind that it might make things easier all around if I just kept walking forever.

Tess took a big leap forward and grabbed Rosie before she collided with a fire hydrant. "Thanks," Rosie said. She turned around and started walking again.

We took a right at the corner. "Well, I e-mailed her," Tess said.

"Who?" Rosie and I both said at once.

Tess unhooked her reading glasses from the front of her T-shirt and pulled a folded piece of paper from the pocket of her shorts. "The teacher from New Orleans," she said. "Who else? You know, the one who teaches the class Hannah's class adopted? Anyway, I got an auto-reply e-mail message that sent me to her blog."

I pushed aside a guilt-inducing image of Hannah driving off with her friends.

Rosie looked over her shoulder. "Do we have to get into this again? I've already told you New Orleans is out."

"It's one of those care sites," Tess said. "Listen to this." We crossed the street and took a left to our side street shortcut. Tess unfolded the paper, and Rosie and I got on either side of her, so we could look over her shoulder while she read.

Another Betty Crocker double Bake-Off yesterday. The next big dose of cancer-eating Kool-Aid will be tomorrow, and drum roll, my highly anticipated dog scan (teaching third grade causes one's sense of humor to regress, as some of you know) will take place on August 1. Say a little prayer for me that day, if you get an extra minute.So far so good this round. Just a little tired. What keeps me going is my daily visit to my classroom, which has never looked better, especially in the summer. Each day I write a note to my students on a new date in my plan book, and then I visualize myself alive and well and reading it to a room full of little hellions. These kids know loss; Katrina was their teacher. But they don't need any more of it, so I'm trying my best, for them and for me.I'm already up to October, picturing a cool, crisp fall in NOLA, not that we usually get one here, and me standing in my classroom, cancer free. Thanks for your messages of hope and support-they mean more than I can say.Yours, Annalisa Grady, aka Ms. Grady the Great "Stop," I said. "I can't see where I'm going." Somehow, we'd made it to the beach parking lot, and we all started wiping our eyes with the sleeves of our T-shirts.

"Geez," Rosie said. "You could have at least brought some tissues, Tess."

"Poor Ms. Grady," I said. "God, I hope she makes it."

"You can call her Annalisa," Tess said. "She's not your teacher."

Rosie sniffed. "It's a beautiful name," she said. "So melodic."

Tess folded up the paper and put it back in her pocket, and we all started to walk again.

"Bummer," I said.

"No shit," Tess said. "I must have known she needed us. Life is so unfair. She tries to make a difference in the world, and what does she get for her trouble?"

"It's really, really sad," Rosie said, "but I'm still not going."

"Fine," Tess said, "then I think we should bring her with us to Sequim. We could pool what's left of our frequent flier miles and maybe each take out an airline credit card if we don't have enough. They always give you bonus miles for that. And I bet our suite is probably plenty big enough to have a cot brought in. We'll give her a bed, of course."