Tom thinks it's good we're not home. I think he's right but also wish I were home. Still, I do agree that these few days on the island have allowed us to be fully with each other and our emotional turmoil, and we couldn't have done that if he were going off to work every morning.

The evenings have been a bit of an Irish wake, no doubt. Wine and storytelling, too much of both, but Ray would have done the same for us. And our friend Weslea is a magnificent listener, with her own griefs. Yesterday morning she and I played some music with a local ukulele band at the Southwest Harbor food cupboard. In the afternoon Tom and I climbed Beech Mountain. In the interstices I've been fielding dozens of texts and emails, many from people I haven't seen for 40 years, many from our tight family knot, all of them drenched in sorrow and anecdote. As the writer I am responsible for writing, it seems. And thus the days have been weirdly cathartic, perpetually distressing, oddly ridiculous, immensely touching.

Today will be our last full day on the island; we'll leave after lunch tomorrow for Wellington. One of the great strangenesses, for me, is the fact that this loss has literally taken place within the confines of the three couples to whom I dedicated Calendar: Ray and Stephen, Weslea and Curtis, Angela and Steve. Ray died in Brooklyn, and Stephen called to tell us while we were at Weslea's cottage by the sea--which had also been Curtis's until he died last year. And tomorrow we are going into the woods to spend the night with Angela and Steve--who are both fully on earth, thank God. The synchronicity of this embrace makes me shiver a little.