[ for Joe, dated to July 27 ]

Anne could do nothing at all at first, for she had a crying child in her arms and a whimpering dog at her feet and a profound sense of absence in her home and in her heart that weighed her down, kept her sitting by the bedside long after she should have begun to take care of things.

She had been here before, and oh at the time she'd thought that nothing could be worse. She wished she had been wrong, for that loss, and any losses that had come before this, were nothing compared to waking up and finding that her beloved Ariel was gone.

She could not continue to do nothing, but neither could she move forward yet, and at least she was not too proud to admit that she couldn't do this alone. After carefully pulling herself together and finding something decent for both herself and Matthew to wear, she managed to find her way to Joe's.

[ for logan, dated to July 27 ]

There were moments when Anne's sobs were even louder and more desperate than Matthew's, though Anne certainly had more ways she could have been expressing herself and Matthew had only his cries. Joe could do - and was doing - so much for her, but he could not take this burden from her heart. He could not make Matthew forget that he had gone to sleep next to two mothers and woken up next to one.

Anne was used to sharing the burdens and joys of parenthood, but now in a time when she most needed a few moments to lose herself she had no one turn to, a conundrum of the most devastating sort.

That wasn't true, though. Anne still had people to turn to. And Joe wasn't the only person she considered family on the island.