My mother’s job took us to an island in Essex County, forty miles north of Boston, at the tip of Cape Ann. Thacher Island was made up of fifty acres of rocks, a place consumed by woe from the start. In 1635, Anthony Thacher and his beloved wife were the only ones to survive a shipwreck when a storm came up and sank the Watch and Wait as it traveled from Ipswich to Marblehead. The tragedy claimed twenty-one souls, including their own four children, along with seven of their nieces and nephews. What can you expect to build on such sorrow? Only more sorrow to come. By the time we arrived, in
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