I want to ask about his dad. After what he said about Mom. But there are too many questions in my head right now, and I need to focus on Clara.

Instead, I try to let my mind wander, remembering when we came here as a family, Mom hurrying us from bed to car to beach. She loved it here. She called it her heaven.

Doveton is home, but maybe Harmony could be my version of Mayfield Lodge.

“What do you want to do when you graduate?” I ask.

“I’m going to college to study civil engineering.”

He says it so confidently, so quickly, that I can’t help but look surprised. I don’t know why, but I assumed he was as confused about the future as I am.

“What?” he asks again.

I smile and say, “I didn’t expect you to be so…”

“Clever?”

“Grown-up.”

Jamie laughs. “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

I used to hate people like that, people who could talk you through their entire life before they’d finished school.

There’s this saying: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” And when your mom is murdered, you know exactly what that means.

But I’m starting to see a future through the mess of my life. I’m not planning, I’m imagining, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

“What about you?” Jamie asks.

It was a question I always hated, but not today.

I think of Bernie and Reg and Mr. Humphries and Emily’s mom—all these broken people I ignored, because I was an acceptable kind of selfish. No one blames the grieving girl for only thinking about herself. But that doesn’t make it right.

I remember what Bernie said under the tree, about her therapy sessions, and say, “I’m going to help people. I want to be a therapist.”

“You’ll be good at that,” Jamie replies. “You’re so brave.”

It catches me by surprise, but I don’t feel embarrassed. I feel proud.

I hope he’s right, about being good at something, because I’ve been thinking about it a lot, in between all that’s been happening. There’s a job for me out there, and I think I can make a difference.

Even when everything has been eaten and I start to feel cold, I sit listening to the sea below and the birds above and the hum of everything in between. I wish Mom were here to enjoy this place with me.

If I close my eyes and think hard enough, I can remember burying her legs in the sand and carving a mermaid tail.