On she walked, making hatch marks on the sheet with each new bird she saw. She tried to stay focused on the task at hand, but her mind kept turning over old memories, like seashells tumbling in a rolling surf. Jay Malone. Bruises marring Trudy’s pale skin. Violet’s own fear and anger. The rush of heat and longing that first night at the Sandbar.

The particular beauty of this day—the beach empty but for the birds, the sun bright and fresh, the air laced with salt and pine—stood in stark contrast to the tumult of memories flooding her mind. She felt unanchored, caught between the present and the past, like the increasingly strong breeze was trying to carry her away.

Up ahead was the old chair-rental stand where her one-mile route ended. She paused, her gaze fastened to the sheets of wood and peeling yellow paint. She could almost see him walking toward the stand, the tiny shell pressed in his palm. It was an angel wing, broken in such a way that it resembled a bird in flight. An incoming wave had deposited it right by his foot, and he’d snatched it up.

“I’m leaving it here so every time you pass this stand, you’ll think of me, even if I’m not with you.”

Violet laughed. “I don’t need a shell to remember you. And anyway, what makes you think it’ll stay there? Don’t you think some little kid will see it and drop it in his bucket to take home?”

“Not here, he won’t.” Violet stood next to him. At the top of the stand, where two pieces of plywood came together, there was a small indentation, a shelter just big enough to protect the nearly weightless shell. “There.” He tapped it with his finger. “No one will know it’s here but me and you. It’ll be our secret.”

Violet lifted herself on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I like a good secret.”

She couldn’t have known then how another secret would wrench him from her. Or her from him. If she had a chance to do it all over again, would she do it the same? Would she take the same path, make the same split-second decision, choose the same future?

Maybe. Probably. She couldn’t be sure, though she was sure about one thing—her arms had grown tired from carrying her load all these years, and at certain times, in certain slants of light, she wished she could lay it all down and finally be free. She and Trudy both.

Before turning around and heading back, she picked her way through the shells and clumps of seaweed to the stand that had hidden the angel wing for so long. It had been many, many years since she’d checked to see if it remained. She just hadn’t let herself. But today, as she closed in on it, blood thrummed in her veins, her hopes pinned to that shallow indentation that had once held a silly symbol of young love, of an almost-promised future.