Her mother came to the beach with Alice only once during the summer. It was a Saturday in late July. Edith had gotten up early, taken a shower, and put on makeup, all because she was expecting her friend Jackie from Biddeford to come visit for the day. But Jackie called and canceled. “You’d think I’d asked her to drive halfway across the state,” Edith said after the call. “It’s two fucking towns over. What are you doing today, Al?”

“Beach.”

“Of course, the beach. I should go along with you just to find out if you really go. How is it you go to the beach every day and your skin is like chalk?”

“I wear sunblock.”

“When I was your age I went to the beach all the time and I was practically black. Well, maybe I will come with you, unless you’d rather I didn’t.”

“You should come. I’ll make another sandwich.”

It took Edith forever to get ready. Half of her stuff was still in boxes and she puttered back and forth looking for just the right bathing suit, one that turned out to be a leopard-skin one-piece that exposed a lot of her chest, her skin leathery and darkly freckled. The bathing suit also exposed her left arm, puckered and scarred from the accident at the paper mill.

“I think I’m ready, Al. Can I bring a bottle of wine to the beach or is that a no-no?”

“I can put some in a thermos for you,” Alice said, already swinging open the refrigerator where her mother kept her bottles of Mateus rosé.

It was almost noon by the time they had settled on the sand, each on their own towel. It was a perfect day, the only visible clouds thin ragged wisps on the horizon line. The air smelled of the ocean, but also suntan lotion, and the occasional trace of someone’s cigarette smoke clinging to the light breeze. Alice started reading; she was halfway through Lace again, by Shirley Conran. Her mother cracked her own book, but wasn’t looking at it. She was twitchy and unsettled, and she began to drink from her thermos of wine. “Wanna walk?” she asked after a while.

“Sure,” Alice said.

They walked the length of the beach and back, Edith keeping the shawl over her shoulders. “Look out, Al, it’s a gull,” she kept saying, prodding Alice’s shoulder.

“I’m not scared of gulls anymore,” Alice said.

“So you do remember the gulls.”

“No. You told me I was scared of them. I don’t remember those trips, if we ever went on them.”

When they got back to their beach towels, Alice was hot, the back of her neck damp with sweat. “Do you want to swim?” she asked her mother.

“God, no, it’s freezing.”