The following day, after Jake had left for the bank, she put on a one-piece bathing suit, and walked down to the water’s edge. There were a few shell collectors out, but they were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts. It was going to be a warm day but it wasn’t warm yet, and the water numbed her anklebones. Still, she remembered what Jake had said, and she slid into the icy water, swimming hard for twenty minutes till her lungs burned and her arms were heavy and useless. Walking back across the firm sand to the condominium, Alice told herself that she would swim as long and as hard as she could every day. Her body would return to normal. She wondered how long it would be before Jake noticed that she was starting to lose weight. She imagined him looking at her one evening as she changed out of her clothes and into the lingerie she slept in, imagined him reaching out a hand to touch her flat stomach and telling her how amazing she looked.

It didn’t happen exactly like that, but after swimming every day for a month, there was a night in June when Jake asked Alice to slowly strip for him in the living room while he sat on the couch and watched. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked Alice to do this, but it was rare, and usually after they’d come back from a nice dinner out. That night in June they’d driven all the way into Portland to go to a new French restaurant that had recently opened. The food was good, but when Jake had ordered a bottle of wine for the table, the waitress had asked for Alice’s ID. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Jake had said. “I don’t think you brought it, did you, Alice?” The waitress, slightly flushed, had suggested to Jake that “your daughter can order something else.”

“We’ll both have water,” Jake said, his jaw tensing.

That night, after Alice was naked, Jake asked her to sit on his lap, and said, “You are perfect.”

“Thank you,” Alice said, thinking of the daily, lung-burning swims in the cold ocean.

“I have something to ask you,” Jake said, his voice a little hoarse. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but I’d like to take some pictures of you, just as you are now.”

“What do you mean, naked?”

“Just for me, I promise. No one else will ever see them.”

“Why do you want pictures when you can see me whenever you want, just like this?” She leaned back a little on his lap, nearly slipping off, and opened her arms.