“When Jenna died,” I say, voice quivering, “I thought that was my fault, too. She offered to take me. The Williamses wanted to pay for me to go to Ireland with her to study abroad. They’re so generous, but I didn’t want any more of their charity than I had already taken. It was too much, too perfect, and not meant for me. I said no and no and no until they stopped asking. And I can’t help but think I could have changed something if I were there, like I could have thrown myself over her so we would both survive the crash. Or I could have stopped her from getting into the car in the first place by convincing her to try a different snack food from every place in town or something, instead. I could have changed the outcome.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nolan says. “You weren’t even in the country. How could it be your fault?”

“Nolan, you are not a current,” I say. “A sulking, determined force of nature, sure, but you are not the current that killed your sisters.”

“But I am,” he says. “I could have prevented it.”

“You don’t know that,” I argue.

“Of course I do! I was supposed to be watching them, but I had better things to do, so they died.” His voice flickers between outrage and fear, sadness and despair.

“We can’t die in their stead,” I say, tears muddling my voice. I’m on my hands and knees, facing him, pleading with him, with myself. “We can’t. No matter how much we want to or how much easier it would be, we can’t take their places. We have to learn to live like this, Nolan. For their sake. And for ours.”

We’re both breathing hard, our rising voices fusing with the sound of the chimes, a distressed, clanging noise that causes the whales to forget to rise to the surface for air.

Sorry doesn’t help. And there is nothing you can say to someone who is hurting to make them feel better. Jenna is not here, and neither are Emily and Avery, and words—no matter how eloquent or pleading—will not bring them back.

Instead I say, “You sent them to Orman, didn’t you?”

It clicks together like the easiest of children’s puzzles, with a space for each distinct shape cut out in a slab of wood. Emily and Avery were transformed into Emmeline and Ainsley and swept off in a magic boat to Orman.

“I did,” Nolan says, so quietly I almost can’t hear him above the wind chimes.

“So when Jenna found you…” I trail off. I don’t need to finish.