“No!” she said, a little snappily. “I would like to get my children’s dessert, please,” she added in a tone far colder than I was expecting. But I should be used to this by now, Grace’s obsession with feeding her children, with feeding us all. It was how she showed her love, and I understood that. But I hated how clearly we all watched her pay her penance.

But we all had our penance to pay. Grace paid hers in homemade ice cream. I paid mine in taking in those who needed me, in trying to save those I could to make up for not being able to save the ones I should have. It might not have been an even trade. But what was even anyway? What was fair? The thought began to overwhelm me, so I looked out the window, focused my eyes on the waves rolling to the shore, then retreating.

Find the rhythm, Alice, my mother used to say to me when I was scared, when I couldn’t sleep. Focus on the patterns.

The waves, my heartbeat, my breath in and out. There was a rhythm, a pattern, a reason. And I knew that, if I just kept looking for it, if I kept seeking it out, I could make it through another day.

Grace put a bowl down in front of me, a beautiful creamy white with diced peaches inside. I smiled up at her. She smiled down at me. I put my hand on her wrist for the briefest moment, to remind her that she was okay too. I felt it, her pulse, her beating heart. The rhythm helped. It always did. The ice cream didn’t hurt either.

Charlotte Amicable, Chic Separation

“Are you sure this is okay, Julie?” Grace asked as the three of us sat, side by side, on the last inch of dry sand before the tide line. Merit, Iris, and Emma each had a boogie board that Brenna, Jamie, or Audrey was stretched out on. They were running through the shallow surf, pulling the little girls as they shouted with glee.

“They are having the time of their lives!” she said. “What could not be okay?”

I smiled at her. Iris and I were settling into life here. I had even gotten so used to giving up my phone these past few days that today, on a Sunday night a solid hour before dinner, I had left it at the house. I had argued that I needed to prep for work, but Brenna had reminded me that beach time every day was one of our beach house rules. So I had relented.