It was a cloudy windy day. The beach proved to be nearly deserted. Swift low waves came in at an angle to the strand, breaking in the shallows just offshore, in abrupt white lines. The sea was dark, the clouds pearl gray, in a herringbone pattern under a dull lavender sky. Maya dropped her bags. She and Boone ran to the water’s edge. Down the beach to the east Odessa rose on its hillside, under a hole in the clouds so that all the tiny white walls glowed yellow in the sun. Gulls wheeled by looking for things to eat, feathering in the onshore wind. A pelican air-surfed over the waves, and above the pelican flew a man in a big birdsuit. The sight reminded Ann of Zo. People had died so young: in their forties, thirties, twenties; some in their teens, when they could just guess what they were going to miss; some at the age of these kids. Cut short like frogs in a frost. And it could still happen. At any moment the air itself could pick you up and kill you. Although that would be an accident. Things were different now, it had to be admitted; for barring accident, these kids would probably live a full span. A very full span. There was that to be said for the way things were now.

Nikki’s friends had said it would be best to keep their daughter Tati out of the sand, as she was prone to eating it. So Ann tried to keep her back on the narrow lawn between dunes and beach, but she broke away, howling, and trundled over and plopped back on her diaper on the sand, near the others, looking satisfied. “Okay,” Ann said, giving up and joining her, “but don’t eat any of it.”

Maya was helping Nanao and Boone and Francesca dig a hole. “When we reach water sand we’ll start the drip castle,” Boone declared. Maya nodded, absorbed in the digging.

“Look,” Francesca shrieked at them, “I’m running circles around you.”

Boone glanced up. “No,” he said, “you’re running ovals around us.”