Finally she set the plates down, and at last they could eat. Austin had to pace himself, or he would have gulped down his entire dinner before the rest of them had balanced their forks for the first bite.

It was the kind of dinner where you didn’t talk much. Sometimes Austin thought the better the food was, the less talk you needed. You could just be glad you were alive and somebody else had done the cooking.

This made him think of his parents, and a stab passed through him, and then went away.

Dessert was plum-apple cake with crust on the bottom and fruit in the middle and sweet slivers of dough and sugar on top.

“Macey,” said Austin, “let’s try to see the comet tonight.”

“Hale-Bopp,” said Macey. “I love that name. The Bopp part sounds like Hale hit his little brother over the head with a baseball bat.”

Austin had already had three helpings of cake, but he could have eaten a fourth. Nobody offered a fourth. “You come, too,” he told Macey’s grandparents. “It should be a real clear night.” He could not believe he had suggested this.

But luckily they were unwilling to walk that far, and said they would have coffee instead. Nana winked at Austin and wrapped up the rest of the plum cake for him. Papa hung on to Moose, who whined desperately to go on the walk. It was not a black Lab Aus wanted to hang on to. Papa winked at Aus, too.

Austin and Macey put on jackets and walked in the dark to the beach. The wet sand was hard underfoot, not soggy. Just when you felt secure, it shifted under your shoes, throwing off your stride.

The night curled around them.

The ocean was magnificent, waves singing in the dark, star patterns tossed in the mirror of the water. It smelled different, sounded different, from Lake Michigan. Aus braced against an unexpected wave of homesickness. His thoughts spun off toward Chicago and Lake Michigan, comets and stars, and what he wanted to do with his life. He stooped and picked up pebbles, to give himself something to mess with.

“Don’t you think the ocean is creepy at night?” said Macey. “All those little sparkles on black water. Like tiny aliens advancing on the tide.”

Austin would never have characterized it like that. He smiled. “I guess I won’t be taking you to a horror movie anytime soon.”

Her eyes were two moons shining on him. He stepped toward her, but she stepped away, and he felt panicked and unwanted. His hand tightened around the pebbles and he could feel their edges, as sharp as if they had never been in the sea.