The man to whom the arm—and the condom—belonged was named Jess. He was a friend of a friend. Hudson had been introduced to him after three beers had already lowered his inhibitions, and when Jess had suggested a walk back to his dorm, Hudson had gone willingly. Whether or not he had been aware of Jess’s intentions when he agreed to this was uncertain, although Jess later claimed that Hudson had kissed him first.

One thing was clear—waking up in Jess’s bed had forced Hudson to accept his attraction to other men. Not that it had never occurred to him before; it had, in fact, been something that had been with him since adolescence. But Jess confirmed it in the most primitive of ways. Or, as Marty liked to say, “That boy busted your be-hymen wide open, and you haven’t been the same since.”

He smiled to himself. He was going to miss Marty. His roommate of two years, Marty was another candidate in Yale’s doctoral program. His particular field of interest was mathematics. They’d thought upon meeting that they might be lovers, but their one attempt at sex had been a disaster, and since then they’d cohabitated in chaste domestic bliss. Marty was spending his summer chasing the elusive proof that would be evidence of the potential his professors all insisted he had. The previous night, they’d toasted to their mutual success, each assuring the other that the next few months would find him scaling new heights of academic accomplishment.

Only Marty knew the extent of Hudson’s hopes for the summer, and even then he didn’t know everything. Hudson had been afraid to fully voice his expectations, lest he doom them to failure by openly speaking of them. Dreams, he believed firmly, were not to be shared. It only invited disappointment. His father had taught him that; it was another inheritance he’d been unable to toss away, but he wasn’t yet convinced that his father wasn’t right about that one thing.

Still, he did dream. He felt the weight of his hopes in the briefcase, which he continued to hold in his lap. It was as if the pages inside were made of gold, each thin leaf weighing a dozen pounds, the enormity of them threatening to crush the bones of his feet should he let them fall.

“We’ll be landing in a few minutes, so you’ll need to put your seat in its full and upright position.”

The steward was once again at his side. He held open a plastic garbage bag. Hudson drained the last drops of his drink, letting the ice cubes slide into his mouth, then dropped the cup into the bag. He avoided looking at the attendant.

Outside, the ocean was visible. Looking at it, Hudson found himself surprised that it wasn’t a brighter shade of blue. He’d always imagined that the Pacific was somehow lighter than the cold, dull Atlantic. But the water, at least from however high up they were, was as gray as the ocean he’d swum in as a boy.