I hadn’t realized tipping over was a concern. I’d never been on a boat before. “Just watch out for the boom,” they all told me. I sat with William by the rudder all the way in the back, as far as possible from the boom, as we departed. James steered, one arm hanging on the ropes that moved the sails, his tan leg draped over the rudder.

It was foggy on the water when we left, but the low clouds burned off by mid-morning and we all shed our sweaters. William was delighted with the sun, the seagulls, the waves lapping the sides of the boat, the sensation of movement. I held on to the straps of his tiny life vest, scared he was going to topple over the side. He kept sticking his arms out, trying to touch the water. I imagined him falling, and my having to dive in after him.

At high noon we were in a bay, surrounded by an empty, rocky beach. The wind died down here, and Carlow lowered the sails. Lonnie inflated a yellow tube and tossed it into the water. William tried to jump in too as she dived after the ring. James lifted him, struggling, from my arms. “You can go swim with her,” he said to me. “I’ll take the monster.”

“Okay,” I said, though I felt nervous for some reason as I stripped off my shorts. It wasn’t that I’d had any lack of exposure to water; I swam in lakes and rivers all over Mount Hood growing up, but I hadn’t actually been swimming—swimming where my feet weren’t grounded in murky mud—in a long time.

I felt suddenly like I had done so little in so many years—my twenties, my teenage years too, full of meaningless work and endless drinks. I was shaking a little with the prospect of trusting my body to keep me afloat, to propel me across the distance to where Lonnie had both arms linked over the big yellow ring. She yelled at me, and though she was far away, her voice traveled across the calm surface of the water, against the rocks surrounding us: “Come on!”

I took a moment on the edge of the boat to tie my hair into a ponytail; then, unable to find another reason to delay, I placed my arms into a V over my head and dove in.

The water was warmer than I expected, nothing like the waves on the Oregon coast—icy even in August. I let myself sink for a moment, remembering the way the water pulled me down when I was motionless, and then, kicking, the way it held me up when I moved. Breaking through the surface, I squinted in the sun, inhaled sharply, and charted my path toward Lonnie.