“Something’s wrong?” Edith pulls back, noticing the tears. “What is it?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad to be home.”

“Don’t play me for senile. It’s that patient of yours, isn’t it? What’s his name—Mick?”

Dominique nods. “My former patient.”

“Come on, we’ll talk before Iz comes out.” Edith leads her by the hand to the Gulf-access canal located on the south side of the property. Docked along the concrete seawall are two boats, the smaller of the two a thirty-five-foot fishing boat belonging to the Axlers.

They sit together, hand in hand, on a wooden park bench facing the water.

Dominique stares at a gray-and-white pelican basking on one of the wooden pilings. “I remember when I was young—whenever I had a bad day, you always used to sit with me out here.”

Edie nods. “This has always been my favorite spot.”

“You used to say, ‘How bad can things be, if you can still enjoy such a beautiful view.’ ” She points to the rustic-looking forty-eight-foot trawler docked behind the Axler’s fishing boat. “Whose boat is that?”

“It belongs to the Sanibel Treasure Hunters Club. You remember Rex and Dory Simpson. Iz rents the space out to them. See that canvas, there’s a two-man minisub secured to the decking beneath it. Iz will take you out for a spin in it tomorrow if you’d like.”

“In a minisub? That’d be fun.”

Edie squeezes her daughter’s hand. “Tell me about Mick. Why are you so upset?”

Dominique wipes away a tear. “Ever since fat-fucking Foletta switched my assignment, he’s kept Mick on heavy doses of Thorazine. God, Ead, it’s so cruel, I can’t—I can’t even bear to look at him anymore. He’s so doped up—he just sits there, strapped in a wheelchair like some drooling vegetable. Foletta pushes him out to the yard every afternoon and just leaves him sitting in the arts and crafts area, like Mick’s some kind of hopeless geriatric patient.”

“Dom, I know you care a great deal about Mick, but you have to remember, you’re only one person. You can’t expect to save the world.”

“What? What did you say?”

“I just meant that as a psychiatrist, you can’t expect to help every institutionalized resident you come in contact with. You’ve worked with Mick for a month. Like it or not, this is out of your hands. You have to know when to walk away.”

“You know me better than that. I can’t just walk away, not when someone’s being abused.”

Edie squeezes her daughter’s hand again. They remain silent, watching the pelican flap its wings as it maintains its precarious balance on the piling.