“I get everyone up.” Kai wasn’t bragging. It was just a statement of fact. “But that’s what surf instructors are paid to do. We’re paid to get you up, make sure you have a good time. It’s part of the surf school guarantee.”

Part of me is so intrigued, part of me would love to do something different—daring—would love to go home and feel that I’ve had a real adventure. Maybe if Kai were closer to my age, and less gorgeous, and less sexy and interesting, I could do it. Try it. But I don’t want to look more foolish than I am. Than I have.

I clutch my mai tai and feel my stomach free-fall and sink, just as the sun sinks every night into the dark blue sea. “I can’t.” My voice is a whisper, and it’s fear I feel clawing inside me. Fear and fear and fear. Everything’s changed in the past year and a half. I’ve changed. I’m not Daniel’s wife. I’m a single mom. I don’t know what that means, though. I don’t really know who I am.

But Kai won’t let it go. “Why?” he asks, and he leans close, close enough that I can see the texture of his beard, the curve of cheekbone beneath tanned skin, the translucent edge of his front tooth.

“I’d fall,” I blurt. I’ve had just enough to drink—one mai tai and half of a second—and my head feels a trifle woozy. I flex my fingers, testing them, and even they feel stiff. But it’s also good. It’s been a long time since I felt like this—almost like a teenager, not quite in control of all my faculties. “I’d look like an idiot.”

“Why are you so hard on yourself?”

His question silences me. I bite my lower lip, feel the air in my chest constrict. I’m close to tears, and I don’t even know why.

“You’re beautiful, Jackie. Smart, interesting, fun. Why beat yourself up?”

The tears are there behind my eyes, and I concentrate on the horizon to hold them back. “Because it’s what we women do after we hit a certain age.” I’m trying to be funny, but it doesn’t sound funny at all. “We become specialists in self-ridicule.”

“Why?”

I turn, glance at him. There’s curiosity in his blue eyes, but also concern. “I don’t know if it’s life, motherhood, or marriage, but women start giving pieces of themselves up. Little by little, year after year, and then one day you wake up and you’re not even there anymore. All the things that made you fun and fiery and hopeful… are gone.”