Tuck fell asleep on the couch, and I went to my room. From the window, I looked out at the dark lawn, serene now in a sudden patch of moonlight as the clouds cleared. The road, the woods, the cemetery, all quiet now. I didn’t want to think about the tiniest baby, my brother, his fragile bird bones, the way he’d flown—just one moment suspended, levitating, and then—

I had to protect Lucas. That was the thought I couldn’t escape from that night. I’d lost one brother, and I couldn’t risk losing another.

I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t sleep. And I felt a kind of dissolution. I was crumbling like the foundation of the house. I longed for the past. Or the future. I wanted Tuck, and I almost went to him. I imagined kneeling beside him in the living room. I thought about kissing him at midnight. But I also thought, he may be helping now, but at some point, he’ll figure out what he wants to do and go back to school. And I will still be here alone, just me and the demons down under the sea, brooking and bucking the pull of the tide, panting and clawing and fit to be tied, tumbling down by the festering side, of our darling, our darling, our life and our bride. In this tomb by the sounding sea.

We walked to the landing in the morning, Tuck and me. The beach felt disorderly, with piles of shells and rocks and seaweed, with small dead creatures strewn about. Everything was wet, and I breathed in the smell of rain and leaves, the smell of gasoline in the harbor.

Outside Mady’s, the man with the cat greeted us gravely and politely.

“Do you see my kids?” I asked. “Do I have them with me today?”

“Just the one,” he said. “She’s standing right there.”

“What does she look like?”

“She looks just like you. In fact—”

He studied my face for a moment, confused. Then shook his head. “Have you met my wife?”

“Yes,” I said. “She’s lovely.”

“She’s my whole world,” he said. “She’s my apple pie. She’s the reason I get up every morning.”

“Do you know who I am?” I asked. “I’m Lydia Moore. My mother was Cecily Moore. Did you know her?”

“No,” he said, sadly. “I don’t know your mother, little girl. Are you lost?”

“I hope not,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”

Not lost, old man, but different. When I looked at the landing that morning, it was as if I were seeing it through new eyes. I noticed things I’d never seen before, although they’d been there all along. Chips in the sidewalk. Rust on the old No Fishing sign hung from the post office dock. And there were other differences, too—the coffee we bought from Mady’s tasted like bitter soil.