“Here, Dad,” she said, and flicked waterdrops at him, laughing.

“Don’t do that,” he said sharply, jerking his face away.

“Did you have a good swim?” said her mother. “It’s such a lovely day.”

Elizabeth lay down in the sun. Farther up the beach, where a few scraggly trees grew in the sand, some boys were throwing a baseball back and forth. The smack of the baseball in the leather gloves, the shouts of children, the low waves breaking slowly in uneven lines and drawing back along the sand, soothed her like soft music. A faint tang of saltwater rose from her skin. She smelled delicious to herself. Her father had wounded her for no reason. A sharp word was a knife. She lay grieving in the sun.

Dr. Halstrom said, “The tide seems to be coming in now, if I’m not mistaken. It’s a good thing we didn’t lay our blankets down by the water. We saw you bending over in the water, Bess. Were you looking for something?”

Then it was nothing. She was too emotional. Excessive.

“No. Yes, in a way. I was trying to make fisheyes: you know, those spots of sunlight? I did it, too.”

“You used to think you could bring them back,” he said. “You tried to bring me one, once.”

“Oh, come on. I don’t remember that. Really?”

“Absolutely. You thought they were pieces of gold. You kept holding the water in your hands and running up the beach. But when you arrived it was all gone.”

“It sounds a little sad.” She felt sad. The poor child! Gold running through her fingers.

“Not at all. It was a generous, noble, and beautiful thing to have done. Your mother and I were extremely touched. I explained to you that it was sunlight, and not gold, but that in another sense, a more important sense, it was gold, and that you had accomplished what you set out to do.”

Elizabeth felt so full of love for this man, this father, who gravely called her noble and generous, that she knew she could only disappoint him. She was bound to let him down, in the long run. She felt that if he knew the truth about her he would never forgive her. And yet she had no particular truth in mind. It was just how she felt.

“A fine mouthful for a five-year-old child,” said Mrs. Halstrom. “Poor Bess! She didn’t know whether she was coming or going.”

“I’m certain she understood what I said to her.” As if aware of the sharpness he added, “Or else she pretended to.” He laughed. “But that would have been nobler still.”