Madeline knew she was getting in deep, that maybe it was time to make her exit. But she told herself to stay, to talk to Nye like he was just another human being instead of her professor.

“Drowning,” she said. “They went to a conference your wife had to go to in Maine, and they went kayaking in the ocean. Some kind of crazy tide swept them away. A freak thing.”

Connor turned back to his beer and took a long drink.

“It sounds so specific that it must be true,” Madeline said. “That’s how I know it’s not a rumor. It’s like in class when you say that the more unique a detail, the greater sense of truth it creates. Whether it’s physical or emotional, the right nugget of information makes it seem like the writer has really been there and done that.”

Connor finished the beer in one big gulp. He waved to the bartender and asked for the bill.

“That’s what’s going on with my thesis,” she said. “It might be too real . . . some of those details I included.”

“How can fiction be too real?”

“If it’s based on something real, and that very realness hurts somebody. Or puts them in danger. Or makes the wrong person angry. Do you know what I mean?”

Nye leaned forward, like he was hard of hearing. “Danger? If someone is in danger . . . I mean, I don’t see how a book could do that. A book no one has read.”

“People have read some of it, or they will. I think maybe I just need to back away from the project, maybe write something else.”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “You have to write what you want to write. I mean . . . after Emily and Jake died, and I tried to write, every story began the same way. With a mother and her fifteen-year-old child dying in the ocean on the first page. Over and over. Fifty different times.” He stared into the empty glass in front of him, and his voice sounded weary. “God, I got sick of myself.”

“My dad died when I was little. Very little. I used to try to write about that, but I never really could.”

“It’s too real. Or raw.”

“Maybe not real enough,” she said. “I didn’t know him well because I was only three. I’ve never even been to his grave. Is that weird?”

Nye shook his head. “No. I go to my family’s graves pretty regularly. It’s peaceful. In times of stress it’s calming . . . to be near them in a way. Sometimes I even go over there at night and sneak in when the gate’s locked. There’s a way to do it. A big tree about fifty feet down from the gate has pushed through the fence, and you can slip in.”