Did I want an apology? Or gratitude? Why was the conversation about what Ray needed to give me? The word circumstance bothered me, too. I did not feel like Ray and I were a circumstance, but I did not know what we were, riding together today, only that it felt far distant from the night I agreed to go with him to watch Davi play, certain I would never see Ray again.

Finally, we exited the freeway and cruised through commercial blocks to the neat adobe neighborhoods of San Pedro. As the city petered out to a few streets and an open horizon, I tasted the sea air seeping into the car. A picnic at the beach. For us.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s your kind of place, where I’m taking you. It’d get an A-plus for historical value and decrepitude.”

He parked in a block of pastel ranches punctuated by palm trees, hopped out, grabbed the paper bag awkwardly with his free arm. There was green space beyond, blocked by a tall black fence, and beyond that, the glittering Pacific.

“Let me carry it,” I said.

He shook his head. “We just have to follow the fence a ways,” he said, and walked off into the weeds, as if eager to put distance between us. “Hey, there’s Catalina Island.” He gestured out to the smoky gray shape of land in the distance.

The tall weeds slapped at my calves. I’d chosen a simple cotton dress and practical sandals. My bare legs felt whispery warm and smooth beneath the dress, my body free. I noted a NO TRESPASSING sign.

Ray stopped at a spot in the fence where the bars had been bent to the side, making a larger gap. “I think there’s a better one farther down,” he said, and tramped off.

“We are trespassing,” I said.

After another futile march down the fence, we looped back. During that interval, I kept sniffing the lunch. It smelled so good.

Too good.

I stopped in my tracks, aware of what was happening. What I should have expected would happen.

Ray didn’t notice. He was preoccupied with the gap. “I did this a few weeks ago, before all this—” He patted his sling. “Well. Here goes.”

He stepped through the fence sideways, with his good arm first, his hips smushing against the bars, then his sling. A look of pain crossed his face.

“We can just go to the beach,” I said. “We can just sit in the car.”

He kept straining, the pain in his face deepening.