A family: Phil, Molly, Jack. Their pure belief in her sent her to her knees; she bent to the ground with the full knowledge of what she’d done. She fumbled for the flashlight that she remembered had fallen to the side of the sleeping bag. She groaned, found her hand on a hard object and lifted it: Nick’s shoe. She dropped it and searched again for the flashlight. She found it, grasped it like a lifeline and flicked it on. The room lit up like a tank of water.

She was dizzy. She pulled her crumpled sweater from under Nick, covered him up with the sleeping bag and his flannel shirt. She took extreme care not to wake him as she found her corduroys where they’d been flung on the wooden floor. She turned the flashlight off, moving with a panic-flooded mind, a bilious taste of guilt filling her mouth. So this is what it feels like to be an adulterer—a filthy adulterer who’d momentarily found freedom in rationalizations. She couldn’t catch her breath in the underwater feeling of guilt, she dressed as quietly as possible.

Where exactly was she? What time was it? She grabbed Nick’s donated coat and staggered to one side of the living room. She had to leave here, leave what she’d done. It couldn’t have happened. Amy Reynolds wouldn’t have made love to another man. She slid the coat over her shoulder, remembering Nick’s hands slipping it off, feeling his hands all over her body. She stumbled to the front door; it was locked. She began to sob and trip through the house, looking for a way out, any way out. Then she remembered the window he’d pried open. She flung herself over the windowsill and fell into the spiked bushes outside.

She’d never been so cold, so empty, as though no blood ran through her veins. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do this. She began to half-run, half-stumble toward the boat on the beach, to escape from Nick, from herself.

She fell onto the sand, searching in her mass of whirling thoughts for a solid resting place, for a decision. She jumped into the grounded Tender. Its tip was buried in the sand as its hind end bobbed in the waves. Her hand shook violently as she held the flashlight over the ignition to find the keys. None.

She leaned over the back of the boat, lifted the rear seat to see if he’d hidden them in the empty well. She shook with fear and cold, and the flashlight fell from her hand, plopped into the sea with a lone splash.