Tarla approached Diane by the floor-to-ceiling windows and put a hand on her shoulder. Her friend looked back and acknowledged her. The silence between them seemed to carry all of their apologies, as if nothing else were needed. Each of them knew what the other was thinking. Sometimes it was strange to recall that they had been friends for more than four decades, ever since they were ten-year-olds lying side-by-side on the open lawns of the Bok Sanctuary and fantasizing about their futures. Neither of them could have imagined how the future would really turn out.

‘Don’t tell Caprice,’ Diane murmured.

Tarla was concerned. ‘What?’

Diane looked at her aide, whose back was to them on the other side of the sunroom. ‘When the storm is past, I’m getting out of the race.’

‘No! Why do that? You were born for this.’

‘I’ve done things,’ Diane whispered. ‘Things that can’t be undone.’ She saw Tarla’s face and added: ‘Not Birch. Other things. If I’m going to ask people to trust me as governor, I have to be able to trust myself.’

‘You’re making a mistake,’ Tarla told her. ‘The past doesn’t matter. I know who you really are.’

‘Do you? I don’t even know myself anymore. Maybe it happens to every politician. I’m becoming the mask that I despise in every candidate from the other parties. We need someone authentic.’

Tarla squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t do anything rash. Give it time.’

Caprice called to them from a chair in the corner. ‘You’re on the air, Diane.’

She’d found a live stream on her phone. The local network superimposed a photograph of Diane over footage of surf pounding the beaches, and they played a voice-over of a phone interview she’d conducted earlier in the morning.

‘No, I’ll be right here in Tampa. I’m not going anywhere. The important thing is to put safety first, and that means supporting the first responders who are putting themselves at risk and going without sleep to help everyone in central Florida. If you don’t need to be outside, stay home, and let those good people do their jobs.’

‘Nice,’ Caprice said.

The screen shifted to a shot of the Governor outside the Capitol building in Tallahassee. He had a similar message of support, pledging every available state resource to protecting the area and rebuilding from any storm-related damage. It was impossible not to notice that the sun was shining in the Panhandle. He was a long way from Chayla.

‘Not so much as an umbrella,’ Caprice added. ‘That’s going to hurt him. He can talk about not getting in the way of rescue efforts all he wants, but people will remember that you were here, and he wasn’t.’