I’m almost up to my crotch in the water. She’s thrilled, doing a victory paddle no one but me is close enough to appreciate. Then she springs back to the shore with giant steps that bring her knees rocketing out of the waves.

Back on dry land, I take off my shoes and drain out the water. When I put them back on, the sand clings to them like flour to chicken parts. I’m dripping wet from the waist down. Score one for the leaders of tomorrow.

I walk slowly back to the pavilion and the parking lot. As I reach my car, I hear a voice say, “What gets into your head?”

The young couple with the baby stroller stands several yards away. Cowering in front of them is the girl in the lime green swimsuit. She’s standing with her arms folded, her head bent down, dripping dark spots onto the asphalt.

“Did we know where you were?” the woman asks. “Did we?” Her hand sweeps across the girl’s cheek with a sharp crack. “I hope you had the time of your life, because you worried us sick.”

“All right,” the husband says, “let’s just go home.” The baby, still wearing his sunglasses, looks oblivious to this turmoil, but the little girl looks miserable.

The day is still bright. I drive back to the island but don’t feel like going home yet, don’t want to be in the house, so I stop off at the Galaxy Lounge. The place is nearly empty, only a couple of guys drinking beer and talking at the revolving bar. I take a stool a little ways down from them and order a Glenfiddich and water. I’m thinking that, as crazy as things got with me and Teresa, we were never the kind of parents who slap their kids around. We never hit them, never even spanked them. No parent deserves an award for that, I guess, but I like thinking we did at least one thing right.

I order another Glenfiddich and sip it, watching the room slowly turn around me.

“No, no, no, I remember that,” one of the guys at the bar is saying. “I remember it clearly. Grissom panicked.”

“He didn’t panic,” the other guy says. “The hatch malfunctioned.”

They don’t know each other. Or they didn’t, before they came in here; they’re sitting two stools apart. They’re around my age, early sixties, one of them a little lighter than me and the other one a little heavier. They look like the guys who played Doc and Festus on Gunsmoke, though I’m pretty sure both of those actors are dead.

Festus says, “You know, I’ve been hearing this for years. ‘The hatch malfunctioned.’ Well, pardon my French, but bull-crap. They were having trouble hooking up the chopper cable, and Grissom didn’t want to wait. He got scared and bailed out. End of story.”