“I’m sorry, Ronan. She really said that? That’s awful.”

“She said it’s because I’m about to become a teenager. She doesn’t want one around. Too much to worry about, and she says I need a father to keep me in line.” He swallows hard. “She thinks I’m bad.”

“Ronan. You’re not bad.”

“Yes, I am. She sent me a letter.” His voice cuts. “Don’t you understand me?” He grows louder. “I was so happy when I saw her handwriting on the envelope. I thought it was a letter to say I could come home, but she said . . .” He kicks at the water. “She said that she hoped I was doing okay but it was all for the best.” He kicks the water again and takes a swing at nothing. Then, crumbling, he falls to his knees. “For the best?” he asks, pressing his arms against his stomach and curling forward. “What’s for the best even mean, anyway?”

Something in the water gets his attention. He sniffs and stares for several seconds. Finally, he asks, “What is that? It looks like an alien helmet.”

I lean over. “That’s a horseshoe crab. Cool to actually see one. We find their shells on Seagull Beach all the time.”

“Their shells?”

“Yeah. They shed their shells the way snakes shed their skin.”

“Huh. It would be cool to just shed something and swim away,” he says, crawling on all fours and then picking up the crab. He examines the horseshoe crab and then turns it over. Ronan watches wide-eyed as the horseshoe crab waves everything wildly. “This one is definitely strong,” he says. Then it bends into an L-shape and points its tail at Ronan.

“They are one of the oldest animals on earth,” I say, touching one of its legs. “They literally swam around with the dinosaurs four hundred fifty million years ago.”

“I love this thing!” Ronan counts the twelve legs with claws. “And what’s this?” he asks, wiggling his finger over a mound of what looks like dead grass in the middle of its many legs.

“That’s its mouth.”

“Sick.”

Ronan bends over and places it back in the water as if it could break. He watches it scurry away.

Just then, two boys swim over to it, and the shorter one catches the horseshoe crab and holds it up. “Cool!”

The taller one, laughing, says, “I wonder if you pull its leg off, will it grow back, like starfish?”

Ronan stands.

The taller boy reaches over and grabs ahold of one of the crab’s legs.

I had no idea Ronan could move that fast. Before I know it, he hits one kid and pushes the other. The horseshoe crab splashes into the water and swims away.

One of the kids pushes Ronan back and there is a bunch of yelling and swinging.

Just as Ronan punches one of the kids, a conservation officer who patrols the beaches arrives. “Hey! Knock that off!” he says as he wades into the water and pulls the kids apart.