But Justin is so excited to finally be here that there is no way he is going to nap. The heat, even this early, is too dominant to simply pull over and take a nap in the Jeep. But if Asher can stretch out for a few minutes, he will be alright. He believes he can will himself to not go to sleep.

Asher turns down one street and then another and somehow they end up back on the waterfront. The water is a throbbing bluish green, so shallow he can see waves of seaweed swaying just beneath the surface. A lone sailboat sits tied up in the shoals, bobbing on the small, steady waves. When Asher sees the beach he pulls into an empty spot alongside the sidewalk.

“We get to go swimming?” Justin says, excited.

“No,” Asher slurs, “let’s just rest for a little bit. Okay?”

But it’s too hot in the car and Justin is begging to let him go to the water.

Asher somehow manages to grab the throw from the back seat and open the door. Justin is scurrying down the sidewalk, Shady running alongside him, darting away so fast that enough energy flares in Asher to holler out: “Justin! Stop!”

Justin slows but does not come back to him, so Asher tries to push on, feeling as if he is wading through muck, the way the ground was for days after the floodwaters went down. Up the steps and past a bathhouse built of sea rocks and coral, and then there is the nearly empty beach. The sky is too cloudy for most people to come out, and the smell of an oncoming rain marks the air. Far down the sand a young family is settling themselves beneath a large white umbrella—man and woman, two children, a baby lying in a car seat on a towel—and even farther down a group of boys have just begun a game of volleyball. But that is all.

Justin runs to the water’s edge, laughing, hollering out. Shady barks at the waves, then sticks his nose into the water and sneezes. Asher finds a shadowed place beneath the palms lining the beach; the morning is new enough that the air isn’t too thick in the shade.

Only when Asher bends to spread out the throw does he notice the wind pummeling the beach. The throw bucks like a possessed thing. He falls to his knees atop one end and manages to pin the throw down long enough to take a seat. He has never been drunk before but he imagines this is how it must feel, the world shifting and leveling, then sliding back off-kilter again. He puts the flat edge of his hand up to his brow so he can gaze out toward the ocean, and watches Justin and Shady as they run down to the water’s edge.