Sarah would probably always wonder if the rest of the trip might have gone differently if she hadn’t been sarcastic about the cartwheels. It was absurd, she knew it was, but what would have happened if she hadn’t pointed out—no matter how gently—how Leda always needed an audience? Because who cared if she needed an audience? Sarah was and would always be desperate to be in it.

She bent down now and chose a stone from the water. She watched it fade, as it dried, from dark brown to tan. She checked back to where Matthew sat with Kiki at the table. They were busy talking intently. She realized that, from where they sat, they probably couldn’t even see her. She turned back to the creek and lobbed the stone as far as she could.

Maybe he was telling Kiki the truth. Maybe that’s even what Sarah wanted, and why she’d insisted on walking away. She watched as they rose and started to clear the table. She wondered if Matthew was attracted to Kiki now, though she remembered him agreeing when they first met that she was pretty but not his type. She had pressed him, flirty. Am I your type? How could he not be seduced by a woman in the throes of that new-baby love?

Soon the lights would be turned on and the bugs would come out. Dinner needed preparing. She knew she should get up and help them, but she didn’t. Nor did she sit in one of those jaunty pink chairs. She stood in one spot with her feet in the creek. She watched the empty bottles and bleached-out flag and how no one there seemed to be home. The greens were turning black, the lavenders gray. By now Sarah’s feet were freezing and she began to shiver. She turned around and checked on the house. The lights came on in the kitchen. There was the sound of chatting, laughter. No one came for her. She wished Kiki’s friends would go home right this second, that she could close her eyes again and hear their car drive away. Then again, she also wasn’t sure what she’d say once she had the chance to be alone with Kiki. It had taken about a year before she’d said anything of significance at her support group. That was over five years ago. It had seemed so weird to reveal intimate details to strangers, most of whom were emotionally wrecked themselves, but life had a funny way of reversing itself, and now she couldn’t imagine talking to anyone outside of that room of people—Matthew included—about the details and the questions that continued to haunt her.