Ned was already at Peake’s, dealing with a failed compressor, a dishwasher and waitress calling in sick. The overwhelming nature of the everyday, grinding over death, despair, and holidays like a glacier. Merle gave Polly coffee and she knew he kept an eye on her while he flipped sausages, cracked eggs, served up a massive breakfast for people who had no obvious appetite. Jane was still in bed, the kids huddled and quiet by the television.

“Do you think we should check on Maude?” Polly asked. Maude, drunk and not sweet after Ariel was found, a bullhorn voice and fragile bones staggering around their kitchen until Ned and Merle helped her up the stairs.

“I heard her make it to the bathroom and back an hour ago,” said Merle. “Don’t worry about her and go easy on your mother today.”

“Well, sure,” said Polly. But Jane was no delicate flower. “Didn’t she sleep?”

“It’s hard. She can’t help imagining her.”

Polly’s glitchy brain shot through images: Ariel’s hair, the woman near the break wall in Michigan, the man on the sand in Stony Brook, Rita and her own private ocean.

“Her mother,” said Merle. He almost snapped. “Asta.” He was looking through the bread bag for slices without mold, a reminder that Polly couldn’t manage the simplest things.

“Who died in a car accident. With someone. No one ever mentioned that part.”

His voice softened. “Who was trapped in a car after an accident and drowned.”

Polly’s skin shimmied. “How did you expect me to know that, if you hadn’t told me? If I’ve never been supposed to talk about it, because it upsets her?”

“Don’t be angry,” said Merle. “Janie’s never said it upset her. She was fine last night, before the girl.”

The girl. “Aaargh,” said Polly, bursting into tears. “Jesus, Dad.”

She went out to the garden and dug up a rosebush she didn’t like, a sacrifice: The rose was hot pink with no scent. It attracted aphids and frosted to the ground each year. Polly’s ratty brain sought and garbled King Lear—Why should thou have life, and her, none—and when she threw the bush in the trash she felt infantile only because she’d have preferred to spray it with gasoline and light it on fire.

Ariel crowded back around her head and Polly pushed her away. She ran back in the house to make a list:

Ariel’s shorts? the man in the car? Ask cousins about Asta?