Polly thought about older things, too, other moments that ended in the river, other men who thought the world would and should go their way, men who struck and regretted or who were only made angrier by their own guilt, who would rather have someone die than let the world know they’d done the wrong thing. Throw in a little shock, a little cowardice: A girl was better off dead.

There shouldn’t have been anything wrong with Ariel climbing into that kayak, Polly thought, on a beautiful river with friends. You can’t go through life expecting someone like Graham.

Don’t think, Polly said to Ned and to herself. Leave all of it twisting on the ground until you know where to put it. The other people in the house, not having heard Ned on the phone, were floating with relief. The party was over, and the detritus was in no rush. The yard was littered with bits of wrapping paper and ribbon, spiral cake candles looking like bright worms in the grass—Polly thought they were squirming for a moment—napkins and drink cups. The tablecloths were akimbo or against the fence; there was an east wind, and they would have to postpone Maude’s float down the river.

Polly took Sam to soccer practice, the first session before the fall rec season, and it was a relief to sit on the grass alone. No one approached her—she was older than the other mothers and tainted by Ariel and grief—and for an hour she thought of nothing but the awkwardness of boys, the jumble of sticklike shins and knobby knees. Half the kids picked their nose during every huddle with the coach, but Sam was uncoiling, running and kicking, becoming more of a physical being, though he would never be a jock. He still read obsessively, and he was openhearted, with no obvious chips and a rich, perverse sense of humor. In the midst of the weirdness that spring and summer, he and Helen reached a kind of balance. They sized things up together, we two against the world.