Anna and I always misplaced our keys. We agreed they should be put somewhere specific, but it was as if we could never decide where. I had bought a couple of hooks, but never hung them up. We could never agree on where they should hang and whether we could just screw them directly into the wall or we needed wall plugs.

We weren’t very good at such things. I was quite handy, it wasn’t that. It was just that there were so many decisions to be made and we had to make them together, which made it difficult. Even the simple task of putting up a few key hooks.

But here the keys hung in rows. It was easy to spot the one I was looking for—a small key at the end of a blue string, attached to a huge, round clump of cork. Of course. It was a key with a life jacket.

Lou stood beside me, a bit too close, panting eagerly into my ear as I tried to unlock the hatch, twisting and wiggling the key. I tried applying some muscle.

“Sit down on the bench,” I said.

“But then I can’t see.”

“You can see afterward.”

I tried again, yanking away, roughly. It turned in the lock. I had to fiddle with it a bit before I understood that what was above the entryway was actually a hatch that could be slid backward, not just a roof, and that I had to push this back before I could loosen the two boards that were the door.

The lower board was wedged stuck, as if there were a vacuum in the woodwork. But Lou was on her feet again and standing close to me, peeking into the boat.

“There are benches inside too,” she said.

“Mm.”

“And a table.”

I gave the board a solid kick. It gave way, loosened. And then it could be pulled up.

Lou peeked inside and clapped her hands.

“How cozy!” She spun around. “It’s so cozy!”

Girls.

But she was right, it was cozy. Everything was compact and neat, everything fit together, could be taken apart, stacked, closed up, and secured.

We explored the boat for a long time. Lou kept crowing with joy, as if she were playing in a playhouse.

She took out cups and plates from a cupboard, white with blue letters. “What’s written on them?”

Navigare vivere est, it read.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s Latin—something about navigation, about being at sea, that that’s life. Sailing is life, maybe. . . . Yes, I think so. Sailing is life.”

Wow. I was impressive.

“Sailing is life,” she said, laughing.

Nothing compared to the sound of that laughter. I would do anything to hear that sound.

When she discovered that the dining table could be lowered to the level of the surrounding benches, she was overjoyed.

“They fit!”

And there was a mattress that could be put on the table, so the benches and table became a bed.