Alex said, “Ryan and I were texting earlier. He said to tell you hi.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine, I think,” Alex said. “Haven’t seen him since the holidays, and he’s not great with keeping up. Did I tell you he moved back to Wheeling after his divorce? He got a job at the university there; she kept the house and stayed in Philly. Far as I can tell they kept it civil. That’s how it was with his first wife too. I don’t really know what went wrong either time—he doesn’t get into that kind of thing with me. Keeps it all close to his vest, he’s always been that way. Sort of makes me sad. Anyway, he’s just a few miles from my folks now, so he sees a lot of them.”

“That’s good. Your mom’s been in remission now for, what, three or four years?”

Alex nodded, then shook her head. “What a scare. She’s been clear for almost four years, but I still get nervous as hell every time she goes in for a scan.”

The sky was darkening, star-filled and navy overhead, purpling into a thin strip of fuchsia to the west.

Kim created small circles in the water with her toes and said, “You know, Rae was actually a really good swimmer.”

Startled, Alex felt her head lift as though jerked upward by a string. Rae’s name hadn’t come up in conversation between the two of them for many years.

Alex said, “What do you mean?”

Kim was quiet for a bit, her eyes sweeping across the horizon. Her hair color had deepened in adulthood to a rich, dark mahogany, and it was long, tied back into a braid that reached her waist. She swatted a mosquito on her bare shoulder. “Before Fripp Island,” she said, “this would’ve been the previous summer, our family was on vacation in Florida. Rae and I were in the ocean. All of a sudden I got pulled into a riptide and carried farther out. In no time at all, the water was over my head and I was terrified. Helpless. I panicked, flailing and screaming, gulping in water. Rae was sort of far away, but she swam over to save me, and she did it like it was nothing. She didn’t hesitate—as soon as she heard me calling, she paddled over and pulled me up to the surface. I looped my arms around her neck and she swam me in to shore. She was fighting that current, but she was so strong, she just barreled through.”

Alex stared at her. “Did your parents see?”

Kim shook her head. “They were far enough up the beach that they hadn’t heard me, or maybe they weren’t paying attention. And once Rae had got me to safety, I begged her not to tell them, because I was afraid they wouldn’t let me swim by myself anymore.”

“She didn’t tell?”

“No, and I don’t think she and I ever talked about it again either. She didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, what she’d done. But the way she saved me was really something, not what you’d expect from a girl her size. And the way she came for me without a moment’s hesitation . . . She could’ve easily gotten herself in the same trouble I was in—it could’ve easily ended with us both drowning. But she threw herself right into that danger, heard me cry, and a moment later she was right there next to me. I remember thinking . . . Well, from then on, she was like a god to me.”