The rhythms of coastal life had become so natural to Peyton that scenes like these no longer registered with him. They were just in the background. But right after lunch, he saw something that did get his attention—a man whose build was identical to his father’s, standing on top of a dune, holding the hand of a little boy who looked to be three or four. The angle of the sun blocked any detail so that the pair were silhouetted against the blue sky. The man even had the same haircut as Peyton’s father, evident in the shapes and shadows around his head when the wind blew.

Without realizing it, Peyton had stopped dead still in the middle of the highway, watching intently as the man knelt beside the boy, pointing up at the sky and a flock of pelicans flying overhead. The child clapped his hands in delight as the man picked him up and carried him down the dune, disappearing on the other side. Peyton was jolted into action by the blare of a horn and squealing tires as a car swerved around him, the driver shaking his fist out the window.

Heart pounding, he hastily pushed his bike over to the ocean side of the highway, then ran to the top of the dune where the man and boy had stood. He felt suddenly and irrationally frantic, looking this way and that, searching the beach for any sign of them. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called up the beach, “Are you there?” And then down the beach: “I said, are you there?” Looking down, he saw the man’s footprints leading off the dune and followed them, placing his own feet into the indentations all the way down the beach and into the water, where they ended in yet another question mark.

The Atlantic soaked his sneakers and drenched his shorts, but it yielded nothing. And what had he expected it to give him? Some explanation from the breakers? Not just a reason why his father’s life had to be cut short, but some justification for the dreams he’d sacrificed and the joy he’d surrendered, all in the name of family? What about their family—Peyton, his mother, and his father? Had his dad sacrificed what they might’ve had together for what the Cabots demanded of him? Did he even have a choice? There had to be a choice. There was always a choice. Right?

His eyes were stinging, his hands trembling, and he felt both foolish and nauseated—foolish for chasing a complete stranger onto the beach and sickened by the sadness that had made him do it. He reached down, picked up a seashell, and threw it into the waves. Then another. And another. Again and again until the simple rhythm of physical motion helped him regain control of his emotions. You had to keep your wits about you out here on the road.

Peyton closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky, feeling the warmth of the sun and the salty breeze coming off the water—the healing power of the Atlantic. He breathed in the space where he imagined his father once stood until he was filled with it. And then he knew that he was strong enough to go on.