“Back on the island, we’d get some hellbent rainstorms a few times a year. This one was even worse than usual. It was like some kind of water-magnet had picked up the entire ocean then dropped it on us. That’s when I made the worst decision of my life. I thought it’d be fun to be on the beach, soaked by the storm, watching the giant waves come in. Dummy brain, big, all that.”

His eyes met Timon’s, who then quickly looked down at the smoldering ashes. Something’s not right about these people, Isaac thought. They care about us way more than they let on.

“Then?” Sadina prodded.

He didn’t know how long he’d been quiet. “Then . . . well . . . I got hit by the biggest wave I ever saw and it grabbed me by the damn ankles like it had hands and swept me out to sea. I don’t know how my mom and dad knew. But they came running.”

“They’re your parents,” Letti said, her voice a little haunted, as if by her own memories. “Parents know when their child is in danger.”

“Yeah, well, my sister came with them,” he mumbled. “What about her?”

It was a cruel thing to say, and she did bristle a little. Just enough to make him feel sorry.

He sighed, completely aware that he was deflecting the pain like usual. And was that a bad thing? He decided it wasn’t.

“Look, I know I was supposed to tell this big story but there’s not much to tell. You think I was taking notes out there? Getting beat to hell by waves twice as tall as Timon the Gentle Giant, here? I hardly remember anything. I was choking on salt water and spitting and trying to breathe. I was drowning. That’s what I was doing. Drowning. And I remember hearing my dad’s voice, screaming, absolutely screaming my name. I never heard my mom or sister, though.”

That got him. That got him, good. His chest hitched with an unexpected sob and then the cries poured out of him like the rain that day. Sadina was there in a flash, pulling him close. He grabbed on to her, embarrassed but thankful she was there.

After a few minutes, he’d had enough. He gently released himself from Sadina and stood up. “The rest is easy enough to figure out.”

He walked over to his tent and started breaking it down. “Come on, I need to get out of here.” He’d never worked so furiously or gotten it done so quickly. He went to the next task, and then the next. They allowed him to do it, mostly by himself. Sadina looked sad, but Timon was even more distressed, as if he’d been the one to lose his family in one day. Maybe he had.