These last few days were driven by the assumption that Angela was hiding from someone. And that I should be, too. Knowing now for certain how true that is, the arresting fear in my chest diminishes with each kilometer we drive. While my hands coil into fists.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Ready for your burial, Moon?

My toes still poked through mounds of sand. The coolness of the lapping waves rushing my ankles was refreshing, although it made Angela’s job harder; each time she succeeded in covering my toes, water would rise and wash away her progress.

We were ten years old, sprawled across the bumpy sand along the water of our inlet. The sun bore down harder than usual, but a breeze kept things bearable, dancing across the skin exposed by my one-piece swimsuit. Angela started pouring sand on me with her toes—finger toes, she called them. The better to grab you with. It turned into a game: I’d lie still while Angela covered me with as much sand as her finger-toes could grab in one footful. The sand kept spilling off, creating triangles along my body. Angela suggested she could use one hand and one foot to make it go faster, to build on the triangles, and I conceded.