As soon as they were inside their room, Maya happily began to shed her clothes. She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, dressed only in her tiny white sandals, chanting, “Swim, swim, swim, swim.”

“Okay,” Letty said, laughing. She reached into a bag, ripped the price tags off the pink-and-white-striped two-piece she’d bought for her niece, and held it out.

“Swimmy, swimmy, swimmy,” Maya hummed under her breath, stepping into the bottoms.

“Swimmy, swimmy, swimmy,” Letty agreed, pulling the top over the child’s head.

“Now you,” Maya said, handing Letty the modest navy-blue one-piece she’d chosen for herself.

When they were dressed, with the inflated swim ring and newly purchased beach towels in hand, they stepped outside their room. Maya trotted determinedly toward the pool, which was enclosed behind a fence lined with neatly trimmed hibiscus bushes.

A large sign was posted on the gate. NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY. NO GLASS IN POOL AREA. POOL CLOSES 10 P.M.

As they pushed through the gate, they saw two women swimming laps down the center of the pool.

“I can swim too!” Maya said, pointing. Which was true. As soon as her daughter could walk, Tanya had enrolled her in an impressive array of “Mommy and me” classes. Music appreciation, pottery, ballet, and even swim classes, which her father had arranged for her to take at a private club in the Hamptons the summer she turned three.

Evan, she reported, would happily pay for anything that smacked of self-improvement. Maya, as it turned out, was tone deaf, uninterested in pottery and ballet, but a natural in the water.

“Evan says it’s her genes,” Tanya said. “He was on his prep school water polo team.”

The pool at the Murmuring Surf was a far cry from the tony Hamptons. It was ringed with aluminum-framed tables and chairs, each grouping shaded by large faded yellow-and-white-striped beach umbrellas. Letty sat down and pulled a squirming Maya onto her lap. She unbuckled her sandals and pulled the swim ring over her head and around her torso.

“Now we swim,” she announced, standing up and reaching for the child’s hand.

Before Letty could stop her, Maya ran to the edge of the pool and jumped in, landing directly on top of one of the lap swimmers, who’d just reached the shallow end of the pool.

The woman stood up, pushed her swim goggles on top of her bathing cap, and batted her arms at the child bobbing contentedly in her orange swim ring.

“You!” she hollered. She glared up at Letty, standing helplessly at the edge of the pool.

She recognized the swimmer as Ruth, one of the motel guests they’d met earlier in the day.