“Thank you,” I say to the man, hands pressed together. His mouth gapes as a splash sounds behind me. I shed my jacket, drop my hat. “Really. We appreciate it.” I toe out of my sneakers and step up onto the wale.

The water is a welcome shock. I swim hard for a full thirty seconds before looking back in time to see the boat turn south. Claudia’s laugh sounds, bright as a bell across the water ahead of me.

“It is a good day, Audra!”

“Why?” I shout.

“We’re alive!” She wriggles in the water, disappears once beneath the surface before striking out toward shore, and I realize she has just shed Piotrek’s pants.

I laugh, as much at her audacity as in relief just to be moving and, yes, alive.

The beach—which is really more of a clearing behind the hotel—is composed entirely of pebbles; there is no white sand here. I walk gingerly the last feet to shore, breathing hard, sodden in wet clothes, my arms covered in goose bumps beneath the bright autumn sun.

A shout sounds from somewhere near the road as two forms appear on the hill. Piotrek waves, and Luka tosses down a bag. Claudia, still dripping, retrieves it, sorts through the contents, and drops a T-shirt, a pair of army green pants, and sandals with the tags still attached in my arms.

“I had Piotrek pick up some things. Come to think of it, he probably had to send Luka.” She smirks.

“You thought of everything,” I say, tugging on the pants, which, to my surprise, actually kind of fit, before transferring the key, a few wet bills, and my driver’s license to a dry pocket.

She shakes back her hair. “Of course.”

I dress quickly, exchanging my wet shirt for the trendy-looking black one.

“Let’s not tell Piotrek yet that I got rid of his favorite jeans,” she says.

Five minutes later, we’ve shoved the bag of wet clothes between us in the backseat of the car.

Whatever Piotrek’s initial reaction to Claudia’s sneaking off without him, he’s apparently over it. He murmurs in Croatian as she drapes an arm around him from behind, lifts her hand to kiss it as he pulls onto the road. Meanwhile, Luka has yet to speak to me.

“Find anything?” he says finally, a few kilometers down the road. His jaw is tight, the ends of his hair catching in two days’ stubble.

“Not enough.”

I stare out the window as we head east, remembering Goran’s eyes as he told the story of my mother. Something about her affects him deeply, or did once. And I wonder if she had that effect on everyone.