THERE HAD BEEN SO MUCH EROSION over the years that the parking lot at LeCount was half the size it had been when Poppy was a kid. The lifeguard stand was blown on its side. There weren’t just trucks in the lot but cars—nice cars, the same cars she’d seen in the parking lot at the boulangerie. Poppy stepped out of Carol’s car with her wet suit halfway up, the top hanging limp from her hips, nervous. The sun broke over the dunes and fractured over the steel-gray water. The wind was cold, but it was a good cold, unlike the chill in the lonely house.

She expected to see the same hard-core crowd and join in the super-tight camaraderie. Instead she saw clusters of surfers who looked at her with suspicion, making her feel like the outsider, although she could tell they were mostly newbies and old guys in their fifties and sixties with longboards and stand-up paddles. At least half of them were girls. She was used to this in other places, but it threw her off on the Cape, where she expected everything to remain unchanged, where she and Kit used to be among the only girls in the inner circle of OGs, or “originals,” and everyone treated them like younger sisters.

The surfers acknowledged her. Poppy could tell they thought she, too, was a newbie. She didn’t care what they thought, and she didn’t participate in the surf world one-upmanship that happened on land. What mattered was how well you could read and ride the waves. She wanted to lose herself in the water and the rhythm and the rush. She wanted to forget about Brad and Ann and the sale. She wanted to forget that her parents had died.

“Ready?” Carol said, looking more like Kit with her messy morning hair and broad smile. “Keep your eye out for sharks. They’re bad now.”

Poppy zipped up, got into the water, paddled out so she could take off deeper, and started reading the waves. She’d forgotten how heavy the water was in Wellfleet, how salty and thick with a stew of seaweed, how real.

The cold made her ankle and jaw begin to ache, and she felt the tug of insecurity that chased her out of the water a few years ago. Forget about it, she told herself. This wasn’t the pipeline, it was her home break. She paddled out to the lineup. The surf was good and Poppy was in great form. She started hitting the lips and cutbacks and got the little barrels. She surfed like she was in a dream, letting her thoughts recede the way they did. It felt great, amazing even, to be alive like this, all animal instinct and muscle memory. She was in the moment, standing on top of the water like she owned it.

She overheard some surfers talking.

“That girl is charged.”

“She rips.”

“Who is that?”