Leaning against a large rock, LeFleur removed the notebook and examined it closely. Its pages were stuck together, likely from the salt, and he realized this would be a delicate process. But there was writing. In English. He felt his hands shaking. He looked up at the breaking waves and contemplated what to do.

Most of his life, LeFleur had been a rule-follower. He’d done well in school, earned badges in scouts, scored high on his police tests. He’d even thought of leaving Montserrat for England to train as a constable. He was a good size for law enforcement, tall, broad-shouldered, with a thick mustache that hid his smile and made him appear quite serious.

But then he met Patrice. A New Year’s Eve party, fourteen years earlier, part of Montserrat’s annual festival that features parades, costumed performers, and a Calypso King competition. They danced. They drank. They danced some more. They kissed at midnight and tumbled passionately into the new year. They saw each other every day for the next few months, and there soon seemed little doubt they would marry.

By summer, they had. They purchased a small house, which they painted yellow, and bought a four-poster bed where they spent a great many hours. LeFleur would smile just watching Patrice walk away from the bed and smile even more watching her walk back. Forget England, he thought. He wasn’t going anywhere.

A few years later, he and Patrice had a child, Lilly, and they doted on her as new parents do, taking pictures of every move she made, teaching her nursery songs, carrying her on their shoulders for trips to the market. LeFleur painted their second bedroom a light-pink shade and added dozens of little pink stars on the ceiling. Under those stars, Jarty and Patrice put Lilly to bed every night. He remembered feeling so good during those days, it seemed undeserved, as if someone had accidentally given him a double share of contentment.

Then Lilly died.

She was only four years old. She’d been visiting Patrice’s mother, Doris, and that morning they’d gone to the beach. Doris, who suffered from heart issues, had taken a new medication at breakfast, not realizing it would make her drowsy. In a beach chair, under the hot sun, she fell asleep. When she blinked her eyes open, she saw her granddaughter facedown in the surf, motionless.

Lilly was buried a week later. LeFleur and Patrice had been in a fog ever since. They stopped going out. They barely slept. They crawled through their days and fell into their pillows at night. Food lost its taste. Conversation faded. A numbness draped over them, and they would stare for long stretches at nothing in particular, until one would say, “What?” and the other would say, “What?” and the other would say, “I didn’t say anything.”