The woman smiled and adjusted the zipper of her wet suit. She looked to be in her late thirties, muscular with violet shadows under her eyes and a slight dimple in her chin. “Earl Grey, okay?”

“Earl Grey is great,” Zadie answered.

Finn reluctantly followed Zadie and the woman to her car, which was parked at the end of a short boardwalk. She opened the back of her hatchback and pulled out three towels. “I’m Yasmine, by the way,” she said as she passed one to each of them.

“Thanks. I’m Zadie.”

“Finn.” Finn wrapped the towel around her shoulders and stared sheepishly at the ground. “Sorry, again. I thought you were someone else.”

Yasmine waved her off and pulled out a thermos. “Don’t worry about it. The sea has a way of making people see things.” Yasmine extended a cup of tea in Finn’s direction. Finn accepted it but did not drink. “Although you’ve got me curious … Who did you think I was?”

Finn felt a sudden urge to scream. She had been so certain this was her mother, so certain and yet, so flagrantly wrong. Had she simply seen what she wanted to see? And if that was the case, could she trust any of her instincts? “Our mom.”

Yasmine handed Zadie a steaming cup, too. “Was she supposed to be meeting you here?”

“Something like that.”

The woman sat on her car’s bumper, blew on her cup, and gazed out at the waves. “I’ve been swimming here every day for ten years. Not many people are willing to come out on a day like this.”

“You swim every day?” Zadie asked.

“Twice a day. I can’t help it.” There was a coyness in her voice, as if she was hoping one of the girls would ask her to elaborate. When they didn’t, she continued, “What does your mom look like? Maybe I’ve seen her.”

“You didn’t,” Finn said flatly. “She’s not here.”

Finn could sense her sister wanted her to stop there, but she kept talking. She no longer cared who knew about her echoes. “I see things from the past. My mom stood on a beach just like this.” She turned back to the ocean. “But that was probably a long time ago.”

Yasmine exhaled suddenly, disturbing the gentle S of steam from her tea, but otherwise she seemed unruffled by Finn’s story. “I used to be a horrible swimmer, you know,” she said after a long pause. “Nearly drowned five, six times. Once I had to be dragged out by an elderly member of the Polar Bear Club.” She laughed, clearly more amused by her own near-death experience than her audience. “People used to ask me why I kept going in the water if I couldn’t swim. I told them, ‘Because the ocean calls to me.’ I made it sound like a joke, but they wouldn’t have believed it, anyway.”