The sights and smells of her childhood stomping grounds produced the normal nostalgia, but something else, too. So many bad things had happened in this city. So many things Avery wanted to forget. Things that had turned her life upside down, chased her away, and forced her to become someone new. Returning always dredged up memories that muddied the waters of her life. Only time had the ability to settle and calm them. Of course, the solution to this regular stirring up of bad memories would be to stop coming back to New York. But more than a few things continued to pull her back to this hallowed place. The first was the memory of the last time she had been out on the water in her Oyster 625.

She walked down the stairs of Penn Station and pushed through a turnstile to the subway. She settled into a seat near the rear of the subway car and rode in quiet contemplation until she exited at Chambers Street. She walked with afternoon commuters for several blocks, heading south until she found Vesey Street, where she eventually wound her way west to North Cove Marina. All of her senses bombarded her—the smells and the sounds and the images—and conspired to collapse time and erase the years that had passed since she was last here. It was the summer before her third year of law school. Her parents had gone to the house in the Hamptons for a long weekend, and Avery and Christopher were due to join them the following day. In the meantime, the Oyster 625 was theirs for the taking.

As Avery looked out at the marina and the boats, she thought of Christopher and that summer morning. They knew a storm was brewing out in the Atlantic. They knew they would run into weather. They knew it would be dangerous. They knew it was a bad idea to take the Oyster out that day. But still, Avery climbed aboard and motored out of the marina.