Sherri hoped Katie never knew how close she’d come to real danger in those early days before they’d become safely ensconced in the program. She hoped that in time she’d forget all about the time in the motel and the bad food and the bad television and Louise the counselor with the velvety brown eyes, and also about the life they’d had before that. But not all of it, maybe, because that life was part of Katie’s history, the only one she had.

The sky was becoming paler as the sun began to drop. It wasn’t sunset yet, it was more like sunset’s appetizer. Sunset’s calamari. Sherri’s favorite part of the day. She breathed in the briny smell of the water.

She would never not be scared for herself or for Katie. But maybe the fear would become a low thrum in the background of their lives instead of the crashing cymbals in the center of the stage, in the same way that Rebecca had explained to Sherri that her grief for Peter never left, would never leave, even as she fell in love with Daniel.

They cleared their plates and placed them in the appropriate bins; they walked across the street to Dunlap’s. They were an ordinary mother and daughter on the penultimate night of summer. The line for ice cream was long, so they had a good amount of time to peruse the menu.

“What are you going to choose?” Katie asked.

I choose life, thought Sherri. I choose happiness. I choose the light.

She looked down at Katie, her forthright, strong, vulnerable, invincible, vincible child. She thought about a girl named Madison Miller who had probably gone out for ice cream with her parents dozens of times, never knowing that one day she wouldn’t.

After Brooke’s party one of the dads to whom Sherri had been talking had asked around for her number. (At the time she hadn’t known he was divorced.) His divorce was new and shiny, just out of its packaging, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He’d registered on Tinder, but it scared him, so he never used it. He had been impressed, he told Sherri, by her “bravado” at Brooke’s party. Sherri thought what he really meant was that he’d been impressed by her breasts. Or maybe both. She was still deciding whether she was ready to date—whether she’d ever be ready to date. Right now her priority was getting Katie settled in school and doing a bang-up job at Derma-You so she could get more hours. Apparently, with the rapid expansion they’d be seeking a manager for some of their new locations. Jan said she’d told management that Sherri had a solid work ethic and a natural discreetness about her, which was a necessity in their business.