The road that led south from the surf beach, Ocean Boulevard, was lined with mansions on the right. On the left were majestic views of the Atlantic Ocean, bordered in places by a rock wall. Along the rock wall ran a sidewalk and on the sidewalk people were running, riding bikes, walking dogs: happy happy summer people in a happy happy summer place. Sherri took a deep breath and released it, just as the counselor had told her to do.

The road had gentle twists and turns like a road in a storybook, and every now and then the ocean would open up wide before them. It was enough to take your breath away. Here is where the fairy princess lives, Sherri thought, passing a giant white house that looked like a Southern mansion. One house had peeling paint and a weedy, untended lawn. Here is where the monster lives, thought Sherri. She shivered. The counselor had told her to try not to think too much about their other lives. It was not an overstatement to say that their survival depended on it.

“What are you doing, Katie?” Sherri asked. Katie had her head down now, intent on something in her lap. Her phone, which Sherri had bought her against her better judgment, with some of the money they’d been given to start over. She’d been swayed by the ability to track Katie’s whereabouts.

“Just texting with some of the girls.”

“The girls you just met?”

Sherri glanced again in the rearview mirror and saw Katie nod. Sherri’s mother would have said, “I didn’t hear your head rattle,” and demanded a verbal answer, but truth be told, Sherri’s mother and Sherri had had a very different relationship than Sherri and Katie had. Katie tended to treat Sherri less like a parent and more like an overwrought friend whose occasional discombobulation caused Katie some mild bemusement.

When she was packing up to leave the beach, Sherri had heard the women discussing cocktails by so-and-so’s pool in two days’ time, kids included. Sherri had lingered over her cheap beach bag for a moment, half wondering if they’d invite her, half horrified by the thought that they might. If they did, she would go for Katie’s sake. It would be lovely for Katie to make some friends over the summer so that she’d enter school in September with familiar faces to seek out by the lockers or at lunchtime. Sherri felt a pang at the thought of Katie with a cafeteria tray, desperately seeking a place to sit.

“Taylor wants me to come swimming at her house this week!” Katie announced.

“Really?” Sherri felt a flush of nervous excitement. Calm down, she told herself. It’s just a swimming invitation. “That sounds like fun! Which one was Taylor?”

“Blond hair,” said Katie.