And as she sat there looking out at the water, she remembered something she hadn’t thought of in ages. From back before Mom had met Mitch, before Annabelle had even heard of Gray Island. Back when she, Mom, and Dad had gone down to the Jersey Shore for a week one summer.

They’d gone to the beach early in the morning, before it got crowded. The water had been calm, and she and Dad had kicked their way out to a buoy. Annabelle had been propped up on a boogie board while her dad had crawled along, never putting his face in the water, so she’d never feel alone.

“It’s too far,” she’d protested. “I can barely even see it.”

“You’re doing great,” Dad had said. “But if you get tired, we’ll turn around. Any time. Just say the word.”

Her legs did get tired, but not until they were so close to the buoy that she could see the black stripes on top. She couldn’t turn around now, when they’d gotten this close, but the farther she kept going, the farther she’d have to kick her way back.

“I’ll pull you in if you need me to,” Dad said.

And knowing that she had a backup plan was enough to power her out to the spot.

There was nothing magical about the place where the buoy sat—no real reason why the view from that floating red sphere should have been any more special than the view from five or ten feet behind it. It probably wasn’t even that far out, or the lifeguards wouldn’t have let them go.

But Annabelle and Dad stayed out there for a few minutes, treading water as they looked out at the vast horizon and then back at the beach. It took a minute to find Mom, who sat way back near the dunes with a big straw sunhat and a book propped on her knees. She seemed smaller than usual, as if Annabelle were peering at her through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

Annabelle felt stronger and bigger than she ever had but also more aware of how giant the ocean was—how giant the whole world was—and how tiny she and her parents were in comparison.

She didn’t need her dad to pull her on the way back. She managed to kick almost the whole way, and then she rode in on a wave at the end, just like he had taught her that same trip. She gave into the ocean’s power, letting it push her toward the shore.

Now Julia Bennett was kicking her way back in with her dad walking beside her, the water barely up to his waist.

He was a good dad, Mr. Bennett. Cheerful and friendly, and he never seemed to yell, even when he was telling Julia and Kelsey to come inside and they didn’t listen.

But her dad had been a good dad too, for a long time.

Maybe now he was back to that old version of himself, who gave her piggyback rides when she was tired and made her feel strong and safe enough to kick all the way out to that buoy and back.