“Not really. Just in pools, mostly. When I was a kid. My friend Hayley’s family had one.”

“This is what you need to know about the Pacific. One, it’s freezing so you’ll need a wet suit. We have them along with everything else in the upstairs closets. If you’re going to do it, come with Terry or me. Or with Billy and Liz—they’re both strong swimmers. There’s a serious current here, so don’t ever swim when the tide’s coming in or going out. If you do happen to get caught in a riptide, though, what you’ll do is this: Relax into it. Let it take you out. As long as you don’t struggle, it will send you right back to shore. Understand?”

I nodded. We watched the surfers, watched the waves. The sky was clear and blue now, no traces of the morning’s fog.

“Do you like it?” Julia asked. But I didn’t know what she meant. All I saw was the deep blue-green water, the white foam against dark rock. The wildflower-studded cliffs, and the tall grasses in the wind. “Because it’s magnificent,” she said. “But I don’t like it. It scares me.”

“I guess I didn’t know I was allowed to not like it.” I felt foolish saying that, but it was true.

“I love the sound,” Julia said. “The sight from a safe distance. A far distance. I like a view of the ocean, but not the actual thing of it. But Terry and many of the others—Billy and Liz, too—they love being up close. I think it helps drown out certain things for them.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. I looked at all of it and asked myself how I felt, and I didn’t have an answer.

poppies

JULIA AND I ENTERED THE HOUSE through the front door, the one I’d turned away from the night before. It opened into a foyer that led to the living room, where the high schoolers were helping the little ones, gathered around the coffee table with scissors and glue and sheets of colorful paper.

“Time to clean up!” said Emma, the girl who’d smiled at me that morning. I watched as each of the tiny children stacked the paper and put the caps back on the glue. Emma patted little Blanca on the head before she led the other two teenagers upstairs.

“Thank you!” Julia called after them. Then she turned to the children and marveled over their collages and cleanup. She promised them extra bubbles for their baths and they happily followed her out. “The others should be in the kitchen,” she called back. I could hear voices from around the corner—Terry and Lee and Billy—deep in conversation. I took the steps down through the doorway.