It comes back to her then. The water, clear and swirling and magical. Letting her hand drag through it, the feel of the pull on her fingers. She had never seen the river that close, at that distance from the beach, where the current picked up and the surface was scuffed with foam – how different its contours appeared now from moment to moment, its rhythm always in flux, its depth like infinite layers of something papery and transparent, like tissue wrapping a present. She watched leaves toss on its surface, tree branches, flower petals, what appeared to be the wrapper from someone’s chocolate bar, and something else, a flash of silver, or grey, something alive being propelled to the edge – all of it moving with the water, helping define its shape. Everything looked so peaceful, submitting their will to the river before reaching the edge. Then: nothing. They were simply gone. Where did they go? What lay beyond the edge of that river? No one knows.

Except Kate. Kate knows.

Falling, falling. Kate smiles a little secret smile, in part because she’s remembering what the falling felt like, and in part for remembering at all. Then she feels the painkillers kick in and push her over the edge to sleep.

TWENTY-FIVE

Two nights ago, a woman came into the hotel bar and punched Adam Pelley in the arm. The worst part is it didn’t even remotely faze him. It’s as if he just expects strange women to punch him in the arm in bars now, even in a tiny buttfuck-nowheretown like Duluth, Minnesota.

“Adam fucking Pelley,” she said. “That’s for that show you did last year on shark finning. I cried for, like, three hours.”

Her hair was wet and pulled into a bun, and she smelled vaguely of chlorine, probably from the hotel pool. She ordered a vodka and tonic and crossed and uncrossed her legs. Adam took her to his room before The Daily Show went to commercial, like he did with any other woman he’d met since his divorce, even though something about the encounter felt off. Normally, women are tripping over their panties once they find out he’s on television, imagining Kardashian-packed parties and red carpets lit up with paparazzi flashbulbs. Not Yasmine. Yasmine wanted to fuck him and be done with it. Or maybe she wanted to fuck him and also cause him a little bodily harm, but that was it. Afterward, she drank his whisky and asked about the shark. That was the other thing. The other women, they cared about the television show, but not the sharks.