May was fond of Ezra too, but she floated in and out of our time together as it suited her, spending most of her time taking photographs or looking for things to take photographs of or studying the photographs she’d already taken.

There was a special kind of intensity to my friendship with Ezra. When we were nine, we went into the woods and held a secret ceremony. Using Ezra’s jackknife, we cut into the soft flesh of our palms and then grasped each other’s hands to become blood siblings. We vowed to stay friends forever, never keep secrets from each other, and always tell the truth.

When I turned ten and started going to sailing and tennis lessons, things changed. It was a place where Ezra was not allowed to follow; I knew that even without asking. I made new friends, kids from other cottages. Ezra still came around, but he was fit in between my lessons and other friends.

The summer I was eleven, it became pretty obvious to both of us that our friendship would not survive class distinctions and getting older. Ironically, it was the summer of our first and last kiss. It was raining that day. West was there to fix a cupboard door that kept falling off its hinges. Ezra and I sat out on the verandah on the glider. We rocked back and forth, not saying anything, just staring out into the trees, listening to the hypnotic squeak of the glider’s metal mechanism.

“Koda died,” he finally said, out of the blue.

I braced my feet against the floor to stop the swinging and sat up so I could see him better. “What? Why didn’t you tell me right away?” Koda was his dog, and Ezra had brought him to the island more than a few times.

Ezra shrugged, and I knew he was holding back tears. I leaned in and gave him a big hug. He gripped me right back. We stayed like that for a few seconds, and then he pulled free but kept one arm around me.

“It’s the summer of losing things,” he said, with the seriousness of a wise old man. I didn’t know how to answer, so I leaned in and put my lips on his. It wasn’t a proper kiss, just lips on lips, but I inhaled his breath and tasted whatever he’d had for lunch that day. I pushed into the fullness of his mouth, wanting more of it, thinking I’d never felt anything so soft in my life. Then I heard a click. I pulled out of the kiss and spotted May hiding among the trees, taking our picture.

I sprang up from my spot on the glider and chased after her, throwing pinecones at her back as she fled into the woods. Ezra sat laughing at us both, and as was always the way with him, I couldn’t help but laugh too.