The sun was its late-morning fierce, and Joey questioned why she’d picked the beach for their reunion. The beach had been their spot, she supposed, the axis on which their childhood had spun. But staring out at the waves now next to Leo made Joey think of a hundred different moments. They should have just gone to a Starbucks.

“Remember Taverna Salto, Jonesey?” Leo pulled at the collar of his shirt. It was only a crew-neck tee, but Joey knew how he hated when anything pressed on his neck. She thought how bizarre it was to know intimate details about a person who was now essentially a stranger.

“How could I forget it?” The trauma of the twenty-four hours after that dinner would never be easy to revisit—losing Leo and her beloved grandfather in one fell swoop. “You saw someone, didn’t you?” Joey’s heart hammered her chest.

“Not someone, Jones.” Leo squeezed his tennis ball so tightly his face contorted like a bodybuilder. “Someones.”

“Okay. Who? Did you cheat on me with…” She steeled herself. “That French girl you dated?”

A boy and girl, all scrawny legs and arms, ran past them toward the sea. They reminded Joey of her and Leo, when she still thought that summers meant magic.

“No, Jonesey.” Leo laughed a laugh that sounded desperately sad. “I can’t believe that’s what you would have thought all this time. What I saw was two people—two lovers—having dinner together.”

Joey was growing impatient for the punch line. “Who?”

A long pause. The little girl shrieked with glee as the boy pulled her under.

“Our parents. Well, one of yours and one of mine.”

“Huh?” Joey’s brain scrambled. “My dad was in Florida then. What do you mean one of—”

“Bea and Rand. They were having an affair. I’m sorry to tell you this. That night at Taverna Salto, I saw Bea and Rand.”

*  *  *

“I can’t believe it. It can’t be true,” Joey heard herself saying, over and over, as she kept clumping and then destroying the same mound of sand. Her mind buzzed with flip-book scenes from all their Corfu summers as she picked apart moments and laughs and smiles for clues. Only nothing suspicious surfaced. Finally, she dared to look up at Leo, praying for him to admit this was all a sick joke. But his face was solemn.

“I just can’t believe it.” A chill traversed her bones. “No. It’s just…it’s not…I mean, when did you even find out?”

“The summer before our last. Right before the end. That’s why—”