I don’t know where I’m going. I run to the end of the hall, and when I get there I run down a set of stairs, and down and down, floor after floor, until I think I hit the ground floor, but I actually go one lower. There’s a laundry room down there, and a series of vending machines and the lockers where you can get a towel for the pool. I run past them, push out onto a set of steps that leads into the sun again, run and almost fall into a big sparkling pool I’ve never seen before. Beyond the pool is a row of white plastic reclining deck chairs, and a paved path that leads away from the building.

I sprint down the path. My brain isn’t working yet; it’s just recycling a few crucial words and focusing on getting air into my lungs: my mother, gasp, my mother, gasp, my mother having sex, a kind of rhythm that takes me farther and farther away from the room, away from the Ocean Tower, away, away, from my mother and whoever it is, past a long string of pools connected by slides and stairs, past a wedding chapel, over a series of little bridges, past sunbathers and toddlers splashing and squealing, past a restaurant with people eating at outdoor tables and an aquarium where they apparently keep dolphins. Past another large pool and a waterfall and . . .

And then I have to stop. I’ve reached the end of the resort. I’ve run from Ocean to Lagoon. There’s nowhere else to go.

Normally that kind of running would kill me, or at the very least lame me for a significant amount of time, but I don’t even feel winded. My heart is pumping so hard I can feel my pulse throbbing in my neck. My legs feel like they aren’t even connected to my body; they’re simultaneously numb and tingling, light as feathers and heavy as sacks of rocks. My head swims with the image of my mother in the white robe, and then settles into a kind of woozy blankness that I welcome.

I turn around and go back along the path, willing my breath to slow, trying to cool down. Clear my thoughts. Understand what it means. And what it means is this:

My mother is having an affair.

I immediately think of Pop. Pop’s gentle voice. Pop’s funny laugh. Pop.

I need to be calm. But . . . Pop.