“But it will be so peaceful and quiet when we go paddleboarding. Just picture it, Abs, you and me on a paddleboard in the middle of the lagoon, water lapping at our feet, the sun on our faces, the wind in our hair.”

“We could tip over,” Abby says. “I could drown.”

“You’ll wear a life jacket. Plus, you’re the best swimmer I’ve ever seen. You’re like a baby shark.” I try a few lines of the song, but she doesn’t go for it.

She sits up and crosses her arms. “I can swim in a pool, yes. But the lagoon is like the ocean. Dark and deep, with monsters under there.”

“What monsters?”

“Giant squid,” she informs me gravely.

“The lagoon is not the ocean,” I argue. “Water is water, Abby. We’ll be fine. There are no monsters, I promise. I’ll be right there with you.”

“No, thanks.”

“If you were going to drown, you would have done it already,” I say. “And then . . . I would go paddleboarding.”

Her eyes widen. “I can’t believe you just said that! I’m going to tell Mom.”

“You go right ahead.”

She jumps up. “Look!” She points to where, not too far away, a couple has just gotten out of one of those white rope hammocks. “Let’s sit in there, and you can read me my Amelia Bedelia.” She reaches into our bag and pulls the book out proudly. “I packed it. I thought, you never know when you might need Amelia.”

“Oh, good.” I am clearly never going to go paddleboarding. I am never going to have that spiritual experience Pop talked about, whenever he talked about Hawaii.

I inspect Abby’s book. It’s called Amelia Bedelia Means Business. The letters of the title all look hand drawn, with Amelia Bedelia large and centered on the orange cover, and Means Business much smaller to one side. Abby traces her fingers over the big A.

“Amelia’s initials are A.B.,” she points out. “Just like mine.”

“And mine,” I say. Abby’s name is Abigail Bloom-Carter. A.B.C. I always thought that was neat.

“And Afton’s!” Abby exclaims. It obviously just now occurred to her that we all have names that start with the letter A.

“And Mom,” I add.

Afton and I have conflicting theories about why Mom did this to us. Mine is that Mom likes things orderly—she likes our family to match, so we are her straight A’s: Aster, Afton, Ada, Abby.

Afton’s idea is that every time Mom got pregnant, Ruthie told Mom to go on a baby-naming website and make a list of the names she liked, but Mom never made it past the landing page, which was the letter A, before she got called away for a patient or an emergency surgery.

Afton is probably right.