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Sydney thinks of good drying weather. It occurs to her that she hasn't seen a wash on the line in years.
    "What a day," Ben says through a small opening in the screen door, having already returned from his run. He takes a swig of orange juice straight from the carton, an oddly boorish gesture that renders the juice unfit for anyone else to drink. Sydney doesn't say a word. "There might not be another like it all summer," Ben adds, looking pointedly in her direction.
    When the screen door opens again, Tullus leaps out, as if having been imprisoned for years. He gives Sydney's bare leg a sniff with his cold nose, and then sprints the length of the boardwalk. At the deck, he waits, panting.
    "Want to come?" Jeff asks. In his hand is the purple leash. The invitation is a casual one, made more so by Jeff's nimble descent of the front steps as he speaks.
    "Sure," Sydney says, setting down her coffee cup. She is not expected to work on weekends.
    Sydney follows Jeff out to the deck, where Tullus is running in a tight circle.
    "Stay," Jeff says, struggling to snag the collar so that he can fasten the clip. But Tullus, in his excitement, won't be still.
    "You have to wonder how smart he is," Jeff says. "He knows we can't go for the walk until I get the leash on. He wants to go for the walk more than anything in the world. But he won't let me put it on him."
    "Does he need a leash?" she asks.
    "He'd chase a gull, and we wouldn't see him again for hours. Worse, he'd eat it."
    Tullus demands a brisk pace, and Sydney digs her toes into the cool sand. She is surprised to see that Jeff has on the same shirt and bathing trunks he wore the day before. When Sydney catches up to him, he gives off the unwashed scent of a man who hasn't had his shower yet.
    "What a day," Jeff says, unwittingly echoing his brother.
    For a time, Sydney and Jeff walk in silence. The brilliance of the water is almost too painful to look at, but something about its visual fizz contributes directly to Sydney's sense of well-being.
    Along the seawall, people emerge from cottages. A woman in a white bathrobe and sunglasses scans the horizon. A man sits on a bench and rigs a fly rod. A couple stand on the steps with coffee cups in hand. It would be impossible, Sydney thinks, to greet this day and not remark upon its clarity.
    "Where do you live?" Jeff asks after a time.
    "Waltham."
    "I'm sorry about your husband."
    "Thank you."
    "What will you do in the fall?"
    Tullus noses a clump of seaweed. Jeff and Sydney pause beside him.
    "I'm not sure," Sydney says. "I should go back to school and finish my degree. But I don't know that I want to return to Brandeis."
    "Why is that?"
    "I'd rather be in the city. I'm an old enough student as it is."
    "I've got one student who's forty-two."
    Jeff pauses while Tullus attends to his business. Sydney turns discreetly away and studies the horizon.
    "What drew you to academia?" Sydney asks.
    "I'm not sure exactly. Sometimes I think it's not so much being drawn to academia as never getting off the bus."
    She tries to picture Jeff in a classroom, a piece of chalk in hand, culled words on a blackboard, dust on the cuffs of his sweater. The image is appealing.
    "I really like Julie," she says. "It's interesting that there are so many years between you."
    Jeff is silent a moment, and Sydney wonders if she has made too personal a comment.
    "We were always encouraged to believe that Julie was not an accident," Jeff says finally, burying the pile with a toy shovel he's had in his pocket. He digs the shovel into clean sand, scouring it. "It's part of the family mythology."
    Sydney wants to ask what happened to Julie to make her slow but can think of no good way to phrase the question.
    "My father says you're terrific with her," Jeff offers, letting Tullus reestablish the pace.
    "She's easy to be with."
    "My mother was forty-one when she had Julie. My dad was fifty."
    Is this an explanation? A dedicated breeze makes Sydney's hair fly in wings above