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sand. Tim climbed the rocks toward the lighthouse, blinded momentarily by its intense glare, and stopped only when he was high enough to see the whitecaps on the black tide, phosphorescent in the distance, line upon line rolling in.
    He should be getting back. They would be wondering what took him so long.
    What was out there? Nick hadn’t seen a thing. What had the creature been, after all, but an illusion, a spot of indigestion from Holly’s bouillabaisse? A dog, a deer, a white coyote? Or a figment of an overtired imagination, a phantom conjured by the wildness running through his son. A boy who hits his mother when she wakes him from his dreams. His boy, always just beyond reach, always swirling away from him like a windblown kite. More encouragement, she had said. More courage. He inhaled one last taste of the salt-sweet tang of the sea and then made his way home.

 
    v.
    Holly held her breath and sank beneath the water’s surface until she was resting completely on the bottom of the bathtub. Her hair floated like seaweed above her face, her hands bobbed weightlessly, and once she held still, she could hear nothing but the intense rhythm of her own pulse. She closed her eyes so that the only sensation came from the warm water against her skin and the pressure from the air trapped in her lungs. After a moment, a few bubbles escaped through her nose. This is what it must feel like to drown, she thought, and how strangely peaceful in the end. Fifteen seconds more passed before the initial impulse of panic and survival. She arched her back and lifted her shoulders until she could breathe again, and she opened her eyes and saw the white porcelain of the tub, the turquoise tiles on the bathroom wall, and the ceiling bright as a cloud. The skin above her cheekbone throbbed in the humidity. She rolled a towel and laid it beneath her neck and leaned back to rest. Wisps of steam rose from the freckled skin of her knees, a pair of islands peeking out from the water.
    The steam reminded her of the priest that morning and his frosty breath as he stood outside Star of the Sea Church, greeting the eight o’clock parishioners after Mass. Cold enough on the steps to see the puffs of air escape with his words. She wanted to sneak past him, just as she had sneaked inside, but he reached for her, extended his hand, and it would have been impolite to refuse the gesture. “Good morning,” he said, as earnest as a politician, and when he grasped her hand in both of his and held her in his palms, she could feel the blood warm her cheeks. He was as old as her father, long gone from this world. The people all got in their cars and drove away, and there was nobody left in the church. Last one out.
    “Going for a run?” the priest asked.
    She wrapped her coat more tightly over her sweatshirt and leggings and shuffled her feet beneath her as if she could hide her sneakers. The decision to come to Mass after all these years had been spontaneous, and she was not dressed properly at all. That morning she had put some concealer on her black eye and donned her jogging gear and bolted from the house, intending to drive down to the high school for a few laps around the oval track. When she saw the handful of cars dotting the church’s parking lot, she pulled into Star of the Sea instead. An apology worked its way to her lips, which the priest anticipated and dismissed with the wave of a hand and a wan smile. “We’re happy to have you in any disguise. Father Bolden. Joseph.” He introduced himself with a curt bow and a smart click of the heels like a Prussian officer washed up on New England’s shores.
    “Holly Keenan,” she said. “I was raised a Catholic.”
    “But you haven’t been back in some time?”
    “No. Not since I was married, and before that.” A century ago, before Jack, before Tim, when her greatest care was herself. Had she even had such a life?
    “Well, welcome back.”
    For a moment she considered his remark by chewing