There were the usual shuffles and a few groans and yawns. Homework out. Phone check—he took attendance by the phone parking lot, a charging station at the front table. A missing phone meant a missing student—or a forgetful one. Seat 2C was not present. “Ms. Lowry,” he said. “You’re either absent or you’re Snapchatting after first bell . . .”

With an elaborate sigh, May Lowry surrendered her phone to the charging station. “All present and accounted for,” he said, then turned to the whiteboard to pose the first problem of the day. “So let’s say you’re starting a car trip at nine in the morning from a point—”

“What point?” called someone in the back.

“From wherever, moron,” said the kid next to him. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I say it matters.”

“Fine,” Will interjected. “New York City. Your car trip is starting in New York City.”

“And where am I going?” asked May.

“Oysterville,” said another kid, “where else? Aren’t we the center of the universe?”

“Listen up,” Will said. “The plot thickens. You’re traveling at forty miles per hour. At ten a.m., another car started traveling from the same point at sixty miles per hour in the same direction. At what time will that car catch up and pass you?” He sketched out the problem on the board.

Jana Lassiter raised her hand. She was a cheeky girl, smart and fun to have in class. “I have a question. If I’m in New York City, why would I ever leave and come back here?”

“Yeah, good question,” someone else said.

“We’re America’s Tidewater Vacationland,” Will said, “according to the highway billboard. But that’s not the point—”

“Have you been to New York City?” Jana asked.

Will was sorry he’d brought it up.

“Mr. Jensen’s been all over the world,” said another girl, Helen Stokes. Embarrassingly, she was one of several girls who had a crush on him, which he pretended not to notice. “In the navy, right, Mr. Jensen?”

“Again, not the point. This is a rate, time, and distance problem.”

“How is this going to help us in the real world?” asked someone.

“You’re not even going to get to the real world if you don’t pass this class,” Will pointed out.

“Did you have to know this stuff to be a Navy SEAL?”

“Math was just the tip of the iceberg,” Will said.

“Is it true you got injured saving a life? Is it true you have a glass eye?”

“A prosthetic eye. I’ll tell you what’s true,” Will said, easily skirting the topic. “Detention, that’s what. And you’re about three seconds from a maximum sentence.”

Chastened, the boy slumped in his chair. “Sorry, sir.”

“So instead of trying to distract everyone, let’s work the problem, people. Let’s let D1 equal the distance of the first car, and t equals time . . .”

Distance, rate, and time, reduced to a neat equation. It wasn’t messy. It had one and only one solution, not a hundred possible paths and permutations. If Caroline Shelby left town at warp speed and traveled a distance of a whole continent and ten years, at what point would he quit wondering what might have been?

Chapter 7

As Caroline drove the final leg of her journey, the morning marine layer hung like weightless gauze in the salmonberry and bracken that bordered the road. The strange mist made her feel displaced in time and space, as if she were floating through some primordial world.

She was on edge from the adrenaline rush of misplacing Addie at the Bait & Switch. She felt jittery and wide awake, engulfed by a sense of unreality. Yet what had set her on this path was all too real. She had come here because she needed breathing space, a way to sort herself out, a plan for the children. She had no idea if she’d find the answers here, but she was out of options.

“It’s kinda spooky out there,” Flick said from the back seat.

“You think?” In the early light, the estuaries and forested uplands probably did look vaguely threatening.

“Are we safe?”

He asked her that a lot. No six-year-old should have to ask that question. Finally she felt confident of the answer. “Absolutely.”

“I don’t see any houses. Just woods and fog.”

“And hundreds of thousands of shorebirds,” she pointed out. “It’s the spring migration, and all kinds of birds come here to rest and feed. I’ll take you exploring, and you’ll see. We’ll get you some binoculars like a professional bird watcher.”

Addie awakened with a whimper. “Is it morning?”

“You got lost,” Flick said. “You were naughty.”

“I’m not naughty.”

“She’s not naughty.” Caroline intervened before the bickering had a chance to take hold. “Addie, even though you didn’t mean to do anything wrong, you forgot to stay put when I went after Flick back at the gas station.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. The little girl yawned and rubbed her eyes. “It’s scary to me when I don’t know where you are every moment. So when you climbed back into the car without telling me, I got really worried.”

Addie stared out the window, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

“Mama left without telling us,” Flick pointed out.

Caroline tried not to flinch at the memory. “That’s completely different. She didn’t leave you by choice. She wouldn’t have done that for the world.”

Since the incident—she didn’t know what else to call it—she had been speed-reading books on helping young children through crisis. During the weeklong drive, she’d had daily videoconferences with a child psychologist she couldn’t afford. The counselor and the books offered suggestions—how to speak in terms the children would understand, how to respond honestly and reassuringly. Yet ultimately, there was no script for this, no road map to point her in the right direction. Despite her efforts so far, she knew that in the end, words would never be enough.

Don’t lie. But don’t overexplain.

“You said we were almost there.” Flick switched topics, craning his neck as they passed a billboard welcoming them to your tidewater vacationland.

“Are we almost there?” Addie asked.

“Well, that depends on what you mean by almost. I can tell you, we’ll be there in time for breakfast. I sent my sister Virginia a text message, and she said she’s making blueberry pancakes with real syrup. Her blueberry pancakes are the best in all the land.”

A glance at the rearview mirror told her she had their attention. Good, she thought. Engage them in the “right here, right now” moment. Another thing she’d figured out in her crash course in parenting was to offer the children concrete information on a level they could understand. Tell them things in advance. Not too far in advance, but let them know what to expect and anticipate. They had only ever known the busy, eclectic neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, where they’d lived with their mother, just a block from their primary school on West Forty-Fourth Street. Now they were about to enter a strange new world, and Caroline could tell from their quiet, wide-eyed expressions that they were worried.

“Let’s play the remembering game,” she said, hoping to stave off the restlessness that often preceded meltdowns. “What’s the name of the town where my family lives?”

“Oysterville,” they piped up together.

“Hey, that’s great. You got that down. Here’s a tricky question. How many brothers and sisters do I have?”

“Five!” Flick said.

“Five kids in my family, so I have four siblings.”

“How many is four?” asked Addie.

“Like your fingers,” Flick said, holding up his hand. “One, two, three, four.”

“You’re right about the fingers,” Caroline said. “I have two older sisters and two younger brothers. Remember, I told you our family was a sibling sandwich with me in the middle.”

Crushed in the middle, she thought.

“Let’s play the name game one more time,” she said. She wanted to familiarize them with their new circumstances so things wouldn’t feel so completely foreign to them. “Can you remember my sisters’ names?”

“Virginia,” said Flick. “You just said.”

“Good. How about my other sister? Remember how I said we’re all named after states. Caroline for Carolina, Virginia, and . . . ?”

“Georgia!” Flick said.

“Georgia,” Addie repeated.

“That’s right. And my two brothers are both younger than me, because I’m in the middle. Our parents named the boys after cities.” In the too-much-information department, her parents liked to tell people they named each child after the place where he or she had been conceived. “See if you can remember,” she said. “I showed you their pictures on my phone.”

“Jackson.”

“That’s right. Jackson lives on a boat in the harbor at Ilwaco. It was dark when we passed it, but I bet he’d like to show you around. He’s the seafood buyer for the restaurant, and he’s a fisherman, too.”

“How can he live on a boat?” asked Addie.

“Believe me, you’re not the first girl to ask that.” Jackson was the free spirit of the family, never overly concerned with domestic matters.

“Is it a house, only it’s on a boat?”

“Not exactly. It’s more like a boat with really small rooms. You’ll see one day soon. Now, what about my other brother—the youngest one in the family?”

Hesitation.

“Starts with Au,” she hinted. “When you’re older, you’ll study states and capitals in school, and you’ll learn that this is the capital of Texas.”