The kids made several attempts, and she helped them along. “Not bad for a couple of newbies. You’ll have lots of time to practice. You know what else is fun? Running!” She took off, watching them over her shoulder. They eagerly followed and were soon running along the broad emptiness. They rushed toward a flock of birds and watched them burst into the sky in one huge motion. She led the way into the surf, letting the waves chase them, and they squealed as the cold water surged around their bare feet. For a few moments, they were just a couple of kids, and the sight of them running along the beach gave her a momentary sense of joy—and maybe hope.

Yet the feeling was tinged with sadness and uncertainty. She still had no answer to the question that had dogged her across the continent—now what?

After a while, she found a driftwood log, battered smooth by time and tide, with a twist that formed a natural bench. “Come here, you two, and have a seat.” She tunneled her bare feet into the cool sand, finding a sand dollar and a broken nautilus shell. She made a simple mound. “In the summer, there are sand-sculpting contests. One year my family made a dragon as long as a truck.”

Flick shaded his eyes and tilted his face toward the sky. “Is this where we live now?”

Oh, boy. Don’t lie. “This is where we live for now. You have a nice room, and on Monday we’ll get you enrolled in school. So yes. We live here now. I hope you’re going to like it. It’s where I lived my whole life when I was a kid.”

“Did you like it?”

She looped her arms around her drawn-up knees. Don’t lie. “I did,” she said. “Once upon a time.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Oh, so many reasons. I wanted to explore the world,” she said. “I went to New York to be a designer, but I always remembered this place, and even now, when I create something, there’s a little bit of this beach in the design.” She traced her finger around the whorls of the nautilus shell. “This is my favorite shape, in fact.” She winced as she said it, because the motif had been tainted by the fiasco in New York that had ended her career.

A few fat raindrops spattered down on them. “Welcome to the Pacific Northwest,” she said. “It rains a lot around here.” She tucked the shell into her pocket. “Guess that’s our signal to go inside,” she said, tipping her face to the sky. “You’re going to need raingear and some gum boots.”

Somehow she muddled through the rest of the day. At bedtime, the kids were clingy, which was understandable. They were two little strangers in a world that probably felt to them like another planet.

Angelique had never been consistent about bedtime. Sometimes there would be a bath and a story. Other times the kids would doze off on the sofa and their mother would carry them to bed. The counselor had advised Caroline that they would do better with a regular bedtime routine. Even while on the road, she’d tried to stick to that. No matter where they were, she would start the process at seven.

A couple of nights during their trip, Caroline had felt like she was about to melt from exhaustion, but she’d forced herself to go through the routine in whatever motel or roadside inn they’d stopped at for the night.

On their first evening in Oysterville, she followed protocol. “Okay,” she said, pointing to the kitchen clock. “What’s that say?”

Flick eyed the clock, one of those silly cats with the pendulum tail. “Seven o’clock.”

“Wow, telling time already,” said Caroline’s mother. “Impressive.”

“He’s super smart. So is Addie. What happens at seven o’clock?”

“Bath, bed, story, song,” Addie said.

“We’ve been practicing every night,” said Caroline. “We’re getting pretty good at it, aren’t we, guys?”

“I want to stay up,” Flick said.

“I’ll bet you do. But kids go to bed at seven. No exceptions.” She was learning that they would always try to push. “Tonight there’s one more seven o’clock job. You have to tell everyone good night.”

They made the rounds, hesitant and dubious. Strangers in a strange land. They said good night to her parents, and to Virginia, who had moved to the apartment over the garage after her divorce.

Then they followed her up the stairs for a bath to scrub off the sand from the beach. “Can Dottie help you with your bath?”

Addie nodded. Flick thought for a moment. Then he said, “We have trust issues.”

Caroline ruffled his hair. “Smarty-pants.” She looked at her mother. “We’ve been meeting on Skype with a child psychologist. Flick and Addie are learning ways to talk about their feelings.”

“I see.” Mom went down to Flick’s level again and looked him in the eye. “I realize you just met me, and you must have lots of feelings about the changes happening so fast in your life. It’s amazing that you came all the way across the country to be here. I hope pretty soon I’ll earn your trust.”

Caroline’s mom filled the tub and stepped away, watching from the doorway. There were questions during the bath.

“Why did we come here?”

Caroline soaped them up and gently washed their sweet, small bodies. “Because we couldn’t stay at our place in New York anymore.” Not after what went down there.

“We could get another place near my school,” Flick pointed out.

“I couldn’t afford it,” Caroline admitted, tasting defeat, a bitter flavor on her tongue.

“On account of you got fired from your job.”

“Pretty much.” She saw her mother studying her and looked away, busying herself with the children. Fired. It happened all the time in her industry. Egos ran rampant, tempers boiled over, people stabbed one another in the back, designers were blackballed. Caroline had never believed it would happen to her, though. The job had been everything to her. It had defined her, and when it all unraveled, the sense of loss and despair had left her reeling. She wasn’t just grossly unfit to raise two orphans. She was grossly unfit to do anything but flee to safety. What would define her now? Failure? Despair?

“You were getting money by fixing up clothes for people,” Flick continued.

“You’re very smart to remember that,” she said, cupping his forehead as she rinsed off the shampoo. His hair was short, covering his head with tight whorls. Addie’s was longer, a mass of corkscrew curls. Through a painful process of trial and error, Caroline had figured out how to take care of it—lots of conditioner and a gentle combing with her fingers.

To her mother’s questioning look, she said, “I took in piecework from vintage shops, repairing and repurposing old leather jackets. Not exactly sustainable.”

“Mama was a model,” Addie said.

Mom nodded. “Caroline told me your mama was super talented and a good, hard worker. And a fun mom.”

Caroline had told her none of those things.

“Do we have to go to school?” asked Flick.

“Sure,” she said, forcing brightness. “Every kid does, no matter where you live.”

“We have wonderful schools here,” Caroline’s mom said. “I think you’ll love it.”

“Because what kid doesn’t love school?” Caroline asked.

“Don’t listen to her,” Mom scolded. “She was a fantastic student. So creative.”

“Let’s not think about school tonight,” Caroline said. “We’ll get everything sorted on Monday. You’ll meet your teachers and make lots of new friends.”

“I would rather watch something,” Flick said as she settled them into their beds for story time.

The daily battle. The kids were drawn to anything with a screen, like moths to a flame. Though Caroline didn’t have a motherly bone in her body, she knew instinctively that too much watching numbed the mind. The child psychologist had also been clear on the rule—no more than an hour of screen time per day. This had come as unwelcome news to Flick and Addie. Apparently, Angelique had set no limits.

“I have something better than a screen,” she told them. “It’s better than anything, in fact.”

Addie leaned in, her sweet face bright and eager. Flick rolled his eyes. He knew what was coming.

With an air of importance, she took out a book—one of her old favorites.

“That’s just a book,” said Flick.

“Exactly,” said Caroline. “And a book is magic.”

“A book is boring,” he said, thrusting his chin up and pinning her with a challenging glare.

“A book is the opposite of boring.” She ignored his dubious expression and settled between them on one of the beds. Then she dove right in. “‘The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another . . .’”

“Why’s he wearing a wolf suit?” asked Addie.

“Shush,” Flick said, leaning in to study the whimsical pictures. “Just listen.”

“They’re in bed,” Caroline said, coming downstairs to the kitchen. Her mom and Virginia were tidying up after dinner. “Finally. Somebody pour me a glass of wine, stat.”

“Already done.” Virginia indicated a tray of glasses.

“Bless you.” Caroline grabbed one and took a bracing gulp of very good red wine. “How the hell did you do it?” she asked her mother. “Bath and bed, night in and night out. With five of us. We were a nightmare.”

“A big family is not so different from a busy restaurant. It’s all about dishes and laundry.”

“The circle of life,” Virginia said.

“Where’s Fern?” asked Caroline. “With her dad this weekend?”

A curt nod. “She can’t wait to see you and meet the kids. I tried to swap weekends with Dave, but he refused. He is on a mission to say no to my every request.”