Taking another steadying breath, she pressed the shell between her hands and continued talking to the group. “I’m grateful to be here and proud of my sisters and friends for helping me organize this. I’ve always known Georgia and Virginia were older and wiser than me, but I never realized how much wiser.” The story had come out in a jumbled rush. Had she said too much? Did she sound like a blithering idiot?

When she looked around the circle, she saw only acceptance. “I’m hopeful that if I gain a better understanding of what happened to the children’s mother, I might be able to help and protect them.”

There was more talk. More eating of cookies. And at the end of the evening, every person present agreed to come the following week. As they were putting the room back together and boxing up supplies, Caroline felt a wave of hope. “It’s a start,” she murmured to no one in particular. “I’m glad we started.”

Before going to bed that night, Caroline slipped into the children’s room. Checking on them was a nightly habit now. Flick and Addie slept with sweet abandon, their breathing light and untroubled. Flick liked to sleep with the binoculars she’d bought him, his new prized possession. He claimed they helped him see the stars at night. Addie stuck with Wonder Woman, always.

Soft light from the hallway fell across their faces, and their utter vulnerability struck Caroline with an aching mixture of love and sadness.

Angelique, they’re wonderful, she silently told her friend. I wish you could see how fast they’re growing, how much they’re learning day by day. They miss you so much. I miss you.

Their world is so different here. It’s the world where I grew up. It was safe. I never had to think about being safe, growing up. I just was.

That’s what I want to give them, Angelique. A childhood where safety is not just a goal, but a given.

Part Three

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

—John Banville

Chapter 14

The first time Caroline went to the old Jensen place, she was twelve going on thirteen. It was the very start of summer—three glorious months of no more teachers, no more books, no more homework, no more bells, no more dress code or walking in a straight line. The summer people were already arriving in their shiny cars with surfboards and picnic hampers, streaming from the cities to escape the heat and the traffic.

The wind in her face as she rode her bike down the shady lane felt like pure freedom, cool and sweet, flowing out endlessly behind her. The fat tires of her beach cruiser rattled over the dappled road, and she had to keep checking to make sure the jars of her mom’s strawberry-rhubarb jam were nestled safely in the front basket.

Mom had sent her to deliver the homemade jam to old Mrs. Jensen as a thank-you, because Mrs. Jensen had made a nice donation to the town library, which was one of Mom’s pet projects. Caroline was going to earn five bucks for making the delivery. If she had been a better person, like her perfect sister Georgia, she probably would have given the five to the library as well. But she wasn’t Georgia. She wasn’t perfect. She needed the money to buy fabric at Lindy’s shop, the most special place on the whole peninsula. She had an awesome idea for a summer dress, her grandmother’s old sewing machine was oiled up, and she couldn’t wait to get started on it.

The Jensen place was a grand mansion, or apparently it had been back in the day. The house was covered with flaking greenish paint, with a wraparound porch and gabled windows. There was a railed walkway along the roofline overlooking Willapa Bay. In one of Caroline’s treasured childhood books, A Little Maid of Nantucket, she’d learned that the rooftop lookouts were called widow’s walks on account of women whose men went out whale hunting. Left behind, the wives used to walk around up there, watching for their men to come back. This made no sense at all to Caroline. Why couldn’t the women find something better to do? Like sew a gown, one of those fancy ones with hoopskirts and layers of crinoline.

She parked her bike and took off her helmet, then picked up the basket and went to the front door. A scruffy brown dog scampered over, barking his head off. His feathery tail waved, indicating he was friendly.

“Hey there,” she said, stooping down to give him a pet. He wore a red collar with a tag. “Duffy,” she said, reading the tag. “Is that your name, boy?” He wriggled and bowed, then feinted away, picking up a dry stick.

She looked around, not seeing anyone else. The porch was furnished with white wicker chairs and a two-seater swing. There was a wrought iron table with a big aspidistra plant, and a boot scraper in the shape of a wiener dog. The chair cushions were covered in vile cabbage rose damask. Caroline had never understood why people liked damask. It always seemed so heavy and dull.

A historical society plaque was posted by the door: the arne jensen house. 1881. In 1881, girls wore petticoats and boots that fastened at the ankle with a buttonhook. And corsets that looked brutal to wear but were also kind of awesome.

Caroline went up the steps, knocked on the door, and waited. Nothing. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she peered through the wavy old-fashioned glass into a foyer. She could see a hall tree and mirror, and a wooden staircase. Nobody home.

She knocked again, then turned and shaded her eyes, scanning the area. There was a giant barn with walls made of weather-beaten wood, its roof sagging like a sow’s belly. In the distance were the docks and oystering sheds. Still nobody around, though.

Oh well. She left the basket by the door and propped Mom’s thank-you note beside it.

“Hey.”

Startled, Caroline swiftly turned. A boy stood on the gravel path leading in from the dock. Tall and skinny, he was dripping wet from head to toe, holding a mask, flippers, and a snorkel. He had blond hair slicked to his head like a seal’s fur, freckles, and blue eyes that were framed by the imprint of the snorkel mask.

Her heart skipped a beat. Even dripping wet, he was totally cute. Lately she noticed boys in a new way. A way that made her chest feel warm and squishy.

“Hey,” she said, wondering who this kid could be. She’d never seen him before.

“You looking for somebody?” the boy asked.

“Old Mrs. Jensen.” She gestured at the basket. “I have a delivery for her.”

“You mean my grandmother. She’s not that old. Jeez.”

She looked around at the fields and tidal flats, the big coastal cedars permanently bent like old men by the wind. “This is your grandparents’ place?”

“Yep.”

“Are you visiting, or . . . ?”

“For the summer.”

One of the summer people, then. He didn’t look so fancy in his swim trunks, his bare chest pale as a fish’s belly.

He set down the snorkeling gear. “I’m Will Jensen.”

“Caroline Shelby,” she said. “I live in town. Year-round.”

Like everyone on the peninsula, she had mixed feelings about summer people. They descended each season to soak up the sun and play in the surf, filling the campgrounds and beach motels, racing their bikes up and down the boardwalks, flying kites and shooting off illegal firecrackers almost every night. Her older sisters and their friends were obsessed with having summer boyfriends, which as far as Caroline could tell were boys they made out with and then never saw after Labor Day.

She glanced again at his snorkel gear. His legs were long and pale, and seemed made of equal parts muscle and goose bumps. “You like swimming?”

He nodded, and his bluish lips quirked up in a smile. “My granddad says I’m part fish. I didn’t see much around the dock, though.” He gestured over his shoulder. “Anemones and crabs, mostly. I wanted to watch the birds diving, but I got too cold.”

“Ever try a wet suit?”

“Nope.”

“You can stay in a lot longer if you wear a wet suit. They have ’em for sale at Swain’s store.” Being a local made her feel slightly superior, knowing her way around.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He moved out of the shade and into a patch of sunlight. His eyes were as blue as her favorite color of gumball.

The squishy-warm feeling came back. “Do you have a bike?” she asked in sudden inspiration.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I think there’s an old beach cruiser in the barn.”

“Want to go for a ride?”

“Sure. I’ll go change.” He patted his thigh and Duffy followed him to the house.

While she waited, Caroline filled her lungs to the brim with the heady air of adventure. It seemed as palpable as the tang of brine on her tongue. As a general rule, she didn’t like boys. With two younger brothers, she was well aware of their shortcomings. Boys were noisy, and they smelled like hamsters, and they had an incomprehensible habit of wearing the same dirty shirt day in and day out until someone made them change.

This boy, though. Will Jensen. There was something interesting about him, and it wasn’t just the freckles and blue eyes. For some reason, he didn’t seem annoying like her brothers or the boys in her class. Not yet, anyway.