Vicki felt so good for so many days that one night at dinner she mentioned she was thinking of letting Josh go.

“I can take care of the kids myself now,” she said. “I feel fine.”

Brenda made a face. “I promised Josh work for the whole summer. He quit his job at the airport for us.”

“And he has to go back to col ege,” Melanie said. “I’m sure he needs the money.”

“It’s not fair to fire him at the beginning of August just because you feel better,” Brenda said.

“I can’t real y imagine the rest of the summer without Josh,” Melanie said. She set down her ear of corn; her chin was shiny with butter. “And what about the kids? They’re attached.”

“They’re attached,” Brenda said.

“They’re attached,” Vicki conceded. “But would it devastate them if he stopped coming? Don’t you think they’d be happy to have me take them to the beach every day?”

“I promised him a summer of work, Vick,” Brenda said.

“I think the kids would be devastated,” Melanie said. “They love him.”

“They love him,” Brenda said.

“Do they love him, or do you guys love him?” Vicki said.

Brenda glowered; Melanie stood up from the table.

“Oh, who are we kidding?” Vicki said. “We al love him.”

The next day Vicki invited herself to the beach with Josh and the kids. Josh seemed happy to have her come along, though he might have been pretending for her sake.

“I can help out,” Vicki said.

“That’s fine,” Josh said.

“I know you guys have your own routine,” Vicki said. “I promise not to cramp your style.”

“Boss,” Josh said, “it’s fine. We’re happy to have you come with us. Right, Chiefy?”

Blaine locked his arms across his chest. “No girls al owed.”

Vicki ruffled his hair. “I’m not a girl,” she said. “I’m your mother.”

“This is where we usual y sit,” Josh said, dropping the umbrel a, the cooler, and the bag of toys in the sand. “As you can see we’re spitting distance from the lifeguard stand and close enough to wet sand that we can build sand castles.”

“And dig holes,” Blaine said.

Josh put up the umbrel a, laid out a blanket, and set Porter in the shade. Immediately, Porter grabbed the pole of the umbrel a and pul ed himself up.

“He normal y stands like that for five or ten minutes,” Josh said.

“Then he chews on the handle of the orange shovel,” Blaine said.

“Then he gets his snack,” Josh said.

“I see,” Vicki said. She had brought a chair for herself, which she unfolded in the sun. “You guys have it al figured out.”

“We’re al about routine,” Josh said, winking at Vicki. “We’re big fans of consistency and sameness.” He waved at a woman down the beach who had two little girls. “There’s Mrs. Brooks with Abby and Mariel. Blaine loves Abby.”

“I do not,” Blaine said.

“Oh, you do so,” Josh said. “Go ask her if she wants to dig with us.”

“Hey, Josh,” a man’s voice said. Vicki turned around. A tal , dark-skinned man with a little boy Blaine’s age and a baby girl in his arms waved as he moved down the beach.

“Omar, my man!” Josh said. Then to Vicki, he whispered, “That’s Omar Sherman. He brings the kids to the beach every morning while his wife talks to her patients on the phone. I guess she’s some hotshot psychiatrist in Chicago and deals with a bunch of complete basket cases.”

“Geez,” Vicki said. “You know everybody.”

She sat back and watched as Abby Brooks and Mateo Sherman helped Blaine and Josh dig a hole and then a tunnel in the sand. Porter stood holding on to the umbrel a pole, and then he tired out and plopped onto the blanket. He reached for his orange shovel and started chewing. Vicki watched al this with the distinct feeling that she was a visitor. Josh was 100 percent in control. At ten-thirty, he pul ed snacks from the cooler: a bottle of juice and box of raisins for Blaine, a graham cracker for Porter. Blaine and Porter sat on the blanket and ate neatly and without complaint, like a model of two children having a snack. Josh produced two plums from the cooler and handed one to Vicki.

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.” She took a bite of the cold, sweet plum, and juice dripped down her chin. Josh handed her a napkin. “I feel like one of the children,” she said, wiping her face. Vicki liked this, but it made her feel guilty, too. Guilty and unnecessary. She was the children’s mother and they didn’t need her. No girls allowed. Josh was taking care of everything and everybody.

Josh sat on the blanket. Porter pul ed himself up to standing, holding on to the umbrel a pole in a way that reminded Vicki of an old man on the subway. Blaine had dutiful y col ected the trash from snack and walked it over to the barrel behind the lifeguard stand. “You’re a model citizen,” Josh said. Blaine saluted. He joined Abby a few yards down the beach, where they busily fil ed up buckets with sand and then water.

Vicki couldn’t believe she’d been thinking of letting Josh go. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “With us, I mean.”

“I like being here,” Josh said. “With you.”

“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” Vicki said. “Or get al serious on you.”

“You can be as serious as you want, Boss.”

“Okay, then,” Vicki said. “I don’t know what we would have done this summer without you.”

“You would have found someone else,” he said.

“But it wouldn’t have been the same.”

“Things happen for a reason,” Josh said. “I knew when I saw you coming off the plane . . .”

“When Melanie fel ?”

“Yeah, I knew then that something like this would happen.”

“Something like what? You knew you’d be our babysitter?”

“I knew our paths would cross.”

“You did not.”

“I did. First Brenda left the book behind, then I saw Melanie at the airport. . . .”

“She was trying to leave,” Vicki said.

“But I brought her back,” Josh said. “It’s like it was al part of some greater plan.”

“If you believe in a greater plan,” Vicki said.

“You don’t believe in a greater plan?” Josh said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Vicki said. When she looked at the ocean, or at some smal er, more delicate perfection—like Porter’s ear, for example—it was hard to deny there was a force at work. But a plan into which everyone fit, a plan where everything happened for a reason? It was a convenient fal back. How many people in Vicki’s cancer support group had said they believed they got cancer for a reason? Almost everyone. But look at Alan

—he was dead. What was the reason there? The woman in Royersford, Pennsylvania, shot in the face, leaving her three-month-old motherless.

That didn’t happen for a reason. That was a mistake, a tragedy. If there was a greater plan, it was ful of holes and people dropped through al the time. Vicki thought back on her own life. It had progressed in a way that made sense . . . right up until the cel s of her lungs mutated and became life-threatening. “I’ve never been good at these meaning-of-life conversations.”

Just as Vicki said these words, an amazing thing happened. Porter let go of the umbrel a pole and took two, three, four steps forward.

Vicki leapt from her chair. “Oh my God! Did you see that?”

Porter stopped, turned to his mother with a triumphant expression that quickly became bafflement. He fel back on his butt and started to cry.

“He took his first steps!” Vicki said. “Did you see him? Josh, did you see him?”

“I saw him. He was walking.”

“He was walking!” Vicki swept Porter up and kissed his face. “Oh, honey, you can walk!” She held Porter so tightly his cries amplified. Forget trying to find the meaning of life in some greater plan—it was right there in front of them! Porter had taken his first steps! He would walk for the rest of his life, but Vicki had been there, watching, the very first time. And Josh had seen. If Vicki hadn’t come to the beach today, she might have missed Porter’s first steps—or maybe he only took them because Vicki was there. Or maybe, Vicki couldn’t help thinking, maybe seeing Porter’s first steps was a smal gift for Vicki before she died. No negative thoughts! she told herself. But she couldn’t help it; doubt fol owed her everywhere.

“Amazing,” she said, trying to hold on to her initial enthusiasm. She cal ed out to Blaine. “Honey, your brother can walk. He just took his first steps!” But Porter was crying so loudly Blaine couldn’t hear her. “Oh, dear. I scared him, maybe.”

Josh checked his watch. “Actual y, it’s time for his nap.”

“Eleven o’clock?” Vicki said.

“On the nose. Here, I’l take him.”

Vicki handed Porter over to Josh, who laid Porter on his stomach on a section of clean blanket. Josh patted Porter’s back and gave Porter his pacifier. Porter quieted, and as Vicki sat and watched, his eyes drifted closed.

Josh stood up careful y. “Now is when I play Wiffle bal with Blaine,” he said. “He’s real y learning how to connect with the bal .”

“You’re going to be a great father,” Vicki said.

“Thanks, Boss.” Josh smiled, and something about the smile gave Vicki a glimmer of hope. Josh would get older, fal in love, marry, have children. One thing, at least, would be right with the world.

PART THREE

AUGUST

There was a lot to be learned from children’s games, Brenda thought. Take Chutes and Ladders, which she and Blaine had played umpteen times this summer and which they were playing again now on the coffee table. The board, with its 100 spaces, was a person’s life, and a random spinner dictated which space a person would land on . This little girl did her chores so she earned money to go to the movies: short ladder. This boy stood on a wobbly chair to reach the cookie jar, but he fell and broke his arm: steep chute. As Blaine assiduously practiced counting out spaces, he looked to Brenda for nods of affirmation, but she was musing about al the things that had happened to her in the past year. Brenda had sailed up a tal ladder with her doctorate and the job at Champion and the highest teaching rating in the department, but al this seemed to do was to elevate her to a place where there were more perilous chutes. A professor has an affair with her student. . . . A woman throws a book in anger. . . .