Because of her daughter coming, Kayla thought. The daughter whose existence had explained so much twenty years earlier.

“It’s eleven-fifty-eight, people,” Val said. “Let’s hurry.”

Kayla pulled a blanket out of the back of the Trooper and spread it in the sand. Val wrangled the wrapper and cage off the champagne. Kayla set out the cooler that held the cheese, the berries, and three champagne glasses. Antoinette plopped the tub of lobsters down, and Kayla handed Antoinette a chilled glass. Valerie let the cork fly out of the Methuselah with a deep, resounding thwop! The cork sailed toward the water.

Val poured the champagne. The three women raised their glasses. In the moonlight, bubbles rose to the surface of the flutes.

Val checked her watch. “Okay, ladies, it’s… midnight! Say it, Kayla.”

Kayla addressed the ocean. “To the night, to the water that surrounds us, to the island of Nantucket, and to our friendship. These things are eternal.”

“Eternal,” Val said.

“Eternal,” Antoinette said.

“Your secrets,” Kayla said, “are safe with me.”

“And safe with me,” Val said.

“And safe with me,” Antoinette said.

They drank the first glass of champagne all the way down-and the golden rush that went to Kayla’s head encouraged her. This part of the ritual always made her feel wild and daring-a nearly overweight, nearly middle-aged mother of four buzzed on champagne at Great Point at midnight. It made her feel exciting things were possible. They set their glasses carefully in the sand and joined hands. Val’s hand was warm and moist, like the hand of a preschooler, and Antoinette’s hand was dry and bony, like a bunch of sticks. They walked in a circle. “Our friendship… no beginning… no end,” Kayla said under her breath. Then they dropped their asses onto the blanket, and Val poured more champagne. Night Swimmers had begun.

It took only one more glass of champagne to make Val antsy about her secret. She cleared her throat, sucked in a deep, dramatic breath, and said, “I can’t wait another second. You know I’ve been seeing someone, a man, not my husband-I’ve been sleeping with someone. And I’m ready to tell you who it is. Now I don’t want you to freak out, okay? Especially not you, Kayla. You won’t freak out on me, will you?”

The muscles around Kayla’s heart steeled themselves for a blow. Why did Val think she would freak out? Was Val going to say Raoul’s name? Kayla dug her feet into the cool sand as she remembered the year when her secret had been this: I think Raoul is having an affair. This was back when Luke was a toddler and Kayla was still fighting to lose the weight she’d gained while carrying him. Her first suspicion was about Missy Tsoulakis. A picture of Missy popped into Kayla’s mind: her nineteen-year old blondness, her tennis skirt with matching bloomers that peeked out when she bent over to pick up a ball. Missy had taught Jennifer tennis at the “Sconset Casino, and Raoul had always been the one to drop Jennifer off and pick her up. He’d insisted on it. Once when Kayla happened to show up, he was engrossed in the tennis lesson, his fingers wound through the wire fence like claws as he watched them. Missy’s strong tan arms were wrapped around Jennifer, showing her how to execute the perfect backhand. Kayla felt the air being pressed out of her lungs as she watched Raoul watch Missy. He loves her, she thought. He’s obsessed with her. Kayla felt fat and dowdy-and unbearably matronly in her station wagon with Luke in the car seat in back. She drove past the courts and headed home, thinking of how the first thing she would do was cancel Jennifer’s tennis lessons, and the second thing was go on a diet, and start walking like the other women in her neighborhood. Raoul and Missy Tsoulakis. That night, she asked Raoul if her suspicions were true and he said, “She’s a girl, Kayla. Are you crazy?”

Antoinette nudged Kayla with her foot, and she snapped back to life.

“Speak, Val,” Antoinette said. “Confess.”

Valerie sipped her champagne with excruciating slowness, prolonging the dramatic moment. She wiped the lipstick smudge from her glass. “It’s Jacob Anderson,” she said.

“Jacob Anderson,” Kayla repeated. “Jacob, who works for Raoul?”

“Yes.”

Antoinette drained her champagne. “Jacob Anderson. That name rings a bell. Do I know Jacob Anderson?”

“He’s on Raoul’s crew,” Kayla said. “You know him, Antoinette. Dark hair, green eyes, a real sweet-talker.”

“Excuse me?” Val said.

Kayla thought of Jacob reaching out and touching her lip. How sure she’d been that he was going to kiss her. She had wanted him to, she realized now. She had wanted Jacob Anderson to kiss her-and so a part of her was stung by this news. A part of her did want to rebel against it. Valerie was sleeping with Jacob. He was her secret.

“He has a very sexual nature,” Kayla said. “He’s about thirty, he drives a blue-and-white Bronco.”

“He’s thirty-two,” Valerie said. “Antoinette doesn’t know him.”

“I know him,” Antoinette said. “He helped Raoul build my house.” She looked at Val. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Val said. She poured herself another glass of champagne. “We’re in love.”

“You’re in love?” Kayla said.

“What?” Val said. “I’m not allowed to be in love with Jacob Anderson?”

“Of course you’re allowed,” Kayla said. “It’s just… Oh, I don’t know.”

“You do know,” Val said. “You think it’s silly. You think he’s too young.”

“There’s no such thing as too young when you’re a woman over forty,” Antoinette said. She kicked off her Chuck Taylors, peeled off her leggings and leotard until she was nude before them in the moonlight. “Now I don’t know what you ladies came here for, but I came to swim. I’m going in.”

“Me, too,” Kayla said. She slid out of her sweats and her T-shirt. She examined her own naked body, but she knew how different she looked from Antoinette and Val. Antoinette had a ballerina’s body: tall, slender, and lithe. Statuesque. Val was more muscular-lifting free weights in her office was no joke-her arms were perfectly toned and she had a teeny-tiny little butt that probably fit into one of Jacob Anderson’s hands. Kayla, in comparison, was thick-full, droopy breasts, rounded belly, dimpled thighs. She tried not to get discouraged by this.

Valerie pried off her sandals. “You guys aren’t happy for me,” she said.

“I’m happy for you,” Kayla said. “I’m glad it’s Jacob. I like Jacob.”

Val unbuttoned her crisp white shirt. “You’re not angry?”

“Why would I be angry?” Kayla asked.

“I don’t know,” Val said. “I’m just so happy, and I want you to be happy, too.”

“I’m happy!” Kayla said. It was difficult not to feel like everyone’s mother when the people around her acted like children. “You have my blessing. Really.”

They heard a splash and turned to see Antoinette plunge into the water. Kayla and Val hurried in behind her.

The water was the perfect foil for Val’s news. Soft waves rolled over Kayla’s shoulders. Her anger and confusion subsided. She didn’t wonder about the trajectory her thoughts had taken in the last ten minutes-why she felt Val was going to say Raoul’s name, why she felt a pinch of jealousy when Val said Jacob’s name instead. She didn’t consider these things. Or rather, she considered them and then let them go, like Luke letting go of the string of his purple balloon that afternoon. Kayla concentrated on the simple perfection of the water, the moonlight, the lighthouse, the Methuselah of champagne. Swimming with her two dear friends.

Antoinette dived and surfaced like a dolphin, her dark hair sleek against her head. “My daughter arrives tomorrow,” she said.

She obviously said this for Val’s benefit, since Kayla already knew. But Val was quiet. Antoinette went under again.

“Did you hear Antoinette’s secret?” Kayla asked Val. “Her daughter arrives tomorrow. The daughter she gave up for adoption.”

Val was bobbing in the waves; Antoinette was the only one of the three of them who actually swam. Val shrugged. She didn’t seem surprised at all.

Antoinette surfaced.

“Start at the beginning,” Kayla said. “When did she call you?”

“Wednesday night,” Antoinette said.

“And what did she say? Did she… did she introduce herself?”

“Obviously.”

“Well, I mean, did she say, “Hi, I’m Lindsey, your daughter’?”

“Something like that.”

“Lindsey wasn’t what you named her, though, was it?”

“I didn’t give her a name at all,” Antoinette said. She dived under and stayed below water a long time. Kayla got the message: Antoinette didn’t want to talk about it. Kayla tried to imagine what it would be like to be in Antoinette’s place. A daughter she’d given away. What if the daughter looked just like the husband? It was too bittersweet, too powerful. You’d want to see the girl more than anything else, your own child, but it would be scary, too. All the emotion Antoinette had escaped twenty years ago would come walking across the tarmac tomorrow.

“What are you going to do with your daughter?” Kayla asked. “Do you have plans?”

“No plans,” Antoinette said.

“What are you going to say to her?” Kayla asked. “What are you going to tell her?”

“I’ll answer her questions,” Antoinette said. “I explained the basic story to her over the phone.”

“Will we get to meet her?” Kayla asked.

“I’m busy this weekend,” Val said. “With Jacob.”

“I want to meet her,” Kayla said.

“Maybe you can pick her up at the airport and take her to your house,” Antoinette said. “Maybe you could pretend you’re her mother, Kayla. I’m sure she’d be happier with you.”

“Come on, Antoinette.”

“No, I’m serious,” Antoinette said. “Why don’t you take her?”

“You are the consummate parent, Kayla,” Val said, playing with the chains at her neck. In the moonlight they looked like strands of golden thread. “The perfect mother of four perfect children. We agreed on that at lunch the other day.”

Kayla pictured Val and Antoinette sitting together at lunch-at 21 Federal or the Galley-someplace expensive and elegant. She was more than just jealous, more than just hurt at not being asked along. She was angry that they had talked about her. “Shut up,” Kayla said. “Just shut up.”

She swam to shore with some difficulty, because the tide was going out and waves kept washing her backwards. She struggled back to the beach, where she buried her face in one of the towels she’d brought-it was scratchy and dry and smelled like Bounce. She toweled her body and hair and stepped into her clothes. Her heart was beating wildly. Why was she so angry? She wondered if this was how Theo felt-consumed with unreasonable anger, with rage that seemed to come from nowhere. Or maybe she was so angry because of Theo. Because her friends were telling her that she was the perfect mother, and she knew they were being sincere. Antoinette gave her child up, and Val had no children- they had left the mothering to Kayla. Kayla had spent her adult life doing the best job that she possibly could, and yet when she thought about Theo, she knew she had failed. Her oldest child was a brilliant, blazing example of how she had failed.

Kayla unwedged her purse from underneath the front seat of the car. She rummaged through it until she found the bottle of Ativan Dr. Donahue had prescribed, and she put a pill under her tongue. Then she poured herself another glass of champagne and swallowed the pill, thinking that she would go to the airport tomorrow and spy on Antoinette and her daughter. She would witness the awkwardness between them, the inevitable disappointment when they saw each other’s faces-and maybe that would give her some small, mean satisfaction, watching Antoinette fail, too.

Val and Antoinette emerged from the water, dried off, and wrapped themselves in their towels. Kayla poured them each another glass of champagne, and without conversation, the three of them started in on their feast: Kayla pulled lobster meat free of the scarlet shell and dipped it indiscriminately into the melted butter, she smeared hunks of baguette with the Saint André, and she popped raspberries into her mouth like bonbons. The food was so delicious that Kayla started to cry. It was the Ativan kicking in. Soon, she was sniffling and sobbing, and Val and Antoinette stared at her. She poured herself another glass of champagne, then one for Val and Antoinette.

“Did I say something that upset you, Kayla?” Val said.

“It’s not you,” Kayla said, reaching for another hunk of baguette. She was feeling light-headed and drunk. “I guess it’s time for me to tell my secret. It’s about Theo.”