There was a spectacular silence. She was coherent enough to notice that-a silence that was different from quiet, different from lack of conversation. She raised her head and watched Val and Antoinette exchange a look.

“What about Theo?” Val asked.

“Something’s happened to him,” Kayla said. “He’s changed. He hates me, he hates his brother and sisters, he even hates Raoul. He’s turned vile and disgusting and scary.” Then she remembered something she had been trying to erase from her mind since the moment she discovered it, a week before. “He drove his Jeep through my garden.” The words sounded pale and insufficient for what had happened. Kayla woke up one morning and found her garden ruined. Every single vegetable, herb, and flower had been buried in a Crosshatch of deep ruts. Theo had run the Jeep back and forth until every plant was torn to bits, every vegetable smashed. And he made no move to hide it: the tires of his Jeep were muddy. He’d had the gall to park the Jeep in the driveway with muddy tires. It was then she knew that her child hated her, because that garden was her project, it was her avocation, it was hers and hers alone. Raoul didn’t even notice anything wrong. “It took me three days to dig everything up, to get it cleaned out. The whole thing is gone. He stole it from me.”

After a second, Val turned to Antoinette. “Well, what do you think of that?” Antoinette said, “He’s a teenager, Kayla. He’ll get over it.”

They drank more champagne. They finished the lobsters and the cheese and the berries. Kayla leaned back in the sand and closed her eyes. The Ativan was working its magic. Val and Antoinette spoke words that made no sense, a code. Or maybe the words made sense but just not to her because she was asleep; maybe the words got jumbled up with a dream she was having. Kayla dreamt that the string of Luke’s purple balloon was wound around the legs of a baby seagull, and tangled, so that the bird couldn’t fly. The gull tried to fly and Kayla chased after it, wanting to cut the string. But she couldn’t get close enough.

Kayla heard herself snore, and she jolted awake. She reached instinctively for her glass of champagne, drank what was left, and filled it again, lifting the Methuselah with ease now. The huge bottle was half empty.

“What were you guys talking about while I was asleep?” Kayla asked. “Were you discussing what a bad mother I am?”

“You’re not a bad mother at all, Kayla,” Val said. “I’m sure whatever Theo’s problem is, it has nothing to do with you. You’re being too sensitive again.”

“What is it, then?”

Val patted her knee. “It’s school or something. Friends. A girlfriend.”

Kayla shook her head. “No, if it were that kind of thing he would have told Raoul. He tells Raoul everything.”

Antoinette interrupted them. “I have something to say. I have my secret to tell.”

“You already told your secret,” Kayla said. “About your daughter, remember? Only one secret per customer.”

“Maybe you should stop drinking, Kayla,” Val said. “It’s really bringing your emotions to the surface.”

“So what? I thought that’s what tonight was about. Letting it all hang loose.”

“I have a confession to make,” Antoinette said.

Kayla turned to her friend. Antoinette was looking at her in a meaningful way, and Kayla got an awful vibe. “Oh, God,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own. “Don’t tell me. Are you having an affair with Raoul? Are you screwing my husband?”

Antoinette sat perfectly still for a moment, staring at Kayla. Kayla stared back at first with accusatory fire, then with defensiveness, and finally with shame. She was ruining everything. But before Kayla could find the words to apologize, Antoinette rose and her towel fell away, exposing her beautiful dark body. Kayla thought she was going to drive off in the Trooper, leaving them there. Kayla wouldn’t have blamed her. But Antoinette didn’t get into the car. Instead, she put her arms out like she was holding an imaginary beach ball, and she pirouetted into the water. Kayla watched in a stupor; she was drunk. Antoinette swam straight out.

Kayla turned to Val. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Val blinked. “Kayla, what is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Kayla said.

Kayla waited for Antoinette’s dark head to surface so that she could call out an apology. She had no idea why those words escaped her lips-Are you screwing my husband? It was the Ativan talking, and the champagne, combined with the awful memory of Missy Tsoulakis. Even after nineteen years of marriage, Kayla was insecure-and especially when she saw forty-four-year-old women with incredible bodies like Antoinette’s and Val’s. But still, how dumb of her. Insensitive. And inappropriate for Night Swimmers. It was their twentieth anniversary, and she’d ruined it.

Kayla missed Antoinette surfacing; she was looking in the wrong place. Her mental clock ticked: How long was too long? The water was dappled by moonlight; it was all bright surfaces and dark troughs. After a minute, she stood up.

“Do you see her?”

Now Val was the one lying down with her eyes closed, probably off in dreamland with Jacob Anderson. “Do I see who?”

“Antoinette.” Kayla’s insides felt like they were filling up with something dark and syrupy. Foreboding. Fear. “I don’t see Antoinette,” she said. Her voice sounded calm; the Ativan reined her in.

“She’s swimming,” Val said.

“I don’t see her,” Kayla said. She walked closer to the water, which reflected the moonlight like a mirror. Was Antoinette out there floating on her back? “Antoinette, I’m sorry! Hey, I’m sorry! I’m stupid drunk. Please come out! Antoinette!”

Kayla looked around Great Point to the harbor side. The rip current was raised in the water like a scar.

“I don’t see her,” Kayla said.

Val sat up on the blanket. “What do you mean you don’t see her?”

“Do you see her?” Kayla asked. Panic grabbed Kayla-a child running out in the road, a piece of hard candy lodged in a throat-imminent danger.

Val joined her at the water’s edge. “Holy shit,” she said. “Antoinette!”

“Antoinette!” Kayla called. “Antoinette, please!”

No answer.

Kayla tore off her clothes and dived in. Val followed. Kayla wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she went underwater and opened her eyes. The water was greenish black, too dark to see a thing, and immediately she was terrified of this dark, silent world. Her eyes stung. She flailed her arms through the water hoping to hit something warm and familiar, a body, Antoinette’s body.

She surfaced but saw no sign of Val. “Val!” she screamed.

Val raised her head. “I’m over here!”

“Antoinette!” Kayla called. She went under again and batted her arms and legs in all directions. She could see nothing but water-so much dark water. Her children were home safe in their beds, dry, warm, her husband, too, and she was submerged in the Atlantic Ocean searching for Antoinette. Kayla broke the surface and tried to put her feet down, but the water was too deep. A wave crested over her; she came up coughing. The current pushed her out; water had gotten up her nose, and her whole face stung. A voice whispered in Kayla’s ears-a shushing that washed over her with each wave. The Ativan and the champagne wanted to slow her down, rock her to sleep. She could just close her eyes and let the waves carry her away. But she lifted her arms and started swimming back to shore, and as she did, she saw a figure crouched on the beach, and she allowed herself a moment of sweet relief until she saw that the figure was Val, hugging her knees, crying.

Kayla let the waves wash her up next to Val.

“Oh, Jesus God. Oh, sweet Jesus,” Val said. She looked at Kayla. “We have to get some help.”

This sounded right-get help-but Kayla couldn’t make her mind work properly. How would they get help?

“I’ll stay here,” Val said. “You go. Call the police from the Wauwinet gatehouse. Go right now.”

“I’m too drunk to drive,” Kayla said. Another Night Swimmers rule was that no one left the beach until sunrise, when they’d had enough time to sleep off the champagne. “And I took a sedative. I can’t go.”

“You have to go!” Val said. “I’m just as messed up as you, and it’s your car. You have to go, Kayla, right this second!”

Kayla moved heavily, like she was still underwater. She pulled on her clothes and floated over to her car. It smelled like lobster. She eased the car over the ruts in the sand and headed back toward the Wauwinet. She started convulsing with the cold; water ran down her back. Oh, God, she thought, please, please, please God. Why had Kayla said what she said? Her head swelled until it felt like it was the size of a watermelon. The dunes to her right grew larger. How would she make it to the phone? Kayla yanked on the steering wheel to get the Trooper to stay in the tracks. What if she got stuck? Everything blurred; the car bounced as Kayla tackled the dunes. Antoinette is going to be fine, Kayla thought. This is just a joke. She’s angry at me for saying something so stupid.

When Kayla reached the Wauwinet gatehouse, she grabbed a handful of change from the console of her car and ran to the pay phone. She stared at the receiver of the phone, and the buttons. Did 911 require money? Certainly not. But Kayla slid a quarter and a dime into the slot anyway and dialed her house. She needed to talk to Raoul.

After two rings, Theo answered the phone. “Hello.”

“Put Daddy on,” Kayla said. Her voice sounded calm, maybe tinged with low-grade anxiety, as if to say, / have a flat tire, or I’m stuck in the sand.

“Mom?” Theo said.

‘Theo, put Daddy on, please. It’s important.”

Theo hung up the phone.

Kayla thought, Call 911! But she put more change into the slot and dialed her house again. The phone rang until the answering machine picked up. Kayla called back a third time. After three rings, she heard the hoarse croak of Raoul and she burst into tears. Time was of the essence-she knew that-but it took Kayla several seconds to regain her voice enough to tell him that Antoinette went swimming and didn’t come back to shore.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“The Wauwinet.”

“Where’s Val?”

“Back at the Point”

“You’ve called the police?” he asked.

“Not yet”

“Well, call the fucking police, Kayla. Call 911,right now. I’ll call the fire department. Jesus, Kayla.”

“I want you to come out here,” Kayla wailed. “Leave the kids. They’ll sleep.”

“Call 911,” he said. “Do that one thing and then drive back out and wait with Val. Don’t go in the water, Kayla, do you hear me?”

He hung up and Kayla called 911. The dispatcher was a reedy-voiced woman-Charlotte, her name was. She had a daughter in Luke’s grade. Kayla told her there was a woman missing in the water off Great Point.

“This is Kayla Montero. I’m calling from the pay phone at the Wauwinet. This woman is a friend of mine. Can you send someone out right away?”

“We’ll send the Open Water Rescue Squad,” Charlotte said.

“And they’ll be able to find her? Even in the dark?”

“They’ll do their best,” Charlotte said.

Driving back out to Great Point, Kayla remembered Antoinette’s daughter, Lindsey. What if she showed up in the morning to find Antoinette missing? I’m sorry, but Antoinette’s missing. She danced into the water last night, and now she’s.… gone. Lindsey would blame herself. Because maybe Antoinette had disappeared on purpose to avoid this child of hers. Motherhood was firmly ensconced in Kayla, anchored like her soul in her body, but she could imagine what a terrific fear it might be for Antoinette to be faced with motherhood when she had rejected it so long ago. And Antoinette was just about to confess something. Maybe the confession was that she was planning to disappear for a few days, to ditch the daughter. This sounded cruel, not to mention unlikely, but Kayla liked it better than the thought that Kayla’s accusation had made Antoinette retreat to the water and that, once swimming, Antoinette was swept out to sea. Because then it would be Kayla’s fault.

By the time Kayla got back to the lighthouse, the approaching lights of a boat were visible. Val paced the beach wearing her white shirt and a beach towel tied around her waist. She had Antoinette’s Chuck Taylors on each of her hands and she banged the soles together like a child playing with blocks.

“She’s gone,” Val said. Her eyes were round and empty. “She just danced away.”

The remains of their picnic lay about. Kayla picked up the Methuselah and ran with it to the water’s edge, where she heaved it into the ocean.