And when he looked at the image on the screen, the sunlight had caught the rich tones of her skin and transformed what my sister had once called stains into something that looked, unmistakably, like gold dust scattered across mahogany.

“Did you catch the pelicans?” Maya called over her shoulder, smiling.

“Got the pelicans, the sunrise, and your good side,” Liam called back, with his small rare grin.

“Which, for the record, is all of them.” And my daughter laughed, a bright ringing sound that carried over the waves, while I sat on a towel thirty feet away with my coffee and my husband’s shoulder against mine, and watched my children move through the world without fear.

We did not talk about Gwen, that morning on the beach, or about Mark’s ongoing court proceedings, or about the occasional pleading text my sister still sent from a throwaway account whenever she needed money.