“What’s a roll, Daddy?” Sam asked.

“It’s when you can’t lose. And don’t eavesdrop. You liked the sailing, boys?”

“Noah got scared.”

“Be nice to your brother,” Jack said. “Would that kill you?”

“Can we buy a boat?”

He dried his face with a towel and winked at Kay. “What kind do you want?”

“A white one.” Sam held out his arms. “With a big motor.”

“Ah.” He nodded gravely. “I’ll have to play a lot more cards for that.” He turned from the mirror to face Kay. “Seriously,” he said quietly, “the minute it goes south, I’m out of there. You know that, right?”

“Well.” Then, “Should I worry?”

“C’mon, Kay. Eighteen thousand bucks.” He frowned, searching her face. “You have to trust me on this. After everything we’ve been through, I think that would cheer you up.”

She wanted to laugh, but stopped herself. Was it possible, she thought, that she had actually known? How could she not have known? Another person had stepped into the circle. And yet here she was, with her husband and boys, in the Caribbean, Jack shaving, the boys playing cards, all of it exactly the same as if Noah had said nothing at all.

“I’m not complaining about the money, Jack,” she heard herself say. “I just think we should spend some time together.”

“And we will, I promise. I absolutely promise. I’ve just got to ride this thing out.”

Kay did not reply; Jack sat on the edge of the bed to wriggle into his shorts. “I was thinking. Maybe we should give Mia something extra, considering all the time we’ve been away.”

A gift, she thought: a lover’s gift. She pushed the thought away. “Is that really necessary? She’s getting a nice vacation on top of what we pay her,” Kay said.

“She said she wants to go home in the summer. Maybe we could spring for the ticket. I don’t see why we shouldn’t spread the luck around a bit.” He rose, and clapped his hands. “Okay, boys, outside. Daddy’s hitting the hay.”

He slept three hours, while Kay minded the boys on the beach. Mia had the rest of the afternoon off; she would join them for dinner, and then stay with the boys during the evening, so Kay and Jack would be free to do as they liked. It was, she knew, what made the trip all possible, having Mia along to help. Without Mia there would have been no trip at all. Why was she not angrier than she was? The air was calm, the sky a richly saturated blue above the quiet bay. The cruise ship had vanished without a trace. She watched the boys swimming and digging in the sand, but her thoughts were far away, back in the year of her illness. So sick: it was as if she had gone to some distant country, far away from all of them. It wasn’t the surgery she had minded most of all-all the books and movies had this wrong; the breast was trying to kill her, she wanted it gone-but the hair on her pillow when she awoke each morning, long strands of it marking the place where her head had been, and the whiteness of her scalp as it emerged, first in a crown at the top, then all around. She tried not to let the boys see. I am falling away, she thought. I am being disassembled in the smallest parts. She had sores in her mouth, on her tongue, down the back of her throat. Always, the final taste of blood. The days between rounds of chemo passed in a haze of exhaustion and worry. She took pills to sleep, pills to cheer her up, pills to help her keep her food down or stop the diarrhea that sent her dashing to the toilet. And always there was Mia: shuttling Sam to school or Noah to his therapist, unpacking groceries in the kitchen or negotiating with the boys over naps or treats, bringing Kay a glass of water or a mug of tea on those days when that was all she could keep down. She heard, from her room, the sound of Mia’s voice, mixing with Jack’s and the boys’; one day she sat at the top of the stairs and simply listened. The four of them were playing Parcheesi, or trying to; Noah would not sit still, kept moving his piece at random, and yet, somehow, the game had proceeded, Mia cajoling the boys and letting Noah cheat a little, Jack saying, “See? Watch what Mia does. Do what Mia tells you, boys.” She listened for an hour, and knew what she was hearing: the sound of a family, though one she was not part of. The cancer had traveled to twelve nodes in arm and chest. N12, the chart said. It was not the best situation, they told her. In a college town there could be no secrets, or so she’d thought. The house filled up with friends and colleagues, her bedroom bloomed with scarves and hats, the freezer burst with casseroles. One day, at the end of a month when the bills had piled up, she walked to the end of the driveway to the mailbox and found, tucked in an envelope, five hundred dollars in cash.

But then it was over; she was still young, and her strength returned quickly. She walked each morning, ate the proper foods, gave up the stolen cigarettes at parties. Her hair came in; one day she left the house without a hat and didn’t realize until she was already downtown and saw her reflection in a store window. At Sam’s hockey games, or in line at the grocery store, or in the back of the church after services, a sea of amazed and happy eyes met hers. Look at you! they all said. You’re looking so well! Healthy, normal people: how did they do it? She marveled at their innocence, their easy greed for life. She had friends who rock-climbed, drove without seat belts, who hadn’t had so much as a checkup in years. What could they be thinking? She had stepped back into the world, but not completely; she was an imposter, half ghost, a spy from the shadows. She carried her new health through the crowds like a crystal chalice, and every three months she returned to the far side of the river, that awful ward of the dying: more blood drawn, chest X rays, tumor markers. In August, a year after the surgery, she had a full-body CAT scan-dreadful, a ride in a coffin, her ears pounding with a sound like sheets of metal pushed through a sawblade. It was when the doctor reported the results, smiling for the first time at the good news, that she knew that everyone had expected her to die. Beside her, Jack had broken down and wept.

A waiter came by; she asked for iced tea, then changed her order to wine, though she knew she would only taste it. The boys were building mud castles on the wet plain left behind by the receding evening tide. The waiter returned, bearing her single glass on a tray. After such a year, here she was, holding a glass of wine on a beach a thousand miles away from the April mud of Vermont. She sipped the wine, its cold sweetness like golden light on her tongue. Sunshine, her body strong, Sam and Noah happy again, or at least not afraid: what else was there to wish for? When she was very sick, she had tried to imagine a day like this one, to hold it in her mind. So perhaps that was the reason: all of it felt like a gift.

“Come here, boys.”

They came to where she was sitting. Their bare chests were streaked with wet sand. She hugged them together.

Noah touched her face. “Mama, why are you crying?”

She hadn’t noticed. She wiped a tear away with her thumb. “I’m just happy to see you. Sometimes grown-ups cry because they’re happy.”

Sam frowned skeptically; she thought he was going to ask about his father. “You’re not sick again, are you?”

She hugged them again. “Not at all,” she said.

When they returned to the condo, Jack was snoring away. His arm lay over his eyes. Thirteen years of marriage: her mind circled this thought, feeling only a mild surprise at the swift passage of time. In the adjoining room she bathed the boys, dressed them in clean shorts and T-shirts, and took them to the restaurant to wait for their father. It was the early seating for dinner; most of the other guests had children with them, even babies. At the table next to theirs a young mother spooned food into a little girl’s mouth from a tiny jar. A quick, heady thrill passed through her, remembering the years when the boys were small: Sam’s tiny mouth as he reached for his bottle, the smell and heat of Noah’s skin, like warm bread and cinnamon. So delicious, even to be near them; there were days, she had joked, when she could have eaten them whole. One wasn’t supposed to feel this way anymore-having children was a sideline, a concession to biology one made in the midst of other things-and yet it was the only true desire she’d ever possessed.