Uncharacteristically, Paulina rubbed her face and consulted no one. “I think I’d really like that.”

Paulo and Isabella nodded. We left at noon. The problem I had with this excursion is that while I could pass myself off as a vagabond in flip-flops and cutoffs who had a little cash to flash around, Colin’s house would not let me get away with that. It was one of the nicer homes in Costa Rica. By taking them there, the disparity between my life and theirs was about to become apparent and that would give rise to questions that might be tough to answer.

We drove the shoreline. Paulo played the role of tour guide and showed me the facets of his country that never make the travel books. He was right. It was beautiful—and nothing more so than the smiles of the people. For nearly seven hours, we stirred up dust on dirty back roads and drove on the asphalt only long enough to cross over it en route to another dirt road. Never once did he consult a map. Paulo knew this country like the back of his hand.

We arrived at the house a few hours before sundown. If passing through the security gate itself wasn’t an eye-opener, then driving through the gate and down the long drive was. When we pulled up before the front door, Paulina spoke through an open mouth. “What business did you say your partner was in?”

Isabella’s eyes were large as silver dollars. Paulo sat speechless with both hands on the wheel.

I laughed. “Come on.”

*  *  *

The house was clean, dry, and mostly put back together. Some finish work remained but it was livable. Looked like a contractor had yet to clear out the punch list. I gave them a tour, during which they were mostly silent and afraid to touch anything. The house was much as I’d left it, only cleaner, and unless he was hiding, Zaul had yet to show. I showed them their rooms and then told them I’d meet them at the pool. Paulina spoke up. “I don’t own a bathing suit.”

I hadn’t considered that, so I took her to Marguerite’s closet. “Probably find something in here. I’m not an expert judge of size, but you and Marguerite look to be similar.”

“Marguerite is your partner’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“She won’t mind?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Paulina pointed to a picture on the wall hanging in the closet that depicted Marguerite in her bathing suit, wearing a tiara, after having just won one of many pageants. “That’s her?”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

*  *  *

It didn’t take them long to change.

Isabella, wearing a suit that was two sizes too big and sagged in the butt, walked up to the edge of the pool, where I was standing in the shallow end. I held out a hand. “Come on.”

She shook her head.

“I’ll catch you.”

She leaned, her feet weighted to the pool deck, and fell forward into my arms. As I held her afloat and talked to her about kicking her feet and pulling with her hands, Paulina walked out wearing a rather modest one-piece and a chiffon wrap tied around her waist. In my defense, I was holding it together pretty well until she untied that chiffon, folded it, walked to the steps, and stepped into the pool, where I guess my jaw was hanging open. She reached up and closed it with a smirk. “Haven’t you ever seen a girl in a bathing suit?”

“Not like that I haven’t.”

I don’t know if she was flirting with me or if I was flirting with her, but somewhere in those few seconds, we passed from woman helping man find kid to woman allowing herself to look appealing and wondering if man was interested.

And he was.

*  *  *

Paulo joined us a few minutes later, we swam, I tried my best to teach Isabella to swim, and at sundown we all walked down the steps to the dock, where I gave them a tour of the boathouse and Colin’s Bertram. Paulo ran his fingers along her clean lines and loved every minute of it. From the boathouse, Isabella led us out onto the beach, where the tide was low and the breeze was welcome and cooling. We walked until the sun disappeared behind the edge of the sea. Living on Bimini, I’ve seen some beautiful sunsets, but I’ve never seen one more beautiful.

*  *  *

I cooked dinner—spaghetti—and the conversation while we ate was relatively muted. After dinner, Paulina pointed at a door we’d not entered and said, “What’s in there?”

“That’s the theater.”

“Theater?”

I led them into Colin’s twelve-seat theater. I don’t know the dimensions of the screen, but it was the size of the wall, which was huge. The chairs were plush leather, stadium seating with motorized recline, massage, and footrests. Paulina pointed at the wall of DVDs. “Will you pick us your favorite?” I made my selection, started the video, and left as the nuns began lamenting the problem that was Maria. The three of them were glued to the screen.

*  *  *

I checked in with Colin, reported on the condition of the house, and told him there was no sign of Zaul but that we’d stay through the weekend. Talking about Zaul was painful for Colin as it was a constant reminder of his failure as a father, so to deflect and change the conversation, he told me I should take my three guests on the ATVs tomorrow. The trails leading out the back of the house go for miles along the ocean. “It’s one of the more beautiful vistas in Costa Rica.”

When I first went to work for Colin, Zaul was just a ten-year-old kid. He always saw me as the guy coming and going in his dad’s boat, so it was only natural, when he was about eleven, for him to meet me on the dock of their house in Miami one morning and ask, “Can I drive?”

I loaded him into one of Colin’s smaller boats, a twenty-four-foot Pathfinder, because it’s more maneuverable, and we eased off into the canals that led out into Stiltsville. Zaul stood at the console, up on his toes, staring through the windshield, craning his neck, one hand on the throttle, the other on the wheel. I stood beside him, watching. He was a natural, and unlike his father, he was good with boats. Coordinated. He was good with his hands, and when you could get him to, he would work hard and wasn’t afraid of hard work. He drove us out of the canals and between the homes that make up what’s left of Stiltsville. Off to the northwest of us, several kite surfers rode the famous break that existed about a mile offshore. It was breezy, not a cloud in the sky.

I remember him staring at those homes, mesmerized by how they rose up out of the water and rested on stilts, at those kite surfers suspended in the air flipping and spinning with ease, at himself driving that boat, at the blue water and the porpoises rolling nearby, and I remember him being happy. I remember him smiling. I remember a kid at play. The problem is, I don’t have too many memories of him being happy after that nor of him playing. And that’s what I was sitting there thinking about, staring out across the ocean below, when Paulina snuck up behind me. I don’t know how long she’d been standing there, but when I turned around, she asked, “What’re you thinking about?”

“Enjoying the view.”

“You’re not a very good liar.”

“Thank you, but the truth is I’m an exceptional liar. I’ve made it an art.”

She sat next to me. “Well, then tell me one thing that’s true about you. What do you remember about life as a kid?”

I thought about this a second. “As a kid, I don’t ever remember not feeling dirty. It wasn’t so much feeling dirt on my skin as a sinking in my gut. A resident weight. Something I was born with or that woke up with me every day. To combat it, I surfed a lot—thinking the ocean might wash it off. When I got to high school, I ran a lot, thinking I could sweat it out. Same in college. After college, I lived on planes and in hotels, thinking if I didn’t stop moving, I could outrun it. That the newness of my environment would replace it. Finally, when none of that worked, I moved to the ocean and bought a little place where I could watch the sun go down every day and sleep every night under the sound of constant waves crashing.”