The sun went down in a red smear over the water, and strings of lights glowed above the table.

Theo sat beside me, picking at grilled corn.

Twice, I saw him press his hand against his right side.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded too quickly.

Later, while everyone argued over a card game, he came to my bedroom door in sweatpants and an old camp T-shirt.

“My side hurts,” he said.

His voice was small.

That alone frightened me.

Theo had learned not to report pain unless he could not hide it.

I touched his forehead.

Warm, maybe.

Not burning.

“Where?”

He pointed low on his right side.

“It feels sharp.

Like if I move wrong, something grabs.”

I was already reaching for my keys when Celeste appeared in the hallway behind him, a glass of wine in her hand.

“What now?” she asked.

“Theo’s in pain.

I’m going to take him to urgent care.”

Celeste looked at him.

Not with concern.

With appraisal.

“He was fine at dinner.”

“He wasn’t.”

“Children survive discomfort, Mara.

They do not survive being taught that every flutter deserves a parade.”

Theo lowered his head.

I said, “Mom, please move.”

She did not.

“You do this every time.

You make his little moods the center of gravity.

The whole family rearranges itself around Theo’s sensitivities.

Around your guilt.”

The word guilt found its mark, because she knew exactly where to aim.

I had guilt about Theo’s father.

Guilt that I could not save him from the drunk driver who crossed the center line.

Guilt that I had become both parents and still felt like half of one.

Guilt that Theo remembered a laughing man with paint on his jeans and I had to carry the rest.

Celeste saw my hesitation and stepped into it.

“Give him water,” she said.

“Put him to bed.

If he is still performing in the morning, you can indulge it then.”

Theo looked at me, waiting.

I hate this part of the story because there is no version that makes me look brave.

I gave him water.

I found pain medicine.

I sat beside him until he slept in short, restless stretches.

And I told myself morning would make things clearer.

Morning made everything worse.

Theo came downstairs bent slightly at the waist.

The cottage kitchen was bright with sun, the windows full of blue water.

April was making coffee.

Nolan was frying bacon.

Grant was reading news on his tablet.

Celeste was cutting grapefruit with surgical precision.

“You look like a haunted Victorian child,” Nolan said when he saw Theo.

His sons laughed.

“Prince Pillow returns,” the older one sang.

“Stop,” I said.

Theo slid into the chair beside me.

He did not answer.

He pushed scrambled eggs around his plate and took one sip of water.

“We are not going to the island picnic,” I said.

“I’m taking him to be checked.”

Grant lowered his tablet.

He was a large man with a voice that filled rooms before anyone invited it in.

He had married my mother when I was sixteen and had spent the next twenty-two years calling cruelty discipline.

“No,” he said.

I stared at him.

“No?”

“We rented the boat.

Nolan planned the route.

The boys have been looking forward to this for