Jack had exploded.

Maybe, she thought, that was her problem with Todd and whatever his name was that he was hiding. And the men in Provincetown. They didn’t know how to behave properly in public because they were so used to hiding. Everything they did, she felt, was distorted by what they’d held back.

His father spit in his hand and smacked Todd so hard that he screamed, and then again, and again, each time spitting in his hand first to make the hit bruise less and sting more; something his own father had taught him by example.

Thinking about the future like this, when he’s away from Jack and everyone, keeps him feeling vital. Like when he gets older he can treat this as a bad dream, one you can wake from with a start, then close your eyes and go back to and repair.

Before that moment, holding his son, he’d thought, no one was good. Not that everyone was bad, but that all people harbored horrible thoughts, and did horrible things. He would try to fill his son with something else.

He set the bag down and knelt to touch the sand. Ran it past his fingers. Surely, now, there were bits of Jack’s bones sifted through the beach. When it was warm again, people would stand on him, play on him, breathe him in.

It would be dollaro di sabbia, she thought. An animal named for grounding and coinage. A living pentacle.

“I guess me stopping that man from hurting someone else was scarier than someone being hurt. It’s like it doesn’t matter what’s actually happening. It only matters what seems the worst. What feels the worst to see.”

It feels like everyone is saying out loud what he thinks about himself now, which is, everyone knows, the worst thing anyone can do to another person.