“Did you hear what I said?” asked Anders.

  Striker was standing on some Antarctic island, a walking stick gripped in her hand, the wood stained at the tip where it had once bashed in a man’s skull.

  “I said how do you know we’re headed in the right direction?” the teen repeated.

  Striker pointed at the shoreline.

  Something bright and red was floating among the waves. Drifting in and then drifting out. A tandem. She could see a single yellow figure slumped in the back, the figure moaning though to Striker’s ears there was something accusatory in it.

  There were no scavengers on this side of the island as there was nothing to scavenge, no little black-and-white birds waddling in and out of the surf. This side of the island remained barren and forlorn, the landscape rugged and lifeless. To Striker it was profoundly more beautiful.

  When they finally arrived at the ocean, there was no beach. Only rocks and waves and ice floating loose in the surf. It was a small miracle the tandem had managed to get so close to shore. The stony landscape jutted up from the water like dark teeth. The ocean capped with knives, the water angry and frothing. The tandem thrown around like the silver ball in a pinball machine. Battered yet still afloat.

  “I wish we’d worn the dry suits,” said Anders. Striker had the same thought.

  Right on cue they caught a break. High tide was winding down. One of the last big waves swept the kayak up into the air, then receded, leaving it wedged in a cluster of rocks. The boat held tight. Even as a succession of smaller waves tried to knock it loose, it remained firmly in place.

  “What do we do?” asked Anders.

  “Tide’s going out,” said Striker. “I think we just wait.”

  “How long?”

  “Shouldn’t be long now.”

  The two of them stood on the shore in the mist and the muggy air, watching for the water to recede enough for them to walk out to where the kayak sat lodged in the rocks. Striker imagined what an aerial shot of her and Anders standing there on the foggy coastline of a nameless Antarctic island would look like on film. Two figures in dirty smocks facing down the harshness of time. Nothing but the sound of the ocean pounding the shore as it had been doing for millions of years. What did God do with His days? The waves dull and repetitive like picking a hangnail.

  She could hear the old prayer floating out of the spindrift. It was Ama’s favorite. Learning it from the nuns in the humid basement of Our Lady. At night her sister sitting in the bath and reciting the prayer, the word of God shining in her gap-toothed mouth.

  Hail, Mary, full of grace,

  the Lord is with thee.

  Blessed art thou among women

  and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God,

  pray for us sinners,

  now and at the hour of our death.

  “Amen,” whispered Striker.

  The ocean moving further and further away from her as if a miracle or a sign she was persona non grata.

  “What do you do in New York?”

  The teen was sitting on a rock. Striker realized she herself hadn’t moved for a small eternity, her gazed locked on the kayak. She figured in another few minutes they’d be able to walk out to the tandem without getting wet. She guessed the kid had reached their limit and couldn’t handle another ten minutes of silence, so now they were onto the interview portion of the competition.

  “I’m a film location scout,” she said. “I scope out places where a producer might want to shoot a film, sometimes TV.”

  Anders nodded. “So you go somewhere and take a bunch of pictures.”

  “More or less,” said Striker. “I gotta know about the place, its infrastructure, what it’ll cost to get a crew there, what kinds of permits you need, if there are any tax breaks or zoning restrictions, what the light is like at different times of day. You could say I go searching for the perfect place to stage a little make-believe.”

  “Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?”

  It was an easy question. “I once fucked one of the leads in the Marvel universe,” she said. “He was married at the time, he isn’t anymore, and yeah, I’d do it again.”

  Anders’ eyes grew big as fists, which meant Striker had actually said it. Surprisingly, the kid didn’t ask for details.

  “What did you major in in college to get a job like that?”

  “Liberal arts. I took all the useless stuff. Mostly art and English and philosophy, a little religion, some anthro,” said Striker. “My parents thought it wouldn’t lead anywhere but they were wrong. Wasn’t the first time.”

  “What do they think now?”

  “Now?” I don’t have the foggiest idea, she thought. “My family are the people I’ve chosen to be my family, you dig?”

  Low tide had almost arrived. A few more minutes and they’d be able to walk out and make their rescue. In the meantime, it felt good to talk. Talking with a gender nonconforming teen from Texas about the fact that sometimes you have to walk away and not beat yourself up about it felt surprisingly good.

  “What about you?” she said. “I can’t imagine living in Texas is much fun.”

  “Texas? My family’s from Madison, Wisconsin.”

  “I thought your dad said he was born and bred in Texas.”

  “He always does.” Anders paused. The kid had amazing control. Striker watched as the fire of sorrow was stamped out before it ever ignited. “He likes making that joke. My parents were both born in the tiny town of Texas, Wisconsin.”

  “There’s a Texas in Wisconsin?”

  “Yup. I still have cousins there. Three hours north of Madison.” The teen picked up a rock and threw it at nothing in particular. “How come you had to make your own family?” they asked.

  Striker glanced at her watch. She was beginning to realize she looked at it in moments she wanted to avoid. There were two ways this could go down. She could feed Anders the usual bullshit or tell the kid the truth. The universe was giving her a chance to come clean. Being stuck at the southern ass of everything meant she could unburden herself without worrying 125th Street would open up and swallow her whole.

  “I just always knew someday I’d get to choose.”

  She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment she’d decided to never see Trish and Doug again. It had always been there, lurking behind the four faceless garage doors and the 2.3 acres. The knowledge that Zinnia Trace was temporary, an unexpected wrench in her story. When the time came, she didn’t even know it had happened. It was a gradual realization, the way it slowly dawned on her that it had been months since she’d answered an email, picked up the phone. Before she knew it, it was a full year, then two. Each time she moved, not sending Trish and Doug her new address. For the first few years, they always found her, their cards and letters lining the recycling bin.

  Did they deserve being cut out of her life? Probably not. But every now and then she’d see a white woman on the street, the woman wearing the same silk scarves Trish preferred, the woman’s hair pinned up in the same way, or a man with the tortoise-rimmed glasses Doug favored, and Striker felt it, the old anger rising up fresh as though it had all happened yesterday.

  Ama just wanted to belong. But Zinnia Trace would never let her. It was unfair to ask an eight- and a six-year-old to come be the only ones a town had ever seen. Everyone else like Ama and Ronnie were stored away on TV or in the movies where they played a sport or were led away in handcuffs, a white sheet pulled over their heads, bodies outlined in chalk. One day a judge raising his gavel and rebranding them the Ostriker sisters, simple as that.

  When life became just Trish and Doug and Striker, each week the three of them would sit down to talk with a professional. In every session, Striker pretending she was somewhere far away. What have we done wrong, Trish would wail. All we did was love you.

  That’s the problem, Striker thought. Our grandmother died and everyone acted like she and Ama won the lottery, that the sisters should be grateful for the big house and the swimming lessons and the church camp and the bichon frise, the designer brands that neither sister wanted because for the first year when they went to visit their cousins in the before place, their cousins whose parents couldn’t afford to take in two more mouths, their cousins would look at them funny and tell them they smelled weird and talked different. Eventually they stopped going. Understand? You picked a whole new way of being for us in a world that didn’t want us the way we were. So one day when she was old enough not to need their money, enough. Basta. No more stares, no more people overcompensating, gliding over with open arms and crooning you must be Trish’s beautiful daughter, look how beautiful you are, I would love to have beautiful skin like yours, no more people at church making space, giving the sisters a candle and pushing them to the front of the choir, acting like she and Ama were the Chosen Ones, the other children smelling it, the bullshit, and rolling their eyes, yeah, people either going out of their way to make sure the sisters were seen in every photo and acting like the school/team/band/organization deserved a goddam medal for including them, or the ones sidling up to them out of nowhere at the Fourth of July parade saying I don’t see all that race stuff, I just see people, wouldn’t you agree? Still others tacking in the opposite direction, telling the sisters to toughen up, saying it was all in their heads, the time Doug complained that Ama was too damn sensitive after the father who coached softball put his hand on Ama’s knee and Doug saying you misunderstood, he was just being friendly, the town patting itself on the back because these two little girls were living proof that the town’s perception of itself as a welcoming space was beyond reproach even if the sisters’ lived experience said otherwise.

  “What about you?” said Striker.

  “What about me?” said Anders.

  Striker realized she was no good at small talk. Maybe that first conversation with Lucy on the deck of the Yegorov had failed not because of the kid but because of her.

  “I dunno. Got any favorite subjects?”

  “English,” the teen said.

  “That’s cool,” said Striker. “Who’s your favorite author?”

  “Shirley Jackson.”

  “The chick who wrote ‘The Lottery’?”

  “My favorite’s her novel Hangsaman.”

  “Hangsaman? What’s that mean?”

  “I guess it’s like another word for the guy who runs the gallows.”

  “Sounds creepy,” said Striker.

  “It totally is,” said Anders. “I couldn’t even tell you what it’s about.”

  “You gotta give me something.”

  “Uh, basically a girl goes off to college and loses her mind. But that doesn’t really do it justice.”

  “College can do strange shit to you,” said Striker. “Last time I saw my adoptive parents was at my graduation.”

  “You’re adopted?” the teen asked, but then shook their head as if erasing the question, probably fearing it was rude.

  “I had a biological sister, my sister Ama.” Nobody knows the full story of Ama the Brave, Ama the Magnificent, Striker thought, because I have built my identity around forgetting in the name of healing. “Ama was too good for this world,” she said. “We didn’t deserve her, and now she’s gone.”

  Anders picked up a rock. Instead of throwing it out into the water, they slammed it down hard right where they were standing. The echo sounding over the shore.

  “They were going to try her as an adult,” Striker added. “She died her first day in juvie.”

  The teen picked up another rock and threw it down hard at their feet. “If you don’t wanna talk about it—”

  “No, it’s cool,” said Striker. She picked up her own rock. Then she did like Anders and whammed it down on the ground, the crack sharp like a gunshot.

  Wow, that felt good! Was that the loudest noise she’d ever made?

  “How’d she pass?” Anders gently asked.

  Striker picked up another, raised it high overhead. This time she used both hands to slam it down. Kids these days! You had to give credit where credit was due. They knew how to express themselves.

  Okay then. It was easier than she thought. She picked up one last rock the size of a bowling ball. Was stunned she could lift it. She’d never told anyone the details of Ama’s death, not even Riley. She was surprised she still remembered. Sometimes she tweaked the past, made up stories, conversations, events. It was easier that way. Putting words in other people’s mouths. Making them into who you needed them to be. It was an old coping mechanism. It had gotten her this far, hadn’t it? Forty years.

  The sound of rock smashing on rock like worlds colliding.

  “Suicide,” she said, matter-of-fact. “In juvie, she swallowed a tampon.” For the first time in years, Striker feels something open up in her body. The air coming in easier. She looked out over the ocean, the sky gleaming as if made of glass. “It was Christmas Day.”

  “Is that why you wear a cross?”

  Striker nodded. “It used to be hers.”

  “You know it could’ve been epigenetic trauma,” suggested the teen.

  “What could’ve been?”

  “Her suicide.”

  “I must have been absent that day,” said Striker. “Enlighten me.”

  “We now know trauma can literally cause mutations, can change a baby’s DNA in utero,” Anders said. “Think about it. If the children of Holocaust survivors are more susceptible to certain diseases, imagine what hundreds of years of chattel slavery—”

  “That’s okay, I’m good,” said Striker.

  Her heart was starting to race. She remembered being in sixth grade and stumbling on a diagram of a slave ship in an encyclopedia under middle passage, the image crammed with hundreds of bodies packed in the airless dark. How her mind had shut down just from seeing it, her throat constricting.

  She’d needed to look at something else, anything, preferably something beautiful. Her gaze raced around the classroom. There on the teacher’s desk next to a framed photo of Mrs. Bailey’s family. A potted amaryllis in full bloom. The flower like an old-timey telephone, something she could whisper her secrets into.

  Anders seemed contrite, sorry they’d brought it up. “Can I ask you something?” they said. Striker steeled herself. “Why do you think bad things happen to good people?”

  Wow! This kid was full of surprises. “You mean like my sister?”

  “Like anybody,” said the teen.

  “Why shouldn’t it?” she said. “Life isn’t cut-and-dry like some horror movie where the class slut dies in the opening minutes.”

  “So in your universe, being a good person won’t save you.”

  “Never has.” Just look at me, she thought. Tomorrow I’m going on four decades.

  Anders took a deep breath. “It’s just maybe a part of me isn’t surprised this is happening.”

  “I need a little more,” said Striker.

  “Like, we are literally walking in the footsteps of a bunch of dead white guys. Isn’t that like—” The teen paused. “Ironic?”

  Striker shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “It’s more like kismet.”

  “Kismet?”

  “Fate.”

  The teen stared out at the ocean. “Know anything about process philosophy?”

  Striker flashed back to a long-ago afternoon in a lecture hall, the chilling sensation of being divided by multiple zeroes.

  “You mean the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead?”

  “Yup,” said the teen.

  “Shit, what kind of high school do you go to?”

  “I’m in an international baccalaureate program.”

  “Jesus. In my day high school was just trying not to get pushed into the boys’ bathroom. What do you know about Whitehead?”

  “This place just makes me think of him,” Anders softly said. “The idea that everything’s relational, that there are no things, just processes.”

  “So you’re okay with there being no such thing as a flower,” said Striker.

  The teen let out a small laugh. “A flower needs sun, rain, dirt, worms, bees, on and on. Who are we to say where a flower begins or ends?” They waved their arms around at the landscape. “This is all just one fluid moment. Like us.”

  “Us?”

  The kid nodded. “Right this second there’s no me without you.”

  Together the two of them sat watching the waves grow smaller. “Makes for a nice bumper sticker,” Striker finally said. And with that, the interview portion of the competition came to an end.

  High tide was finished. It was time to get the show on the road. Striker picked her way over the rocks. She could see the figure slumped in the back of the tandem, the form unmoving. Were they too late?

  The sparkling white smoke was growing denser, tiny droplets wetting her skin. Normally she might have found it refreshing, but it felt like being pricked by a storm of needles.

  “Should’ve brought some water with us,” she said.

  “We did,” said Anders. They pulled a bottle out from underneath their jacket.

  “Nice work.” Striker motioned the teen forward, trying to honor their thoughtfulness, but she noticed their hand shaking as though palsied. It hadn’t occurred to her that this might be the teen’s dad. Four tandems had set out from the Yegorov. The Dame and the Baron each in their own, and the two underage kayakers both accompanied by a parent. It meant this was either the Texas, er, Wisconsin crew, or the brown dad and Lucy. Gently Striker took the water bottle from Anders.