“When’s Daddy coming?” Sam asked.

She opened their menus. “He’ll be along. Why don’t we order?”

She ordered hamburgers for the boys, filet for Jack, swordfish for herself. She had given Jack a nudge before they’d left for the restaurant, and she worried that he’d fallen back asleep. But just as their food arrived, he appeared in the doorway of the restaurant.

“Sorry.” He seated himself next to the boys. Beside Noah and Sam she saw how pale his arms and face were. “How was the beach, boys? Did you miss me?” He tousled Noah’s hair. “How’s our zoologist? See any fish?”

The little boy shrugged and chewed. “Minnows.”

Jack looked around. “Where’s Mia?”

“I gave her the rest of the afternoon off,” Kay said. “I think she met someone.”

Jack salted his steak and said nothing.

“A boy her age,” Kay explained. “He works with the boats.”

“His name is Thomas,” Noah said.

Jack frowned. “She should be careful,” he said.

The waiter came to the table, and Jack ordered a beer, and Cokes for the boys; they were each allowed one soft drink with dinner. “I’m just saying we might be liable. If anything happens. You get off the grounds, it’s a different world down here.”

“He seemed very nice,” Kay said. “You wanted her to have some fun, remember?”

They finished their dinner. Outside on the patio a steel band was setting up to play. As they were leaving, Mia arrived, half running, wearing a sundress, her hair gleaming and wet from the shower. The boys took her each by a hand.

“We went to a castle,” she told them breathlessly. “On motorbikes! Just like in Denmark. It was very fun.”

“We finished dinner,” Kay said. “But go get something and charge it to the room.”

“It’s fine,” Mia said, smiling. “I’ve eaten already.”

“Can we go to the castle?” Sam wanted to know.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Kay said.

“Why is it always maybe?” Sam stuck out his lower lip the way he had done since he was a baby. “Just say yes.”

Mia tugged at his hand. “Listen to your mother, Sam,” she said firmly. “If she says maybe, then it is maybe for you.”

At a metal table they listened to the band while the sun went down over the darkening bay. Kay could tell that Jack was antsy to get back to the casino. She left them on the patio and went into the information desk in the lobby, a large open room with plants and flowers everywhere. Was there a castle nearby? she asked. Something like a castle? The attendant took a brochure from a dispenser behind his chair and unfolded it on the counter. Glossy photos of a ruined stone structure with ramparts high above the sea; piles of cannonballs and people waving; a map with the castle’s location on a solitary promontory marked by a red star: It was actually an eighteenth-century Spanish fort, the attendant explained. They could rent mopeds, he said, though the roads were narrow and steep. A van could take them, too, for thirty dollars.

She made a reservation for the van for 9:00 A.M., before the sun would get too hot, tucked the brochure in the pocket of her dress, and returned to the patio. The brochure said that the fort’s high vantage point made it a good spot for whale watching; it was this that had made her decision. She wanted to give Noah a whale.

The band had stopped playing by the time she returned; the table was empty. Down by the water’s edge she saw the boys and Mia. The last of the light was about to go. She took off her shoes and joined them. The sand around and under her feet still hummed with the heat of the day.

“You missed it,” Sam said cheerfully, and arched his back so he was walking on his hands and feet together. “Mia taught me to limbo.”

“How low can you go? How low can you go?” Noah recited. His face and voice were bland; the music was in his head, she knew, a perfect recording without a trace of feeling, except perhaps a mild curiosity. She smiled at him as he clapped his hands joylessly.

“We came down to look for dolphins,” Mia explained.

She looked at Mia. “Did Jack go back to the casino?”

“The professor said to tell you to meet him there,” she replied.

“I see.” What else was there to say? But she found herself glad; she had time yet. Let him gamble. “Perhaps later,” Kay said.

They strolled the length of the beach, Noah dawdling to pick up shells left bare by the tide. Behind them the ambient sounds of the resort grew faint. They made their way to the end, where the sand stopped and a chain-link fence topped with razor ribbon sealed the edge of the property. She had seen it before, in daylight, and thought nothing of it; now, in the darkness, it gleamed forbiddingly. Beyond it stood a run-down house, the stucco peeling away. A skinny dog was chained in the front yard, chewing at something in the dirt. On the porch steps a light suddenly blazed: a match, and then, from the shadows, the scent of marijuana. She heard a man’s deep laugh, and then a pair of voices talking, words she could not understand. Without warning fear sliced through her. How sturdy was the fence? Had they been seen?

She stepped back, calling to her children in a harsh whisper. “Come away from there, boys.”

Sam held fast to the fence, plainly interested. Here was something new. “I want to see-”

“Now.”

They retraced their steps back toward the resort, a blazing oasis of light and music, and by the time they had returned to the condo, her nervousness was gone. The air had taken on a floral sweetness; above them the palm fronds rustled, a sound like girls in taffeta skirts descending a flight of stairs. The steel band had resumed playing on the patio. For the adults the night was just beginning, but for the children it was over; the boys were completely drained by the day, even Sam, who snuck a thumb into his mouth as he stood before the toilet to pee. She tucked them in and told them no nonsense, and joined Mia on the porch.

She was wearing a sweater around her shoulders, and held her purse. “I was wondering,” Mia began, “if you don’t want to play cards tonight-”

“Go, go,” Kay said. “Take the rest of the evening off.”

She hesitated, but her face was delighted. “Thomas says there is a party, for the staff. I can be back in time to watch the boys if you change your mind.”

Kay waved her away. “You’ve done enough,” she said.

She sat in a rocker on the porch and waited for Jack. She supposed that his not returning was a good sign; it meant he was still winning. A gauze of stars hung low above the bay, and a gentle wind blew. At eleven she went inside and dressed for bed, but sleep would not come; sometime later she felt the pressure of the air in the room change and heard the door open. She rose and went to the hall. Mia was putting her purse on the table.

“Oh!” she said, startled. She put a hand over her heart. “You frightened me.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it might be Jack.”

“It is very late. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” She paused a moment and regarded Mia, the girl before her. She didn’t quite know what she was looking for. Mia was barefoot, and her feet were sandy; more sand was on her throat, in her hair, the pure white sand one found just above the high-tide line, as fine as powder.

“Kay?”

“It’s nothing. It’s all right.” She tried to smile. “Did you have a good time?”

“It was just a party.” She shrugged. “American boys can be so… what is the word? They want things.”

“Needy.”

“Yes, they need us. Even the little ones!” Mia laughed. “You can see it in Sam. He’s going to be quite the lady’s man, I think.”

“Like his father.”

Mia said nothing; her face showed nothing.

“When we get back, I’m going to release you,” Kay said. “You can stay a month, and we’ll pay for the ticket home.”

Again, Mia’s face showed no emotion. She looked at the ceiling, then back at Kay. “I don’t know what to say. Perhaps that is for the best.”