Chapter 1

“You wanted to come, now you deal with him. That car trip alone was hell with him screaming the whole way. I knew it would be. Now we’ve got five days of this, and you will see how much fun a vacation with a child is. If you hoped this would help our marriage, you’re more of a fool than I thought.”

Sarah James slid her book down an inch to see the woman spewing these remarks. She sat directly in front of Sarah, face-to-face. Sarah thought she would surely catch her spying, but the woman never glanced her way. Like Sarah, she lay on a lounge chair. But while Sarah truly lounged, relaxing back with the sun on her toes and a cool glass of iced tea dripping water as it rested against her shorts, this woman sat bolt upright in full clothes. She had The Wall Street Journal clenched in her hands, folded in half and unopened. Her husband stood next to her with a child struggling in his arms, a stricken look on his face. Sarah quickly turned back to her book.

It was a family resort. Around her were lots of families, lots of children struggling, screaming, misbehaving. And lots of parents watching with smiles, not shouting, not fretting, just enjoying their vacations.

Sarah didn’t have children, wasn’t even married, barely had a boyfriend. A patient of hers at the hospital had recommended this place as an inexpensive but beautiful spot, and Sarah had driven down from San Francisco for the weekend to celebrate the near end of her medical internship year. The resort was on the coast near Big Sur, and her patient was right. It was affordable and meant to be a place families could go in this otherwise high-priced area. The resort website boasted about the covered swimming pool, mini putt-putt golf course, and enormous playground, all of which existed, though a little shabbier than they appeared in the website photos. The two large shingled buildings had a worn but comfortable feeling, like the leather couch in Sarah’s family room growing up. The air smelled of pine and a spice she couldn’t put her finger on.

The setting was spectacular, on a bluff above the ocean. The warm, sunny weekend was certainly a treat. California coastal weather could be cloudy and cold in late May, and Sarah had anticipated a fog-obscured view. From where she reclined in the sun, she could see blue ocean beyond the fencing at the edge of the cliff and hear surf crashing on the rocks below. Seagulls circled overhead and swooped in to eat fallen scraps. Stairs and a short steep walk through a wind-bent cypress forest led down to a small beach. The beach was off limits to youngsters because of the violent sea. A set of double gates protected the stairs, and she needed her key card to pass through.

Sarah had spent the afternoon before on the beach, alone, reading her first non-medical book in a year. A novel! How luxurious to read a novel!

The year had taken its toll, and this beautiful spot made Sarah’s eyes sting with tears. The patient who told her about the resort was a young woman with breast cancer. They met when Sarah was on her rotation in the intensive care unit and the woman was admitted for a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot to the lungs which could be fatal. She had four children, and her husband brought them to visit every day, the kids solemn and scared. When the woman left the hospital, the kids drew Sarah thank-you cards, and Sarah saw them smile for the first time. But they all met again when she came back with pneumonia. And she died.

As had many of Sarah’s patients. A hospital sees death every day, sees people fighting illness, sees small miracles against the odds. For Sarah, this first year as a true doctor was full of agony and hope. Her fellow residents seemed to take the ups and downs in stride, cool, calm, unemotional. For the next two years of her training, Sarah wanted less emotion.

Laughing families played on either side of her. On her left four children all shared one lounge chair. They squirmed and shifted and squealed in delight. Four children. Just like her patient.

Across from her the man still stood with his writhing child. Controlling the boy was especially hard because one hand also held a bottle of beer. The resort did not sell alcohol. Sarah looked closer. The woman had a mini bottle of wine on the ground under her chair and a plastic cup half full. They must have brought their own.

The man’s beer spilled as the boy jerked backwards. The man had a boyishly handsome face with small, round glasses. He turned his head to keep the boy’s flailing arms from grabbing them.

“I’ll take him to the pool. You sit here and read. We’ll have fun in the pool,” Sarah heard him say.

“Idiot.” The woman made no attempt to say it quietly.

Sarah peeked up, relieved to see the man and the child had already left.