The stands were bustling at market. It felt as if the whole town was about after the rains. Cage and his mother walked through the vendor stands, looked over the cabbages and squash and tomatoes. His mother picked out a few yams, some rhubarb, handed them to the young man working the booth.

Cage saw Robert, Matthew, Marten, and Deliah sitting at a picnic table nearby. He went over to say hello.

“Can I sit here?” he said, nodding at the seat next to Deliah.

“I guess,” she said, with a teasing look.

“Morning sunshine,” said Marten. “You’re looking better… Maybe even in a good mood?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re glowing.”

“Could be jaundice,” said Matthew. “Hey, we’re heading out to the ridge later if you want to come. All on the up and up, of course--Maria will be with us.” Cage looked over and the young girl hiding behind her brother smiled shyly.

“If you’re not too busy, of course,” said Deliah.

Marten looked to her and then back to Cage without turning his head.

“I’ll be there.”

“Well, hello everybody,” Cage’s mother said. She walked up with a full bag of produce and a bouquet wrapped in clear plastic under one arm with a large sunflower as its centerpiece.

“Hello, ma’am. Fine day today, wouldn’t you agree?”

“It is a fine day, Marten.” She smiled. “You all aren’t planning on getting into any trouble, are you?”

“A bunch of squares like us?” He shook his head. “Nah.”

“It’s true. One of Robert’s parents is actually a protractor,” said Matthew. (Only Deliah and Cage laughed at the geometry joke.) “And besides, we’ve got little Maria here to keep us in line.”

“Well, good,” said Cage’s mother. “I’m ready when you are, Cagey.”

When she finished vasing the flowers, Cage’s mother looked out the kitchen window and over the garden, verdant and fat with the fruits of late summer. Cage walked over to their family’s plot and took a large tomato off the vine--oblong and ridged with streaks of red and yellow and orange--and bit into it. The fruit’s sparkling insides reflected the sunlight like thousands of tiny diamonds, glistening and wet. His favorite way to eat a tomato.

He walked to the back of the lot and sat in one of the chairs around the fire pit. The sun felt warm through his shirt, and he closed his eyes and tilted his gaze into the sky. The inside of his eyelids was red, and after straining against the brightness, he looked down at the ground where something caught his eye. It was small and white and roughly square-shaped: a smooth, flat stone. He picked it up and it felt good in his hand, with rounded edges and warm from the sun.

When Cage came back inside, his mother was cutting vegetables on the wooden countertop. He popped a few slices of cucumber into his mouth and his mother shooed him off. “Wait until I’m finished.”

“I’m going to the pool for a bit,” he said. He tossed a chunk of broccoli into his mouth. “If I’m not back in an hour, send a search party.”

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Daryl said. “I was beginning to worry I’d never sleep again.”

Cage laughed. “How you doing, old-timer?”

“Oh, just fine. My son came to visit this week, brought the grandkids along.”

“I didn’t know you were a grandfather.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. I told you I was old. But I guess you’d never know it by looking at me. That’s from putting in my time at this place. It’s the only way to look this good at 62.”

“I thought you were 61?”

“Well,” Daryl looked uncharacteristically sheepish, “I add a year.” Gotta speak your reality into existence, brother. It’s called intention. I’m fighting for my life over here!”

“Right on,” Cage said with a chuckle. “Hey, did they ever figure out what was behind the walls?”

“Bats.”

“No shit?”

“Yep, freaked people out. All sorts of poop back there.”

Cage went in through the locker room and onto the pool deck. He slid into the shallow end and looked out over the pool. There was a woman in the next lane over, and she paused at the far end and looked at him through mirrored goggles before slipping back into the blue with quiet efficiency. Cage watched the water splash and ripple, the way it broke and sloshed and refracted sunlight in a billion directions. It would break at the surface, scatter into undulating fragments, but always find itself again and move as one.

Cage felt as if there were no space between him and the water; he could not tell where one ended and the next began. He went under and pushed off, disappeared into the oneness of it.

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