Free Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand

year, and . . .”
    “Yes,” Vicki said, though she had no idea who Kit Campbell was. “I heard all about it.”
    “So you’re getting chemo here? On the island?”
    “At the hospital,” Vicki said, in a voice that ended the topic. “Caroline, I’d like you to meet my sister, Brenda Lyndon, and my friend Melanie Patchen.”
    Caroline shook hands with Melanie. “Patchen, you say? Are you related to Peter?”
    “He’s my husband,” Melanie said. She squinted. “Why? Do you know him?”
    “He plays squash with my husband, Edgar, at the Y,” Caroline said. “I didn’t realize Peter was married. For some reason, I thought he was single.”
    It’s official, Vicki thought. I hate Caroline Knox.
    Brenda shifted on her towel, though she made no move to acknowledge Caroline’s presence. Despite their mother’s best efforts, Brenda had the manners of Attila the Hun. When Brenda spoke, she said, “Vick, where’s Blaine?”
    Vicki looked at the water. Blaine had been digging a hole just beyond where the waves broke so that the hole filled with water. That was what he’d been doing when she shut her eyes. But when she looked now, she saw the shovel, the pail, the truck, and the hole—but no Blaine.
    Okay, wait. Vicki checked the perimeter of where they were sitting. He was behind them—no. He was . . . where was he?
    “Mel?” Vicki asked. But Melanie looked even paler and more panicked than Vicki. You were watching him, right? Vicki thought. You said you’d keep an eye on him . Melanie stood up. Her left foot crushed her straw hat, and Brenda’s cell phone fell into the sand.
    “Oh, God,” Vicki said. She jogged to the shoreline. Her insides twisted up in preliminary panic, and she felt her lungs tighten. “Blaine!” she called out. She looked to the left, to the right, and then all the way back to the dunes. Was he hiding in the dunes? Brenda grabbed her arm.
    “It’s okay. Do not panic. Don’t panic, Vick. He couldn’t have gone far.”
    “Did he go in?” Vicki said. The surface of the water was calm; small waves broke at her feet. She waded in up to her knees, scanning the dappled surface of the water. The only thing she had to worry about was Blaine under water. “Blaine?” she called out, looking for air bubbles. “Blaine?” Blaine could swim a little bit. If he were drowning, he would have splashed and made a fuss; Melanie certainly would have noticed. If there was an undertow here, and sometimes there was, he would have called for Vicki. She would have heard him calling out.
    “Blaine!” Brenda shouted. She turned back toward the beach. “Blaine Stowe! Where are you? Are there footprints? He was right here a second ago, wasn’t he?”
    Was he? Now Vicki couldn’t remember if she’d seen him digging at all. But his toys were here. She’d had her eyes closed, she’d checked on the baby, she’d been thinking about Dr. Garcia, she’d assumed Melanie was watching Blaine. But then Caroline came.
    “He’s here somewhere,” Vicki said. “He has to be here.”
    “Of course,” Brenda said. “Obviously. We’ll find him.”
    “I’ll go to the left,” Vicki said, though there was no evidence of humanity to the left—no people, no footprints, nothing but five or six plovers pecking at the sand. “I’ll go to the right, I mean. You check the dunes. He probably had to go to the bathroom. Mel can stay with the baby.”
    “Is everything all right?” Caroline called out.
    “I lost my son!” Vicki said in a lighthearted way. She didn’t want to sound too frantic in front of Caroline. She didn’t want Caroline to think that she’d actually lost Blaine—because what kind of mother took her eyes off her child when that child was playing at the water’s edge? “He must have wandered away!” She waved at Caroline as if to say, You know how kids are, always putting the fear of God into you, as she speed walked down the beach. She couldn’t go as fast as she wanted; she was