PEI’s terracotta sand, pools from morning’s high tide, a faintly hazy sky. Bony Alex, pale with straw hair, runs toward the murmuring grey Atlantic under the glassy sun. Three feet tall, red bucket in hand. I carry a beach umbrella and a chair. Four bags over my shoulders, handles rubbing me raw.

The smell of saltwater and banana sunscreen. Erin’s in a straw hat and big sunglasses, white button-up over a black one-piece bathing suit.

“I dreamt you cheated on me with someone successful,” I say, planting my chair in the sand.

“I’d never do that,” she tells me.

The haze lifts, molten gold blasting across the sky. I pull off my shirt and ease into my chair, abdominal flesh ballooning into my lap. I close my eyes, feel the heat on my chest, and recall grey March days. I open Losurdo’s Western Marxism to page nine and try to remember where I left off.

Pshhhew, whoosh—Alex swinging a flashing pink lightsabre.

“You let him bring that?” I ask.

“I had no idea,” Erin says. “Why is it up to me?”

Bzzzt, Alex poses mid-chop, hands at eye level, knees bent.

“Alex, honey,” I say. “Let’s have some quiet.”

Vwerrrr, clang, k-ssshhh.

“Daddy, play with me.”

“Not now, honey.”

I watch Alex head to the shoreline, tiny prints trailing him. A soft breeze. Quiet. Erin on her stomach, stick-legged with veiny thighs, face in a battered novel.

“This’ll pass,” she says.

Alex stops at the edge of the water, bends down and fingers sand. I close the book and slip out of my sandals, scorching sand stinging my feet. I gulp water, grab a green bucket and two yellow shovels, and head toward my son.

I sit next to Alex. Damp hair clings to the back of his neck. I place two fingers on one of the knobs of his spine and rub.

“Let’s make a canal and a castle,” Alex says.

“We don’t want to make a castle,” I tell him. “How about we make a school, or a hospital, or homes for regular people?”

“I want to make a castle!”

He digs, and I fashion soggy lumps of sand into towers, contemplate a parapet. Clouds dice the sun, our shadows in wet sand. I look over my shoulder and see Erin coming. Foamy water rolls in and washes everything away.