“They didn’t want to do anything violent,” says Keol the next day, lounging on the stone fountain with his arm over his eyes.  Ava went into town again for a meeting this morning and left us behind, after telling us we could go outside with Keeol if we wanted.  She’s probably back by now, the sun is starting to set behind the trees.  Nua is next to me on the ground, his book in his lap, and I lean my head against the stones.  “So-”

“All they did was cause a public disturbance,” he says. “And the government had to clean it up. But they did a good job. They sent a message without harming anyone, they got our attention, and they pissed off the government. That’s all they wanted to do.”

We’re silent for a moment, and then he says, “You didn’t find anything, did you.”

“Aber thinks Lilly sabotaged us,” says Nua with a sigh, and Keol snorts. “She probably did.”

Bayan comes out to call dinner, and we go into the dining room.

Ava’s smoking in her seat, and Miss Lilly is glaring at her. They’re probably in an argument, they always are. It’s strange how well Ava is able to pretend like she’s not constantly angry. She must have a lot of practice.

Desert is pie, and I don’t like pie. Bayan makes it good, but I just pick at it. Afterwards, Nua and I retire to our room and Ava and Keol retire to hers.

But at almost eleven o’clock that night, as I lie in bed and Nua turns a page in his book, we hear a noise in the bathroom. I sit up, thinking it’s the cat, but just then Ava and Keol burst into the room. “We’re going swimming.”

Nua and I look at each other. Ava’s face is bright red and she’s smiling. She has a cigarette in one hand and one end of Keol’s rope-belt in the other, and he’s holding onto it too. He’s in a swimming suit and she’s just in a bikini, and she gestures for us. “Let’s go.”

“Now?” I ask incredulously, and Keol snaps his fingers at us. “She gave you an order.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” says Ava through a laugh, and then inhales on her cigarette. “But yes. Just come on.”

The night is hot. Ava does a cannonball off the diving board and Keol does a flip off the side, almost landing on her, and she grins, and then kisses him in the water as they tread. Then she gestures me and Nua in as well, and he shrugs and dives off the diving board. I stand waist-deep in the shallow end. Do they remember that I don’t know how to swim?

“Aber, come here,” says Ava. Apparently not.

“I can’t,” I say, laughing despite myself, and she grins. “Yeah, you can, come on.”

We’re all still wearing our rings, I notice, she didn’t take hers off like last time. There are lights above the pool that shine down on us. Nua has climbed out of the water and wrapped himself in a towel, and he sits on the edge with his feet in and his book in his lap. Ava floats over to him on her back. “How are you always reading, it’s got to get boring real fast.”

“My secret?” says Nua with a slight grin. “I can’t read, I just like to look at the squiggles on the paper.”

She looks up at him, and when he grins, she splashes water on him. I look at Keol, who is pointedly not looking at me.

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Ava comes towards me as Keol climbs out of the pool himself. He sits on the diving board, stretching his toes towards the water, and Ava holds onto my arms. “You ever ride a bicycle?”

“No.”

“Jesus,” she says under her breath, and then shakes her hair out of her eyes. “Well, okay, just pretend you know how to do that, and go through those motions. That’s how you tread, you’ll stay up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say under my breath, trying not to drown, and she moves us towards the wall away from Nua so I can grab on. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say again, looking over her shoulder towards the fountain, and she tilts my face towards her. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find what you were looking for, Aber.”

“I thought she would write,” I say quietly. “She always wanted to write for newspapers, I thought she would…”

“I know.”

“But there were no newspapers there from the past week or two. They were all old. I don’t know why.”

“I do,” says Ava darkly under her breath, and then stretches her arms up towards the sky. “Listen. I promised I’d help you. I’ll still try.”

“How?”

“I dunno,” she says quietly. “I’ll keep looking. I’m bound to find something, aren’t I? Plus, Mother doesn’t know that I’ve got the combination to the safe in her office with all her secrets in it.”

I raise my eyebrows at her, laughing slightly. “Seriously?”

“9-26-67,” says Bayan from above us, and I startle. I didn’t see him come over. Ava laughs. “Yup. My father’s birthday.”

“Your father,” I say in surprise. Ava shrugs, pushing off the wall and going into a backfloat in the shallow end where I can stand. I follow her as Bayan sits and dips his feet in the pool. “Thank you.”

“Of course, darling,” she says, closing her eyes. I try to copy what she’s doing, and manage to get myself floating on my back a little. Keol slides back into the water to join us, and after a moment Nua does as well. We make a little star shape, our heads all close to each other, and Ava opens her eyes. “Oh, my boys.”

Keol laughs slightly, and we all straighten up. Ava wraps her arms around him as he stands, the water up to his chest, and kisses him on the cheek, and then smiles at Bayan. “All my boys.”

He smiles back, but stands quietly. “I’m going to go to bed, Miss Ava. The lights will turn off in a few minutes.”

“Good night,” she says through a yawn. Keol grins, looking at her, and Nua ducks underwater, and then comes back up. Ava laughs, messing up his hair, and then smiles gently at me. “I’m so lucky for all of you.”

“No, Miss Ava,” says Nua quietly, rubbing his eyes. “We’re lucky for you.”

She smiles slightly, running her hand over his cheek, and he looks at her, and then me, and then pushes himself back towards the wall so he can climb out.

Keol kisses her on the cheek and says, “I’m tired.”

“Then go get some rest.”

I watch him go towards the ladder, and then watch Nua for a moment try to fix his hair. Then I look back at Ava, who says, “You can kinda swim now.”

“I suppose I can.”

She looks at me for a second, and then exhales. We’re about the same height, only a little shorter than Keol, and the water’s up to our collarbones. Her breath smells like smoke. “I get it, Aber.”

“I know.”

She rubs her lips together, and then takes my hand and pulls me close to her and kisses me. She tastes like smoke, too, and pool water, and I feel my heart start to beat faster. I don’t know if it’s from her or from swimming or from suddenly remembering that Keol is right over there, but it doesn’t seem to matter, I’m not sinking, I’ve got Ava. She’s holding me up.

She pulls away after a moment, and smiles at me. Keol is watching us from the diving board, an expression in his eyes that I don’t understand, but when Ava looks at him he smiles at her. The lights above us go out, and we all look up at the sky, and then Ava pulls on my hand. We both climb out, wrapping ourselves in towels. Ava sits down on a chair and I lie down on the one in between her and Nua, and then Keol crawls on top of her and rests his head on her shoulder. He grins at me when I look at them, and then closes his eyes. Ava yawns, looking at the sky.

The moon is not full tonight, but it is nearly there. It shines as bright as the stars in the dark, and after a moment Ava says, “That one, it’s a planet.”

“Which one?”

“The brightest one,” she answers, pointing straight above us. “Right there. I don’t know which planet it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s a planet.”

I laugh slightly, following her finger. I lose myself in the stars, bouncing from one to the next, constellation to constellation, and wonder what Abigala is doing right now and what Ava’s brother is doing right now and what I am doing right now.

I’m lying outside in the middle of the night, in between my wife and her prominent and her other husband, by the pool. All of her boys, she said, but she’s missing her brother. She said she was lucky to have us. Nua said we were lucky to have her.

I think they’re both right.