She’d done it. Lived a life full of adventure. Explored the most interior regions of her heart, like any good explorer. She’d found passion and saved trees and creatures and herself. She could now die in peace. Not that she wanted to die anytime soon. But she was content—if that time came. And that was an excellent way to live.

The two officers looked worried now, and shared a glance which she knew meant We might be dealing with a crazy here. She thought they might handcuff her, but they only asked that she walk between them to their vehicle, parked down by the community center. They seemed disappointed in her, and cautious, and a bit sad, and resigned to the fact that Americans were strange. So as she walked in the cold rain, still hiccupping from her laughter, she felt the play of a smile at the corner of her lips as she turned to look at the gray shack one last time.

Refugia.

—

The station was a rectangular cinder-block building with just one main room, though she assumed there were some smaller rooms and holding areas farther back, because she heard a door clang and saw one man come out alongside an officer who walked him down a hallway. The man was joking with the officer—clearly they knew each other—and clearly, the officer was annoyed in such a way that Ammalie could tell these two had a long history. This was nothing like what she imagined America’s hustling-bustling police stations to be.

She was politely asked to sit in a chair, given a towel to dry off, and then a cup of hot tea. She put one hand on her necklace, running her fingertips over the greenstone. She watched an officer doing paperwork at a desk, the two that had arrested her conferring over in a corner, the rain sheeting down outside a window, and then her gaze repeated the same circle. She was left alone for a long time, apparently as the officers attended to some other business—the rain was causing some flooding and she overheard that a car had gone into the stream with the eels. Or perhaps they were doing a search on her. She stared at a photo of a family on a desk and tried to think of who had turned her in. Aroha? Richard? Was it the photos? Or had she simply been seen?

She put her hands on her head. Glory, glory. Her brain. Her breath. Her heart. If only they could slow down.

Eventually, the same two officers sat in front her, put a folder on a nearby desk, and sighed. They’d changed clothes but still had the look of people who had recently been swimming. “You’re not the jeweler that Nan was expecting,” the woman said. “That jeweler comes later and is not American. So. The question is, why are you here, living in Nan’s house? Nan who says she does not know you, by the way?”

Ammalie opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it, and then decided to…just tell the truth. She took a big breath in. She told of Vincent’s death, her son moving out, her loss of her job—the three main keys of her life gone!—and then of her need to move, to prove she could find new keys to a new life. Ticking them off on her fingers, she explained that she wanted to visit three places, one a place that she and her husband had been to together, and two—Arizona and here—that he had been to but she had not. She told them that he’d been here as a wwoofer in his early twenties, and she knew it had been the greatest trip of his life, and they’d meant to come back here together.

She left out the part about breaking in and the keys, but the rest of the story was true.

They blinked at her, and then the woman said, “So, you just thought you’d let yourself into Nan’s place? And settle in like it was home?”

“The sound of a key turning in a lock is one of the most beautiful sounds,” she said randomly. “And it’s the opposite when a key doesn’t turn. You feel so lost! My life was like a key that wouldn’t turn. Silent. No potential.”

The woman’s gaze softened, and Ammalie could have sworn she heard her murmur, “Maybe she’s mentally unstable.”

“I’m not,” she piped up. “I’m okay in the head. I knew what I was doing. But seriously, my life was all locked up.”

The woman tilted her head and mumbled, “I suppose I know something about that.”

Ammalie shrugged. “I’m so sorry. But it’s true. I did sneak into Nan’s place. Knowingly. And no key was needed at all.” She took a big breath in and winced at her thumping heart. “Vincent had described it to me. He’d done work here and on a nearby farm, gardening and taking care of the artist at the residency, who had been a painter from South Africa. It’s just that…” and here she paused. “It’s just that he talked about it so much, and sent so many postcards, and showed me so many photos upon his return, that I felt like I knew the place. I guess I just showed up…I just showed up and…the door was not locked and…”

“And you decided to pretend to be an artist.”

“Well, not exactly. But Aroha down at the café thought I was, so, well, I just went with it.”

“Aroha thought you were an artist?”

“Yes. A jeweler.”

“But you’re not a jeweler at all?”

“No. I’m a waitress. Mother. Wife. Or, I was. By the way, who…How’d you know?”

The officer pursed her lips. “We’re not at liberty to say. But those necklaces we brought in? Those are yours?”

Ammalie bowed her head again. “Yes. I was just learning. I just wanted to try.”

“Well, we are arresting you for breaking and entering,” the man said.

“They’re quite beautiful,” the woman officer said casually, as if she’d already made peace with the whole situation, or as if she dealt with fake artists all the time. “Sea glass.”

Ammalie smiled at her. “Thank you! That really means a lot. Please feel free to take one. Or all of them. Or, but, wait. Can you give one to Aroha? And Richard? And one to Nan, if she’d take a gift from a thief? It’s her sea glass, by the way. I found the pieces in old jars with her name on them. I stole them. Tell her I’m sorry. Also, she can unwrap all the silver and have her sea glass back, just the way it was when I found it.”

And then suddenly she was struck with regret. Deceiving three good people. And with the sharp, piercing guilt of that came a cramp. She winced and grabbed at her side. “I need to go to the bathroom. My period started this morning. Although we’d all rather believe otherwise, bodily life continues to go on despite other stuff! Ha! Hollywood and books always make it seem as if we are not living in actual bodies. Do you have any supplies here?”

When she got back, the man had left, ostensibly to fill out some paperwork, and the woman, who now introduced herself as Lara, leaned back and put her hands behind her head and dug her fingers into her ponytailed blond-gray hair and sighed. “Would you like some painkillers?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“It’s a dumb setup, these bodies.”

“Yes! Exactly.” Ammalie took the offered pill. “I’d like to have been done with this years ago. But it just keeps going and going. No one told me quite how bad it would be.”

“It’s crazy-making,” Lara agreed.

“Absolutely,” Ammalie said with an inflection that meant: See, maybe that’s why I did it.

Lara nodded. “Are you the one who left the beach artwork? Did you not think someone would notice you living in a house? That we don’t know our neighbors?”

Ammalie winced and grabbed her side. “No, I kinda thought they wouldn’t. It’s so hidden, after all! I swear, I’m not a bad person. Not really. I mean, this was wrong. I admit it. But overall, I’m not a bad person.”

Lara bit her lip. “It went pear-shaped.”

“Sorry?”

“Your plan went pear-shaped.”

Ammalie touched her necklace. “Okay. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what that means.”

“Pear-shaped. It means, things didn’t go as anticipated. Turned out a little wrong.”

“Like, not a round apple,” Ammalie said, understanding.

“Right.”

“Pear-shaped. That’s my life.”

Lara quirked her eyebrows together. “That’s most of our lives. Nothing special about you. So, Nan will be here tomorrow. She’s just flown into Auckland for the summer. She was in England, visiting family. She doesn’t drive anymore—she’s getting older—so she’s waiting for a friend to drive her here. As the owner of the property, and a quirky one, and a generous one, and a curious one, she wants to see who this person is who just decided it would be okay to move into her home.”

“And take her sea glass.”

“Yes, that too. I’ll tell her that.” Lara seemed unfazed by it all, and Ammalie had the notion that this woman could carry on through most anything.

“It’s so beautiful, what the ocean spits up at us. Shells. Driftwood. Sea glass.”

Lara smiled. “My mother told me they used to pick it up by the bucketful. In fact, one of my most treasured items is a red perfect smooth circle. My father said it was from an old Ford. Never broken.”

Ammalie heard herself making an oooh sound. “Amazing. I’d love to see it.” At the same time, though, the pain in her left side was increasing, and she felt herself buckle over. Her eyes sought out the nearest trash can, in case she had to vomit. Years of bursting ovarian cysts had made her an expert in seeking out available receptacles for pain-induced sudden vomiting.