It was the kind of summer day that didn’t need planning—warm, slow, and sticky with sunlight. The kind that wrapped around you like a towel fresh out of the dryer. The beach house was already humming with life, gulls calling overhead, waves folding softly against the shore.

Conrad, age seven, was lying belly-down on the wooden deck, a crayon clutched in his hand, tongue poking out slightly as he focused hard on the picture he was coloring. He said it was a shark, but it looked more like a sad blue potato. Jeremiah, one year younger, was sitting cross-legged beside him, barefoot and shirtless, a popsicle melting in bright red streaks down his arm. He kept trying to sneak colors into Conrad’s drawing, giggling every time his brother swatted him away without looking up.

Their mom’s voice floated through the open screen door—something about sunscreen, something about lunch—but the boys didn’t move. Not yet. Not when the sun felt this good, and the world was this small, and they were just two messy-haired boys with sticky fingers and a whole summer ahead of them.