This starts on the first day of a women’s retreat. The whole story feels a little precarious, as though it could go off in one of a few directions: failed relationship, family nightmares, or something much more sinister:

That night in my dream, I sit on the back deck of the Fairfield house, tall and white and imperious under a hazy summer sky. My ex-husband and our son stand in the grass, tossing a baseball back and forth, its yellowing skin beating a dull but steady womp-womp-womp as it passes from mitt to mitt. Their mouths move, their expressions cycling between laughter and joy and playful rage, but the sound of their voices does not reach me, and maybe that’s for the best.