Jack finds a little piece of sea glass on the sand, worn soft and smooth by years and years of ocean. When he holds it up, the moon shines right through it and comes out the green of the inside of a wave. It is the first thing in the whole Coral Shallows that belongs to only him, and he tucks it away under his flipper where nobody else can reach. Then he goes out to the far wall, further than the cousins usually go, and meets somebody who lives in a long dark crack in the coral and has never once wanted to leave it. A gentle bedtime story about the hardest kind of giving, and about a small green light in a place that never had one. Broadcasting from the end of the driveway in bare feet, where the asphalt is still warm from the day and a mailbox named Bill has been keeping one postcard safe for years without ever knowing what it says.

Settle ...