Old Tomás knew the estuary the way he knew his own hands. Each morning the tide crept in from the east, one column of mudflat at a time, until the whole basin gleamed. He timed his nets by it. But the morning after the northeaster, the water came from both sides at once — the surge had breached the western sandbar. Where Tomás expected dry flats on the left, he found water. Only the two center columns stayed true to the old rhythm. By the next tide the bar had rebuilt itself and the estuary remembered its shape.