“Here’s a question for you,” I said. “You find the perfect skipping stone.” I picked up a flat rock. “Say this is it. Imagine that this stone is beautifully flat, that it’s Payne’s gray in color, just like this one, oval but not egg-shaped. It’s made for the art of skipping.”

“Okay,” she said.

“It’s perfect. Do you throw it or keep it?”

“You throw it,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yes.” She took the stone from me. “You can keep it until you die and then you’ll never see what it can do.”

“What if you mess up the toss?” I asked. “It just goes splash into the water. No skip, not even one.”

“How is that different from dying with it in your pocket?”

I looked at the water.

“You don’t agree?” she said.

“No, I agree completely.”

“So, what’s the point of all this?”

“About this baby thing.”