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Now I started to cry. My marriage ring had been eaten by the huge red wet mouth of the ocean.

The robber stood crying and I stood crying and the sand glowed a pale orange. The environmental committee was already arriving in big trucks, with equipment. They were almost crying, it seemed, but they used megaphones to cover up the shaking in their voices. Check the fish, they called, and they did and the fish seemed fine. They measured the red part. I’d been fearing that the whole world’s oceans were red now, but they said in their megaphone that the bleeding stopped one mile out. It was a one-mile ring. It was not all-powerful.

The robber and I went back to the hotel room. I sat in the bathroom and folded the toilet paper into a point like I worked there. When I went into the bedroom, he said he wanted to make love on sheets. I said No. He said Are you still mine? I still love you, do you love me? and I said I don’t even know your first name, and for that matter, I don’t know your last name either and besides, you just let our love plop into the ocean and so how am I supposed to love you now? I put my hands on my hips.

He said It wasn’t our love that plopped into the ocean, Penny, it was just the ring, and I said But this was the ring from the flour jar and I don’t know how to be yours without it.

He held my face in his hands. I looked out past the window to the foam crashing. It was pink.

Listen, I told him. I’m confused. I’m going home.

I took a shuttle to the Tahiti airport by myself. I left the robber sitting on the made bed, staring at the wall. I sat in the back of the shuttle bus and didn’t talk except in curt one-word answers and the shuttle driver kept asking me questions that required more than one-word answers and he kept calling me Sugar and I was getting more and more annoyed and wanted to yank the steering wheel out of his hands and throw it out the window until out of the blue he gave me an idea. I barely remember paying him because I thought about this idea from the moment it came to me, and I thought about it the whole plane ride, through the snack and through the movie and through the dinner, and that’s where I went first. I didn’t even stop home to drop off my bags.

The white cat was still there and purred the second I touched it but more important, the sugar jar was still there too. I took it in my lap, opened the lid and peeked inside. The grains glittered.

Oh sugar, I said into it. You are the strongest of all.

I picked up their phone—it was a tortoiseshell phone with gold buttons—and called direct to the hotel room in Tahiti. To my surprise, the clerk said we had checked out several hours ago and just then there was a rattle at the window and in stepped the robber.

How did you know? I beamed, phone receiver in hand, and he shrugged, face tired and sunburned.

It was a good guess, he said. Madame Butterfly signs out and all.

We leaned forward and had an awkward hug. I held on to his elbow. He nudged his chin into my neck.

Pulling away, I held up the jar. So look at this, I said. Maybe this will help things.

What is it? he asked.

It’s that special sugar.

Oh, he said. Well. I’ve always liked sugar.

I felt a little nervous but he gave me a good supportive look, so I dipped a finger into the sugar and licked it off. Mmm, I said, mmm, you’ve gotta try this. The grains sparkled on my tongue. The robber sat down in one of the wicker kitchen chairs next to me.

It’s really good, I said.

He dipped in his own leathered finger and took a tentative lick off the glove. I watched his expression carefully. The house seemed very quiet except for the precise ticking of the clock above the kitchen table.

Do you feel any different? I asked.

Not yet, he said.

He put his finger in it again and I did too and once we touched fingertips and he curled his knuckle around mine and squeezed.

Hello there, I said softly, to our fingers.

He put his hand on my leg. My leg leaned into his hand.