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It’s Auckland Anniversary 2003. On a summer beach in the Coromandel, a child goes missing. As the parents search, the harmony of their seemingly perfect marriage starts to unravel, and trust and truths they took as unshakeable begin to crumble. Twenty years later, it takes another generation to make sense of that day on the beach and to come terms with its legacy. 

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Extracts

At the gateway to the reserve, a man is selling balloons from a stall. He holds them in his hand, bouncing them on their strings, calls to every parent who passes: “Buy one, buy one.” Now and then, he changes his call: “Buy three and you can fly away.” 
     The balloons are of different colours: blue and yellow, red, green, white. They’re made from mylar, have a metallic lustre, are filled with helium, and tug at the end of their strings. Toby sees them and plucks at Stewart’s hand. “Buy one for me.”
     Ahead of them a girl, a little older than Toby, stands reverentially in front of the man holding out some money in her hand. 
     “What colour?” the man asks.
     Her face screws tight with indecision as she tries to make a choice. “A blue one,” she says, pointing. Then: “No, a red one.” 
     “Please,” the girl’s mother prompts.
     "A red one, please.”
     The man separates the strings tied to the edge of the stall, passes her a red balloon. “Hold it tight,” he says. “Otherwise it will fly away without you.”
     The girl takes the balloon, turns, runs back to her parents, the balloon bobbing in her wake. 
     “I want one,” Toby says, pulling again at Stewart’s hand.
     “That’s not the way to ask, is it?” Sylvia says.
     Toby yanks, scowls. 
     “Say please,” Sylvia says, “like that girl did.”
     Toby lets go of Stewart’s hand, darts towards the man, snatches at a string: “This one. I want this one.” 

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     As he reaches the beach, he halts for a moment, wondering which way to turn - left and back towards Sylvia or right where the constable has run. He turns right, pounds and flounders, arms flailing, through the soft sand, regains his senses and veers away from the dune front, onto the firmer ground where the high tide has reached; grimaces at the growing pain in his ankle, gasps for breath; looks back briefly, searching for the sight of Sylvia, wondering if she’s noticed, heard. Slows down, as he reaches the rocks.
     There’s no sign of the policeman, nor any of the other people he saw, and here in the shadow of the rocks even their voices don’t reach him. It’s like a small island of calm. A place to hide. A place where nothing can touch him, hurt him. Safety.
     Then a man appears from a cleft above, stepping down the rocks. As he sees Stewart, he shakes his head.
     “What is it? Have they found him?”
     He looks at Stewart, his face stony, says nothing.
     “What have they found?”
     “I’d stay away if I were you. You won’t be wanted.”
     The man looks back, then again at Stewart, distaste in his eyes.
     “They don’t want gawpers.”
     He spits into the sand.
     “It’s a body. In the water.”