When Kitty emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, I tried to act normal.
“The surf report looks good,” I said. “How do you feel about a little beach time?”
Kitty’s eyes brightened at the suggestion. “I’ll get my bathing suit.”
I turned to Mia, who sat on the unmade sofa bed, frowning at her phone.
“What about you, Mia?”
She yanked out a headphone. “Huh?”
“Beach day. Twenty minutes.”
Mia gave me a thumbs-up and rolled off the bed to dig through her suitcase.
The emotional turmoil of Kitty’s meltdown had me feeling unsure I could distract the girls on my own, so I texted the most distracting person I knew.
Beach day?
A message from Nina appeared seconds later.Just say you need help babysitting.Followed bySee you in thirty.
—
Kitty, Mia, and I dragged lounge chairs behind us, trudging down the condo’s private beach to the waterline. The sand warmed the soles of my feet, and the sight of the ocean loosened the tightness in my chest, allowing me to breathe deeply for the first time all morning. After setting up our chairs and putting on sunscreen, Mia spread out a towel and closed her eyes, while Kitty rushed into the waves with a boogie board under one arm.
I sank into my chair and wiggled my toes in the sand. Closing my eyes, I tilted my face to the sun. This beach was where I felt most at home. Many of my best memories had taken place here. I remembered leaning against my mother beneath the shade of the umbrella after a morning in the sun. I remembered my father adjusting my mask for the thousandth time, tugging on the strap and screwing up his face in theeffort of it, but no matter what he did, water leaked in whenever I went snorkeling. I remembered Beth crouched beside me, examining a sand flea as it buried itself.
My phone vibrated. A text from Beth.
Everything okay?
I picked up my phone and took two pictures, one of Kitty out in the water, and one of Mia lying on the chair beside me, then sent them to my sister.
I’m glad they’re having fun, Beth replied.
The text worried me. I wished she were here. But I also wanted her to work things out with Mark. Though I knew the statistics on divorce after the death of a child, I also knew the statistics on teenage parents staying together, and Beth and Mark had defied those odds. Why couldn’t they overcome this? But I didn’t know how to ask how they were doing, mostly because I feared the answer. I responded with a heart emoji and put my phone away.
“Jo!” I turned and spotted Nina dragging a beach chair behind her. Her bathing suit, like all her nonwork attire, wascreative: a one-piece featuring a cat eating a slice of pizza.
“That bathing suit is hideous,” I said when she stopped beside me.
Nina squinted in the sunlight, looking from Mia, next to me, to Kitty, who floated on her back in the water. “You call this a beach party?”
“I never said it was a beach party.” But I could see what she meant. If my goal was to distract the girls, I wasn’t doing a great job.
“Nina!” Kitty called. She paddled in, wrapping Nina in a wet hug when she reached us.
Kitty gasped. “Iloveyour bathing suit. Mia, did you see?”
Mia cracked open an eyelid. “Hey, Nina. Cool bathing suit.”
“See, Josephine?” Nina dropped into her chair. “I’m hip with Gen Z. Don’t think I didn’t hear you.”
Kitty sat down on a towel in front of Nina. “Are you and Ollie together yet? Mia owes me fifty bucks if you two get married.”
Nina turned to me and wrinkled her nose. “This is unbelievable. Stop infecting your nieces with propaganda. Ollie is nobody to me.”
Mia raised her eyebrows. “He sure doesn’tsoundlike nobody.”
