“You’re better at everything than tea. Toast would be better than this tea. Yourburnedtoast would be better.”
"Want ice cream?"
Bea looked at him. "It's nine o'clock at night."
"You know the rule."
Bea almost fought it. Stella could see her trying. But the rule was the rule—when things got bad, you got ice cream. It had been true since Stella's second day in Laguna, when Tyler bought her mint chocolate chip and she thought maybe California wouldn't be terrible. It had been true every time since.
Bea looked at the tea. At Tyler. At Stella. At the bungalow that held them—this small, creaky house where Stella had landed from Sydney and Tyler had learned to be a father and the fridge had photos clustered on it like a family in formation.
Bea set the terrible tea on the coffee table and stood up. Her eyes were still red but her shoulders had come down from her ears and her hands had unclenched.
“Okay,” she said. “Ice cream.”
They walked to the place on PCH—the one that stayed open late, the one Tyler and Stella had been going to since the summer. Bea got salted caramel. Stella got mint chocolate chip.
They sat on the bench outside with their cups and the November night around them—cool, salt-smelling, the ocean audible but not visible. The three of them sat on a bench, eating ice cream because someone was hurting and this was how the family handled it.
“I’m not going to be weird about it,” Bea said after a while. “About Michael. I’m not going to make it hard for Mom.”
“You don’t have to be anything,” Stella said. “Just tell her the truth.”
“The truth is complicated.”
“The truth is always complicated. That’s why we have ice cream.”
Bea almost smiled. Not quite. But close.
They finished their ice cream and walked home—Bea peeling off toward her house at the corner, Stella and Tyler continuing to the bungalow. The night was quiet. The Shack was dark down the street, closed and waiting for tomorrow.
“She’ll be okay,” Stella said.
“Yeah.” Tyler put his arm around her shoulders—briefly, the way he did, more acknowledgment than embrace. “You were good in there.”
“I learned it’s best to wait.”
“What?”
“The waiting. Not filling the silence. Letting Bea say the thing.” Stella looked at him. “You did it too.”
“Did I?”
“You sat down and you didn’t fix it. You just... sat with her.”
Tyler thought about this. “Is that what you do with me?”
“Every single time.”
“Huh.” He opened the bungalow door. “Goodnight, Stella.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
She went to her room and texted Bea.
You okay?
A long pause.
