ONE
EMMA
Here’s the thing about living on a houseboat with three children: you develop a very specific relationship with gravity.
Gravity is not your friend. It’s the force that sends your eight-year-old’s cereal bowl sliding off the counter every single morning when the wake from Justin Spencer’s shrimp boat rolls through at six forty-five. Gravity is why your coffee mug lives in a cupholder screwed directly into the wall and why you learned, approximately three days into houseboat life, that placing anything on any surface without securing it first is an act of breathtakingoptimism.
I used to be an optimist. Nine months on a boat has cured me of that particular affliction.
“Mom.” Aidan appears in the galley doorway, shirtless, one sock on, holding what appears to be a drawing of a kraken devouring a stick figure. “I need a jar.”
“Good morning to you too.” I’m fighting the coffee maker, which has decided that today—like every day—is the day it tests the limits of Aunt Dottie’s electrical system. The lights flicker. The coffee maker gurgles. Somewhere on the dock, I can practically hear Paul Spencer’s blood pressure rising. “What do you need a jar for?”
“I found a crab.”
“Where did you find it?”
“On the dock. He was just sitting on the piling. I think he lives here. I think he’s ours.”
“We don’t have a crab.”
“We do now. His name is Gerald.”
I love this child with my entire heart, and also he is going to be the reason I develop a twitch.
“Aidan. You cannot keep a crab named Gerald.”
“Why not? He likes me. He pinched me and everything.”
“Pinching is not affection.”
“It is for crabs. That’s how they hug.”
From the tiny bedroom down the hall, Millie’s voice floats out with the calm authority of a ten-year-old who has been parenting her siblings since birth. “Aidan, you put that crab back. You said the same thing about the hermit crab last week, and it escaped into the bathroom.”
I pour my coffee—finally, the machine has stopped its electrical tantrum—and take a sip that tastes like survival. The houseboat rocks gently. Morning light pours through the porthole windows, painting everything gold, and for one perfect second, it’s beautiful. Peaceful. The kind of moment that makes you think,yes, this was the right decision,moving three kids onto a boat in a town where you knew nobody, starting over at forty-four with a photography business and not much else.
Then Jenna emerges from the aft cabin like a vampire who’s been personally victimized by the sunrise.
“There’s no hot water.”
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
“There’s. No. Hot. Water.”
“The tank takes twenty minutes to heat up after?—”
“Then I suggest a brisk shower. Builds character.”
“I don’twantcharacter. I want hot water.”
“Unfortunately, this houseboat comes with one but not the other.”
She stares at me with the withering contempt that only a sixteen-year-old girl can generate before seven am. Then she turns on her heel and slams the bathroom door, which doesn’t actually slam because it’s on a boat and everything has soft-close hinges, so it just sort of...sighs shut.
Dramatically.
I’m raising three humans on a floating house with possessed electrical wiring and a hot water tank the size of a Crock-Pot. I am thriving.
