I look out at the sea again and ask the thing I’ve been bracing for anyway.
“So this isn’t a problem.”
My mother’s answer is immediate.
“Why would it be a problem?”
That almost throws me harder than anything else.
I hear my own disbelief in the next words. “Because, I’m in love with her. The kind of love that already has me telling you right now to book out the yacht club for July in four years from now.”
My mother’s indrawn breath is sharp.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
My father snorts softly.
“Tristan.”
That one word says I’m being ridiculous.
My mother’s tone turns drier.
“You took a girl to a dance, not a yacht full of cocaine, that’s a serious improvement, but wedding talk?”
I laugh out loud.
Actually laugh.
A couple at another table glances over. I don’t care.
“She’s it for me. Part of me always knew it, too. I’m better with her in my life.”
My father sounds pleased now, like he’s been waiting for the moment I’d realize none of this was going the way I expected.“Get back on time,” he says. “Don’t miss obligations— yours or hers. No one’s grades catch fire. No coach is storming the complex. Finish your season, settle in and then walk talk rings.”
“I haven’t even met her yet,” my mother sounds aghast.
I drag a hand over my mouth to hide the smile that’s already there and fail completely. Then my mother offers, almost offhand, “We’re in town.”
I go still.
“What?”
“We came down yesterday evening,” my father says. “Dinner with the Willoughby’s. It was dreadful.”
“Utterly,” my mother agrees. “But now that there is finally a reason to salvage the trip?—”
I turn all the way from the railing.
“You’re here. In Newport.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me this now?”
“Would you have answered earlier?” my father asks.
