My mother livedin a house that the ocean had built for her, or that’s how she liked to tell it. Three stories of bleached cedar and floor-to-ceiling glass on a bluff the engineers said would erode into the sea within twenty years. Well, it had been nearly forty since my father had built it there, and it was stronger than ever. The ocean would not be reclaiming Marina Torres.
They had an arrangement.
I sat in my Jeep in the driveway with the engine off, drinking the dregs of a gas-station coffee and trying to remember why I had come.
I was going to be reasonable. That was the plan. I was going to walk in there and say, in the calm professional voice I used at the shack when a tourist tried to get a refund on a melted popsicle, that my tournament had been going for years, that Elliot’s turtles did not care about RipTide’s broadcast schedule, that the full moon was the full moon and could not be rescheduled.
I was going to make my case.
She was going to listen.
I would not cry.
I would not ask the question I actually wanted to ask, which wasWhy did you do this without telling me?Because I already knew the answer to that.
I got out of the Jeep.
I could already hear them. Three high, hysterical barks stacked one on top of the other. They had heard the engine before I’d even turned into the driveway. By the time I got to the porch, they had organized themselves into formation behind the front door—Kiwi in front, Gordo next, vibrating, and Tormenta at the back, howling bloody murder because Tormenta was Tormenta.
My mother’s Pomeranian familiars.
The door opened.
“Mi corazón!” my dad said, grinning from ear to ear. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“Yeah, surprise.” I shrugged.
“You want coffee? I just made coffee.”
“I have coffee.”
“Gas station?” He lifted a brow.
I nodded.
“I’ll make you a real one.”
He pulled me into the hug he’d been giving me my entire life, the one that smelled like wood shavings and the orange-oil polish he used on the boats in his shop, and for a few moments I let myself sink into it.
It was the comfort I needed, the calm before the storm. The Pomeranians lost their minds at my feet.
“Hi, you three. Yes. Hi. No, I don’t have treats.”
Kiwi—five pounds of red fluff and command authority—accepted one ear scratch and then stepped back because she had better things to do. Gordo threw himself onto my shoes and rolled, all pretense and dignity set aside. Tormenta retreated behind the couch and barked at me from there.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Backyard, trying some new spell for her circle. I didn’t ask. I have a policy.”
His policy was forty years old, and it had kept him sane and married to my mother, so I had no business questioning it.
I gave him the gas-station cup, which he took withoutcommenting, how he had been not commenting on things for my entire life.
“I’ll bring it out when it’s ready.”
“Thanks, Papá.”
He squeezed my shoulder and went back to the kitchen, and I stood in the entryway for a second, bracing myself.
