“What’s happening?” Becca asked.
I told her, watching their faces as I explained what was going to happen to our happy little home.
Becca looked at me like I’d told her someone was coming to bulldoze our actual house. Which wasn’t entirely out of the question, now that I thought about it.
“A cruise port,” she said. “Here.”
“That’s what he said.”
She put her hands on her hips. “He can’t do that.”
“He’s already done it, apparently. He said the deal is done. First of the year, they break ground. They’ll be running cruises next summer.”
Dad leaned against the counter with his arms crossed and his jaw set. He was looking out the window in the direction of the Anderson house.
“Mom would be losing her mind right now,” Becca said softly.
“I know,” I said.
We all went quiet for a moment and let that sit. The loss of her was always there, just below the surface, and certain things had a way of pulling it back up.
Our mother had spent the better part of the nineties planting herself directly in the path of a resort developer who had decided that Surfside Cove was going to be the next Monterey. She’d organized town halls. She’d written letters and made phone calls. She’d stood on the steps of the city planning office with a hand-painted sign and a thermos of coffee for three days straight in February when the weather was miserable and everyone told her she was wasting her time.
She hadn’t been wasting her time.
The resort developer eventually moved on to somewhere else. Surfside stayed exactly what it was. Small. A little rough around the edges. Ours.
Dad always said it was the first time he ever really saw her. He’d known her since they were teenagers, had been friendly with her for years, but it wasn’t until he watched her stand up for a cause that he understood exactly who she was.
He told us that story every few years. I never got tired of hearing it. I wished I could have known her longer than the seventeen years I got with her.
“She fought so hard,” I said.
“Thirty years,” Dad said, still looking at the window. “She spent thirty years fighting for this town. Every time something came along that threatened to change what made it worth living in, your mother was the first one standing up.” He exhaled slowly through his nose. “She gave everything she had to this place.”
“And now some rich asshole wants to take it away,” Becca hissed, glancing toward the back door where the kids were still settled on the daybed.
“The permits aren’t approved yet,” I said. “Maybe there’s still something that can be done.”
“You think the city planning office is going to stand up to that kind of money?” Becca scoffed.
“Prick,” he said quietly.
“What’s a prick?” Ocean asked.
“Never mind!” Dad, Becca, and I said at the exact same time.
Ocean looked at each of us in turn, clearly unconvinced but smart enough to know he wasn’t going to get a straight answer. He got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water.
The three of us stared at each other.
Ocean gave us all strange looks before he walked back outside.
And then, despite everything, we all started laughing. Becca pressed her hand over her mouth. Dad shook his head and looked at the ceiling.
“Sorry,” he said. “I forget there are little ears around.”
“It’s fine,” Becca said. “They lived with their father. They’ve heard a lot worse thanprick.”