“Mom,” I said, getting out of the car and catching up with her. “Please. Let me get something, at least.”
“Oh, honey, that would be great,” she said over one shoulder. I reached out to take the diaper bag and purse, only to find myself suddenly holding Maddie, who latched her arms around my neck, her chubby legs tightening at my waist. She smelled like wipes and baby sweat, and promptly dropped a damp goldfish down my shirt. “Now, let me just find my keys . . . here. Okay! We’re in.”
She bumped the door open wider with her hip, then went inside, reaching to hit a light switch as I followed her. Immediately, the entryway brightened, displaying deep yellow walls lined with beach-themed framed drawings.
“So this is the kitchen and living room,” my mom was saying as we headed up the nearby stairs, Connor hanging off her hip, Maddie clutching me with one hand, the other in her mouth. “The master suite is over there, and the rest of the bedrooms are on the second and third floors.”
“There are four floors?”
“Um,” she said, glancing back at me as she hit another switch, illuminating a wide, open kitchen. A stainless Sub-Zero fridge, bigger and much newer than the one at Luna Blu, sat at one end. “Well, actually, there are five. If you count the game-room level. But that was just unfinished attic space, really.”
There was a trilling noise, a melody I recognized but couldn’t place. My mom, Connor still in her arms, reached into her purse, pulling out her phone. I said, “Is that—”
“The Defriese fight song,” she finished for me. “Peter put it on there for me. I used to have ABBA, but he insisted.”
I didn’t say anything, just stared out the row of huge windows at the ocean. My mom put the phone to her ear, then leaned down, releasing Connor, who immediately ran over to the fridge, banging his hands on it. I tried to do the same with Maddie, but she held on tighter, if that was possible.
“Hello? Oh, hi, honey. Yes, we just got here. It was fine.” My mom looked at Connor, as if weighing whether to try to corral him. In seconds, it was a moot point, as he was taking off across the room at full speed. “We’re about to unpack a bit and go up to the Last Chance. Did you get dinner? Good.”
I walked over to the nearest window, Maddie twirling a piece of my hair, and looked out at the deck. Down below, I could see the pool, part of it exposed, the other tucked beneath an overhang.
“I’ll call you as soon as we’re back here,” my mom continued, digging around in her prse. “I know. Me, too. It’s not the same without you. Okay, love you. Goodbye.”
Connor ran back past us, bumping against my hip. “Beach!” he yelled, his small, high voice echoing around the vast room.
“Peter says hello,” my mom told me, dropping her phone back in her bag. “We don’t usually spend nights apart, if we can help it. I keep telling him that most couples travel separately all the time, but he still worries.”
“Worries? About what?”
“Oh, any- and everything,” she said. “He just likes it better when we’re all together. Let me just bring in a few things, and we’ll go. Would you mind watching the twins for just a second? It’s easier without an entourage.”
“Sure,” I said, as Connor ran back the other way, now spreading his palm prints across the row of glass doors that led outside. She smiled at me gratefully, then started back down to the car. A moment later, I heard a garage door cranking open, and the SUV disappeared beneath the house.
Which left me in this crazy huge living room with my half siblings, one of whom, like a one-man wave of destruction, had already smudged just about every glassy reflective surface in sight. “Connor,” I called out as he banged his baby fists against a window. “Hey.”
He turned, looking at me, and I realized I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. Or do with him. Downstairs somewhere, a car door shut.
“Let’s go check out the water,” I said, trying to put Maddie down again. No luck. So it was with her still on my hip that I crossed the room, unlocked the back door, and put my hand out to Connor. He grabbed it, holding tight, and we went outside.
It was dark, the wind cold, but the beach was still beautiful. We had it all to ourselves, save for a couple of trucks parked way down at one end, headlights on, fishing poles stuck in the sand in front of them. As soon as we hit the sand, Connor pulled loose from me, running to a tide pool just a few feet away, and I scrambled to catch up with him. He bent down, tentatively reaching out to touch the still, shallow water there with one hand. “Cold,” he told me.
“I bet,” I said.
I looked up at the house, seeing my mom pass in front of that row of windows, carrying some reusable cloth grocery bags, lights on all around her. The houses on either side were dark, clearly unoccupied.