‘We’re actually here doing an article for the Mission News about the accident,’ Cee Cee said. ‘We just got done interviewing the monsignor. It’s really unfortunate, about the archbishop coming, and all, and the statue of Father Serra not having a head.’

‘Yeah,’ Adam said. ‘A real bummer.’

‘Well,’ Father Dominic said. ‘Never mind that. It’s the caring spirit of you children that should most impress the archbishop.’

‘Amen,’ said Adam solemnly.

Before either of us had a chance to berate Adam for being sarcastic, a nurse came in and told Cee Cee and I that we had to leave because she had to give Father Dom his sponge bath.

‘Sponge bath,’ Adam grumbled as we made our way back to the car. ‘Father Dom gets a sponge bath, but me, a guy who can actually appreciate something like that, what do I get?’

A chance to play chauffeur to the two most beautiful girls in Carmel?’ Cee Cee offered, helpfully.

Yeah,’ Adam said. ‘Right.’ Then he glanced at me. ‘Not that you aren’t the most beautiful girl in Carmel, Suze . . . I just meant . . . Well, you know . . .’

‘I know,’ I said, with a smile.

‘I mean, a sponge bath. And did you get a look at that nurse?’ Adam held the passenger seat forwards so Cee Cee could crawl into the back seat. ‘There must be something to this priest thing. Maybe I should enroll.’

From the back seat Cee Cee said, ‘You don’t enroll, you receive a calling. And believe me, Adam, you wouldn’t like it. They don’t let priests play Nintendo.’

Adam digested this. ‘Maybe I could form a new order,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Like the Franciscans, only we’d be the Joystick Order. Our motto would be High Score for One, Pizza for All.’

Cee Cee said, ‘Look out for that seagull.’

We were on Carmel Beach Road. Just beyond the low stone wall to our right was the Pacific, lit up like a jewel by the enormous yellow ball of sun hovering above it. I guess I must have been looking at it a little longingly – I still hadn’t gotten used to seeing it all the time – because Adam went, ‘Aw, hell,’ and zipped into a parking space that a BMW had just vacated. I looked at him questioningly as he threw the car into park, and he said, ‘What? You don’t have time to sit and watch the sunset?’

I was out of the car in a flash.

How, I wondered a little while later, had I ever not looked forward to moving here? Sitting on a blanket Adam had extricated from the trunk of his car, watching the joggers and the evening surfers, the Frisbee-catching dogs and the tourists with their cameras, I felt better than I had in a long time. It might have been the fact that I was still operating on about four hours of sleep. It might have been that the heavy odour of brine was clouding my senses. But I really felt, for the first time in what seemed like forever, at peace.