No such luck.

He found her sitting at the kitchen table, and if it weren’t for the change of clothes, he might have thought she’d been sat there all night. She was hunched over a cup of coffee with Pirate softly nudging her shoulder for attention. Rio wondered whether he ought to say sorry. That was the correct thing to do. The right thing. But somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The pain and anger in his belly were so loud they blocked any words that wanted to come out of his mouth.

Instead, he crept past the table, hoping she wouldn’t notice him.

“Rio? About last night . . .”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, and then, without even bothering to turn around, he dashed out the back door to the sound of Pirate letting out a long, plaintive yowl.

Outside, even the weather matched Rio’s mood. The skies were heavy and gray, and he couldn’t even see where the ocean ended and the clouds began. They were one entwined mass of gray wildness that reared up and down in hard, wrathful gasps.

It was the first time he had seen the ocean angry.

As Rio traipsed along the beach, it felt fitting. His mother wasn’t getting better. She was getting worse. And this time, he didn’t even know when he was going home. It wasn’t that he hated it here. He loved the ocean. He loved the whales. He loved being part of the Spyhopper crew. But he would have loved it so much more if his mother were here with him.

A wave crashed against the shore, spraying Rio with a shower of salty breath and making his eyes sting. He rubbed them crossly. By the time he looked up and could actually see again, he realized he was in the harbor. As if drawn by some magnetic compass to the Spyhopper and all she represented. Not just a boat. But a means of escape. A place where, if he closed his eyes, he could imagine that everything was well in the world.

Today the boats were buffeted by winds that rattled and shook the masts so they clattered and creaked. There were few fishermen about and even fewer tourists.

But there was the Spyhopper, rocking in her mooring, yet solidly and reassuringly present. He half scampered, half ran the remaining distance to the boat before skidding to a halt. Inside the cabin, he could see a warm yellow light.

“Hellloooo!” he called out, his voice swept away by the winds. “HELLO!”

It was impossible to be heard, so Rio jumped on board, feeling the coolness of the deck under his bare feet. Even though he had come here plenty of times over the past couple of weeks, he still got that same small thrill each time he stepped onto the boat.

“Marina?” he called out, and this time, the door to the cabin opened and she popped out her head, her blond mane tousled and wild.