Several days went by; long, hot, drawn-curtain days that made Zadie yearn for a sea breeze. Most of her evenings were spent slouching in front of her window air conditioner, waiting for Finn to call. The girls hadn’t spoken since their fight, and they were supposed to leave for Galveston the next day. With less than twelve hours to go, Zadie thought it was pretty safe to assume that they would not be going to the beach tomorrow or perhaps any other day.

Maybe it was for the best. Had she really expected one vacation to rebuild a relationship that had been eroding for years? She’d read an article about homes on the Atlantic coast that were slowly succumbing to the ocean as tides ate away at the cliffs they were built on. Owners were being forced to decide whether it was worth the money to move their homes back from the cliff or to just let them tumble into the ocean. At the time, Zadie had thought the decision was a no-brainer: move the house. Now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe that house belonged at the bottom of the ocean where it could start a new life as a hotel for fish.

The one thing she was certain of, however, was that Finn’s grand plan to reunite them with their mother was a bad one. Even if she set aside her personal feelings, the idea that they could somehow track her down using nothing but a series of memory fragments was ludicrous. If all Finn had wanted to know was what kind of sandwich their mom had eaten on a given day, maybe she’d have some luck, but reconstructing the days after her disappearance would require more than hearing Nora humming a song. It would be a huge investment of their time and energy, and at six weeks pregnant with a full-time job, Zadie had very little of either to spare.

Zadie’s suitcase sat expectantly by the front door, faintly smelling of coconut sunscreen. She picked it up with the intention of unpacking it, then stopped. Instead, she pulled one of her romance novels, The Fisherman’s Desire, from the side pocket. It featured a sea-drenched bearded man wearing an unbuttoned yellow rain slicker that exposed his bare chest. He was standing on the bow of a fishing boat forcefully pulling a rope that hung from overhead, which Zadie found odd, considering the craft he was on was clearly not a sailboat. This was an inaccuracy that she was willing to overlook, considering that there were more pressing matters at hand—namely, chiseled fisherman abs.