Her jaw dropped, and Daddy slammed his napkin down on the table. “No one disrespects my little girl,” he said. “I am outraged by this.”

Aunt Tilley was uncharacteristically silent. Then she almost whispered, “So what now, darlin’?”

Robby mouthed Sorry to me across the table, as well he should have. He had been giving me so much crap earlier about registering to vote in Florida. But I’d lived there for thirteen years. It was a little impractical to fly home to vote. But he planned on running for mayor, and now mine was one less vote he would get. I wanted to point out that it didn’t much matter. He was a Saxton. He would win the election.

My dad was stepping down as mayor of Cape Carolina. His sister, the first female mayor, held the position for sixteen years. And their daddy was mayor before that, their granddaddy before that, and so on and so forth. If your last name wasn’t Saxton, you didn’t have much of a prayer in the mayoral race. We joked that people thought great-great-granddaddy Saxton was still mayor. In a world where politics were often dirty and self-interested, I was proud to have a family who stood steadfastly on the side of inclusion and doing what was right.

Daddy’s friends and political colleagues had asked him to run for higher office when he decided to step down. But he wouldn’t hear of it. His life, his obligation, and most of all, his true love—bless his heart—my mom, were in Cape Carolina. He didn’t want to be anywhere else. Even still, Mom and Daddy had driven the almost twelve hours to see me every other month since I’d moved to Palm Beach. They were proud of me. Well, they had been proud of me before this. But pride isn’t as pressing as plain, old-fashioned wanting your daughter home, where you can keep an eye on her.

“ ‘What now?’ ” I responded to Aunt Tilley, “is the big question, isn’t it?”

I set my napkin on the table, tears springing to my eyes, the weight of my situation hitting me. Now that I didn’t have to worry about telling my family, I had to worry about what came next. I had no husband. No house. But I did have a home. And as inhospitable as it was feeling at this current moment, it was here.

Mom and Tilley shared a look. I felt badly for Daddy. I honestly did. It was like he had married two of them. And they were two peas in a pod, two forces to be reckoned with.

Mom put her head in her hands, and Tilley patted her back and tsked supportively. “At least she isn’t pregnant,” Trina trilled.

I gestured at her. “Exactly. Silver lining.”

Everyone was talking all at once again, and I felt like I needed to escape.

Over the din, I could make out Mom saying, “There has never been a divorce in the Saxton family,” as I slipped out from the table. I couldn’t do anything about that now. I walked out the back door and down the dock, avoiding the planks that were sitting a little too high and needed repair. Even in my sorrow, I made a mental note to fix them and the pickets on the front porch the next day. I sat down, legs crossed, and took a deep breath. Out here, all you could see was water, with little islands of marsh grass interspersed. It was the place I had always felt the most alive, the freest. There is peace in the calm and quiet of the sound. And peace was what I needed more than anything right now. Tears rolled down my cheeks.