Because Trevor, I intuited, needed to feel like he was someone’s one and only.

“Gorsebrook could be ok,” he allowed after a long, sagacious slurp from his mug. “I mean, I have heard good things. That’s why I wanted you to see it in the first place.”

“Well, I really appreciate you bringing it to my attention,” I assured him.

Because at this point in the script, if Trevor was to come back onside, it was required that we re-establish and acknowledge that Gorsebrook had been his idea. It was almost as if Trevor was relaying these instructions to me psychically.

“But,” I fretted, “they were so nice to me at Seaside.”

Trevor leaned forward. He was responding to this side of me — flailing and a little irrational.

“Miss Karie, you gotta be tough. If Seaside’s not the place for Beaner here, you can’t worry about how nice they were. They want your money — of course they’re gonna be nice.”

“But it’s also,” I said, “the logistics of the thing.”

Trevor leaned back again in his chair and crossed his arms. “Logistics,” he repeated.

He didn’t know what the word meant. The thing to do here was forge ahead, pretend the moment never happened, kick dirt over it like a dog after a squat.

“Yeah,” I said quickly, “I mean, the fact that Seaside could take Kelli now, today. And Gorsebrook is one big question mark on that front. Plus —”

“Plus Seaside was Rini’s choice.”

I nearly dropped my mug into my lap. Trevor was referring to my mother — Rini. But my mother’s name was Irene. There were only a handful of people on the planet who’d ever called her Rini. One was no longer on the planet — my father, and only when he teased her, or had been drinking rum toddies. The others consisted of a cadre of little old ladies, scattered across the country, with whom she’d done her nursing training in her twenties. When I was a kid and the phone would ring and some distant, female voice would ask for “Rini,” I’d call out to my mother, “It’s one of the girls!”

And I’d watch as Irene grabbed the phone and squealed into it like a teenager.

Now Trevor was watching me, smiling slightly, as I took my time replacing my mug on the coffee table.

“Yes,” I said at last. “Seaside was my mother’s choice.”

We both understood that this moment, this weird trump card Trevor had been keeping up his sleeve, meant that all was forgiven. By him, that is, with respect to me. All of what, I still didn’t really know. I just knew the card had been thrown down and Trevor was, somehow, victorious. It reminded me of family games of Auction at my grandparents’ kitchen table when I was kid — how merciless and competitive Grandma Gillis used to get. Her eyes would glint behind her bifocals moments before she slammed the trump card down, knuckles connecting resoundingly with the table. You’ve lost! she’d crow as the rest of us threw our cards down in disgust — not I win, but You’ve lost. The same sweet-faced old lady we’d had to beg to sit down and stop getting food for everyone just moments ago.