Nicki snorted. “Yeah, right.” Her toast popped up, and she pinched it by the edge and flicked it onto a plate. “Poor little overworked Finnie.”

Walter took a sip of his orange juice. “Maybe you’d like to come with me?”

“Oh, come on, Dad,” she said, scraping a hard chunk of butter violently over the toast. “You know I don’t have time to go boating.” She stuck the toast in her mouth and strode out the front door, leaving a trail of crumbs behind her.

Walter sighed. Just like when they were teenagers, each girl had used different tactics to get out of the coffee cruise. Nicki would throw tantrums, stomping around the house in a little black cloud of anger that grew blacker the closer the time came to leave and the more she realized she was not going to get out of it. But once on the boat, she would be cheerful, joking with the regulars, doing what needed to be done. Nicki is a hard worker – not many people give her credit for that. She didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, no matter how much she whined about it. Finn, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. She would never complain about getting pulled out of bed, but once she was on the boat she would drag her feet, scowl at the customers, and hide out in the cabin reading a book when she was supposed to be serving coffee or washing dishes. It was as though she thought the entire thing was a huge waste of time, that she was destined for a life more extraordinary than this city – or her family – could give her. Walter had hoped she would grow out of it, that if she just spent enough time on the lake, or in the bush, or in the mountains, she would realize how lucky she was to live in a place surrounded by such an abundance of natural beauty. But in Finn’s eyes, Thunder Bay was nothing but a boring, cultureless, working-class city full of backward, camo-wearing, gun-toting rednecks with bad haircuts and terrible taste in beer.