“Hi,” I say, stepping closer to my dad.

“Hi, honey.” He sniffs and turns away from the sign. “You all ready?”

“Yup. Just waiting for Ivy.”

We walk over to the van and get in. The faux-leather seats are hot and sticky. I put my towel under me to keep my skin from sticking to the plastic.

“We’re going to be OK, Rach,” my dad says. “I need you to know that. And I need you to know that your mom and I are sorry this happened.”

“I know,” I say. “You don’t need to be sorry. You did your best.”

He nods and starts the van when Ivy comes out and climbs in.

I’m surprised to see Micah at the beach when we arrive. A bunch of people from school are there, all hanging out at our end of the beach. I don’t see any sign of Cybil, but I guess she’s probably at work. I drop my towel down midway so we aren’t near them.

“Why’d you stop here?” Ivy asks.

“I think we should have a family day,” I say. “I don’t really feel like seeing my friends right now.”

She shrugs and drops her towel.

When Micah sees us, he sits up straighter on his towel and waves.

Ivy waves back wildly and motions for him to come over.

“I told you it was family day! Why’d you invite him over?”

“Micah is family,” Ivy says.

“Fine.”

My dad sits on his towel and looks out at the water.

“Hi, guys,” Micah says when he reaches us.

I squint up at him.

“I would have invited you to come here today, but I thought you were avoiding people,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, a little more coolly than I meant.

“Want to go in?”

“Yes!” Ivy says, even though Micah was clearly asking me.

“I’m not hot enough yet,” I say. “You guys go ahead.”

Micah looks disappointed, but he turns and runs into the water, Ivy at his heels.

My dad and I sit next to each other on the edges of our towels and watch them.

“Is Mom going to be OK?” I ask. “She loves the house so much. It’s like a family member to her.”

I listen to my dad breathe for a while before he answers. He does this when he’s trying to find the right words.

“Yes. She’ll be all right. It’s going to be really hard and sad at first, but we’ll get through this. People go through much worse.”

I think about the stupid “Could be worse!” family from that old book and feel a fist of anger tightening in my belly. It could be worse. It could be so much worse. I know it’s true. But it still feels really, really bad.

“I wish we were rich, like the Townsends,” I say.