Page 137 of These Summer Storms

He looked at her. “You’re sleeping with him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mmm,” he said, obviously not believing her. “Why didn’t Griffin spend the night?”

A mighty crack of lightning struck the ocean in the distance. “No way did Emily not tell you everything last night. She’s incapable of keeping secrets.”

When Sam didn’t reply for long minutes, she finally turned his way, ready for him to gloat or laugh or tell her all the ways he had hated Griffin. Instead, he said, “Are you okay?”

The question hung between them, honest and grown-up, and it occurred to Alice that if this was the beginning of something new, the start of After—after Franklin, after Griffin, after estrangement, after control and responsibility and everything else her family represented—someone had to start telling the truth. “I am. If a little embarrassed that Dad paid off my fiancé. That Griffin took it.”

“Don’t be,” he said like it was inconsequential. “I mean, I’m sure he considered it with Sila back when—” He cut himself off, loyal enough to his daughter not to voice the extenuating circumstances of his relationship with his wife. “How much?”

Not enough.The echo of Jack’s words the night before filled up thespaces in her that threatened to empty with doubt and disappointment. She cut her brother a stern look. “Alot,Sam. A fricken fortune.Obviously.”

He raised his hands, defensively. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Leaning forward and stopping the swing, he propped his elbows on his knees and met her gaze. “Do you want me to kick Griffin’s ass?”

She tried not to smile at the question, so serious, from a man she doubted could handle loading a dishwasher. “That’s sweet, and very big brotherly, but no, Sam.”

“I could, you know.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she said, keeping the laughter from her words. “But maybe you just don’t know what to do with yourself right now. You and Sila could still make it work, maybe.”

“I’d have to want that,” he confessed. “But honestly, at this point, after this week? All I really want is to know my kids. I don’t know my kids.”

“Well. They’re nine and fourteen,” Alice replied. “Are kids that age really…knowable?”

“It’s not like I tried that hard. I never really knew how to be a dad with them. And it’s not like Sila wanted me to be. They were security for her. Assets.” He paused. “What a fucking mess.”

Alice sat with that for a while, thinking about love and how messy it could be. How partnership and connection were so tenuous. And how hard it was to unlearn the ways they’d been taught to think about love.

Sam added, “No wonder we’re all so terrible at relationships.”

Maybe not forever, though; maybe that was another thing that could be new to After.

Sam’s watch began to beep, the sound barely audible over the rain, now coming down so hard on the roof of the porch that it was hard to believe the structure would hold. 6:55a.m.

Sam took a deep breath, sounding tired. “Here we go again.”

The words were barely out when the screen door blasted open, swinging back hard and fast with a heavy crack against the weathered cedar shingles. And then Jack appeared, in a white tee and the trousers from his suit the day before, looking…

“What the hell is wrong withyou?”

Jack turned toward Sam’s question, his breath coming hard and fast. “I thought you left.”

“I don’t think he means me,” Sam said, dryly.

She dropped her feet to the porch with athudand stood up. He didn’t mean Sam.

Jack advanced, eyes locked on Alice. “Christ, Alice,” he said, stopping just before he reached her, making her simultaneously grateful that he wasn’t about to show Sam just how intense their relationship (were they using that word?) was getting, and disappointed that he didn’t pull her close. Because now that he was here, she realized how much she regretted leaving him that morning.

They were definitely using the wordrelationship.Thingno longer covered it.

“What happened?” she asked.

He shoved a frantic hand through his wet hair, pushing it out of his face. “I thought you were gone. I woke up and you were—” He stopped himself with a quick look at Sam, then went on. “The skiffs are all gone, and the storm is—” A wild rumble of thunder rendered the rest of the sentence unnecessary.

Alice’s brow furrowed. “The skiffs are gone?” She’d been so focused on getting to the main house that morning that she hadn’t paid attention to the docks, but there had been three of the small white boats moored there the night before. She looked to Sam, skeptically. “You?”