Free Returning to Shore by Corinne Demas Page B

gets washed away here. The house is going to get washed away if we don’t get a sea wall built. There’s this crazy old guy on the island who’s got this thing about sea walls. It’s costing my dad a fortune in lawyers.”
    Crazy old guy
. It took Clare a second to realize that it must be Richard whom Jaylin was talking about. Clare sat on the built-in bench on the landing.
    â€œHey, you’re not that tired, are you?” asked Jaylin.
    Clare shook her head. She thought about saying something about the turtles, but then Jaylin would want to know how she knew, and what would Jaylin think if she knew who Clare’s father was? Still, he wasn’t really crazy, and he wasn’t that old, either.
    â€œWe’re halfway up. Think ice cream!” said Jaylin. Clare wavered, her allegiances divided, but then Jaylin seized her hand and gave her a friendly tug and it tipped the balance. She followed Jaylin up the second half of the staircase. From the top she could see all the way from one side of the island to the other.
    Everything in Jaylin’s house was oversized: the rooms, the sofas, the windows, the view. It was the sort of house Vera liked, Clare thought, the new Vera,that is, the one who had chosen to live with Tertio instead of Peter. Peter had had what he called his “little extravagances”—like his ergonomic desk chair and his collection of fountain pens—but they’d lived in a modest house. Though Clare wondered now—and the thought seemed almost traitorous to Peter—if it was because Peter really had contempt for big, fancy houses, or if it was because he and Vera hadn’t been able to afford anything better at the time.
    Jaylin’s house seemed dazzling inside. Everything was white, and the high ceilings were punctured with skylights so the rooms were filled with sunshine. Richard’s small house in the shade seemed, in contrast, like a hobbit’s hole.
    Jaylin’s room was all white, too, but there were spots of color: a pair of jeans thrown over the back of a chair, magazines half-stuck under the bed, an orange bathing suit top dangling from the closet doorknob. Jaylin seemed unconcerned about dripping ice cream on her white futon when she flopped down on it, but Clare stood by the window and finished her ice cream, careful not to get any on the carpeting, also white.
    â€œDo you have twenty bucks you can lend me?” The voice came from a boy, a few years older than Jaylin, who had stuck his head in the doorway. His hair was bushy, like Jaylin’s, and he had a rectangle of dark hair on his chin which looked like an attempt at a beard.
    â€œSorry, I’m totally broke,” said Jaylin. “Why don’t you ask Mom?”
    â€œI don’t know where she is.”
    â€œThat’s Mark, whom I have the misfortune to be related to,” Jaylin said to Clare, and to him, she added, “Guess you’ll have to hit up Dad, then.”
    â€œThe dragon’s in his lair,” said Mark and he disappeared from the doorway.
    Jaylin sucked the last bit of ice cream off her spoon and smiled at Clare. “My Dad’s not really a dragon,” she said. “He’s just a temperamental writer who snaps at his poor offspring when he’s having trouble coming up with ideas.”
    â€œMy stepfather is a writer, too,” said Clare.
    â€œWhat does he write?”
    â€œHe’s working on a novel. But he’s published a lot of short stories.” Clare pictured the two literary magazines Peter had been so proud of, and the onlinemagazine. “A lot” wasn’t actually exactly accurate, but it sounded much better than “a few.”
    â€œDad writes crime thrillers,” said Jaylin. “He writes the novel. And then the book becomes a best seller, so he writes the screenplay; then it gets made into a movie. Have you heard of
The Breaking Point
?”
    Clare shook her