Chapters · 6 / 9
A coastal storm watch was already in effect, but the forecast still could not tell us when the worst surge might reach Gull Point. That was what Tessa Ward told me when I asked how much time we had. The storm could turn north, lose strength, or arrive after the highest tide. None of those possibilities changed the fact that the east wing had unresolved structural damage. We needed to plan as though the water might reach the red mark, because a plan made after it did would be too late.
I asked her whether we should move the children.
"Yes," she said without hesitation. "You don’t need to wait for proof of an imminent collapse to stop using a questionable building."
By noon Clara had packed the boys’ clothes, favorite books, and Ben’s wooden seal. Grace arranged a short-term rental on higher ground, fifteen miles inland, where we could stay while inspectors assessed the estate. Several employees accepted paid time away from the property. The remaining staff were helping Hector secure movable items and close rooms under his direction. Nobody was being asked to choose between wages and their safety.
Beatrice watched the preparations from the landing. She had said almost nothing since I canceled the developer’s site visits. In her silence I could feel the argument she wasn’t making: that a Mercer should never be seen abandoning Gull Point.
"You’re leaving the house to the weather?" she finally asked.
"We’re taking the boys somewhere safe."
"Rose wouldn’t have wanted you to run."
I set Ben’s overnight bag on the floor. "Don’t tell me what my wife would have wanted to win an argument."
She recoiled, and a younger version of me wanted to apologize. The urge passed.
Clara helped Theo into his jacket. He kept trying to put both arms through one sleeve. Ben followed her, carrying a plush whale almost as large as his chest. They didn’t understand storms or engineering reports. They understood that the adults were packing and that routines were changing. Clara knelt to explain in words they could use: we were going to sleep in a new house for a few nights, Daddy was coming, and their familiar blankets were coming too.
Theo looked at me. "Daddy come?"
"Daddy comes," I said. "I’m coming with you."
He nodded as though I had signed the most important contract of my life.
Before leaving, I took one last walk through the ground-floor rooms with Hector. The public sitting room still held Rose’s photographs, and the great stone fireplace was cold. A brass lantern hung near the front stairs. Rose had bought it from a retired lobsterman and fitted it with a small electric light for the annual harbor benefit. For years it had been a centerpiece of the event. Since she died, Beatrice had kept it switched off, saying sentimental displays would make the house look like a memorial.
I had agreed. Anything that drew attention to Rose drew attention to how little courage I had shown while she was dying.
I lifted the lantern from its hook and brushed dust from the glass. A paper tag was attached to the handle with faded blue string. I recognized Rose’s handwriting: For the children who haven’t learned to swim yet.
Inside the lantern was a folded program from the last fundraiser Rose attended. The cover showed local children standing on the beach, bundled in bright towels. The back listed a fund she helped establish for swimming lessons and life jackets. Several names were underlined, with instructions about whom to contact when the program reopened in spring.
It wasn’t a secret confession. It was something better: proof that while I remembered a woman fading inside a hospital room, Rose had been making plans for a future she was no longer sure she’d see.
I carried the lantern to the car.
At the rental house, the boys explored with the suspicion and excitement of small animals. It was a plain cedar place with a narrow porch and a view of pines instead of open water. Theo discovered a squeaky closet door. Ben liked the uneven stones in the fireplace surround. Clara unpacked their books while I arranged blankets on the floor. For once, I knew exactly where the pajamas were.
At dinner I burned a grilled cheese sandwich and offered its less-charred half to Clara. She laughed, but accepted it. The boys got yogurt, fruit, and slices of bread, which they seemed to regard as a feast. The kitchen lacked our household’s polished efficiency. Yet there was no bell, and nobody told Theo to stop making noise when he banged a spoon against his cup.
After the boys went to sleep, Clara sat with me on the porch while rain began tapping the roof. She wanted to discuss her future at Gull Point. She had put off a childcare certification course twice because Beatrice refused to give her predictable hours. She was also tired of living where she worked. Even without the recent events, she had been thinking about moving into her own apartment.
My first instinct was selfish. I imagined how difficult it would be if she left. Then I thought about the way the twins reached for her when they were afraid, and how much she had given up to remain available.
"You should take the course," I told her. "And you shouldn’t have to ask me for permission to have a life."
"I’d rather make the decision after everything settles," she said. "Not as a reward for telling you the truth."
"Then we’ll handle your employment through Grace and an adviser of your choosing. No conditions tied to staying."
She regarded me for a long moment. "That would help."
It was the closest thing to trust she had offered me since I came home.
Grace called later with news about the repair accounts. Priya had confirmed that Beatrice managed Breakwater House Management, the company receiving a portion of the repair funds. Some of those transfers had covered unpaid property taxes and operating expenses. Others had gone toward debts associated with an event business Beatrice had started outside the Mercer estate. Priya was still tracing the final amounts, and Grace emphasized that we needed to distinguish improper accounting from any criminal conduct.
"Has Beatrice seen the records?" I asked.
"She’s been asked to preserve all relevant material and to direct her response through counsel."
I looked at the dark yard beyond the porch. For years I had thought of Beatrice’s authority as a kind of kindness. She had carried responsibilities I couldn’t bear. Now I saw the other side: no one had been able to challenge her because I had given her every reason to believe I’d never ask a question.
The following morning I took Theo and Ben to a nearby park. A local father sat on a bench struggling to coax a toddler into a stroller. We exchanged the exhausted look of men confronting negotiations more difficult than anything at work. Theo climbed three steps up a small slide, decided the height was too much, and backed down into my arms. Ben stayed beside me, carefully collecting smooth pebbles. I was beginning to recognize how different they were. They weren’t a pair of matching children. They were two people who would spend their lives teaching me who they had become.
On our return, Clara had arranged a video call with Dr. Santos. The doctor said the move could temporarily unsettle the boys but urged us not to change their routines again out of impatience. She also told us the word "Mama" might continue for a while. It was a label the boys associated with comfort. We could tell them stories about Rose, use Clara’s name gently, and allow their understanding to grow without forcing a choice.
That evening Theo carried the lantern program to me. He had pulled it from my briefcase, where I had tucked it alongside Grace’s documents. One of the photographs showed Rose standing beside a little boy holding a life jacket. Theo put his finger on her face.
"Mama Rose," he said.
I swallowed and told him how his mother used to laugh when the wind blew her hair into her mouth. He wasn’t old enough to understand the story, but he listened to the sound of my voice. Ben crawled onto my other knee, bringing the wooden seal along. When I finished, they sat with me long enough for the house to go quiet around us.
The call from Hector came at nine.
He had been closing the lower offices when he noticed Beatrice’s car at the estate. She had told everyone she was visiting a friend in town. Instead, he said, she had entered the locked boathouse carrying a hard-sided case. When he asked what she was doing, she told him he was dismissed from his duties and ordered him to leave the grounds.
"I didn’t leave," Hector said. "I called you. The tide is rising faster than the last forecast suggested, and there’s water coming up through the lower service drain."
I told him to stay away from the boathouse and call emergency services if anyone was in danger. Then I called Tessa and Grace, in that order.
A moment later Hector sent a photograph. The red mark beneath the east stair was wet.
And Beatrice was still somewhere below the terrace.
