Daniel bent, picked up a leather folder from one of the patio chairs, and slapped it lightly against his palm like it contained authority. “Claire and I have been managing the property. Your parents are getting older. The upkeep, the taxes, the liability—it’s too much. We decided to rent it out short-term. It’s more practical.”
He said practical the way men like Daniel always do, like the word itself should shut down emotion, loyalty, history, decency, and any other nuisance preventing profit.
“You decided,” I said.
Claire finally spoke, but her voice had that thin defensive quality I remembered from childhood, the voice she used when she knew she was on bad ground and hoped volume or indignation might replace certainty.
“Ethan, calm down. You’re overreacting.”
I stared at her.
Behind me, the waves kept breaking against the rocks. The whole coast went right on existing in that cold expensive beauty that had once felt like the answer to something tender in our family. The sight of it made me angrier.
“Overreacting?” I said. “Mom is crying, Dad was just locked out of his own house, and you think this is nothing?”
Daniel let the keys dangle again. “I’m protecting the asset.”
That word did it.
