The tides that lie 2

Chapter 25. Chelsea still smiling after Vicky's partying line. Chelsea heard her name. It was tadpole yelling from down the beach.

Despite the sandy terrain, he moved quickly confidently on his prosthetic. Faithful lucky trail behind. "I didn't notice you out there," she said as he caught up. Die focused on anything but the water. "And where were you hiding, fella?" She spotted the dog. His brown eyes were as good as any tonic. Soothing piercing sadness left behind by Fred's passing.

"This old boy is too clever in the weather. He prefers the shade on the viewing platform. As you can see, his job is keeping my land leg safe and dry while I'm surfing." Had not indicated the prosthetic leg strapped to the dog's bright orange vest. "A big old wuss, but one I can't do without."

"Your land leg?" he queried. "As opposed to the wood prosthetic? Had wrapped his knuckles just below his knee years ago. These babies were mostly metal and wood, not designed for water. With no option, amputees like me who need flexibility for surfing, I crafted my own. Took several prototypes and more wipe outs, but we did it."

"When was the idea, man?" he suggested. "The lightweight carbon fiber and the flip-off our foot? We persevered and voila. Where there's a will, there's a way. My dad would say." His name was William. Kelsey explained to him, nothing seemed impossible. He told me to reach for the horizon because if I didn't, I'd never get there. And he'd say, 'You can go anywhere and do anything, girl.'"

Waiting until the father's voice faded, said, "He told me one day, 'When I'm ready to one more, I'll understand about reaching for the horizon.'"

"Your dad sounds special."

"Thanks," she beamed. When was the last time anyone spoke highly of her father? For years, she fought against the tide of her family's indifference. Even Delg despised Chelsea's constant husband/father comparisons.

"Speaking of dads," she said, preparing to fess up. "I might have wanted to tell Tally's dad fishing and called him crazy."

"Did you see him? Tal's father fishing? Not likely. He's up in Ocean Sands. His beach stays well and truly over years ago. Whoever you spoke to, it wasn't him. Could have been Squid getting in an early session. Al reckons he's been stressed and he fishes when he's worried."

"You mind if we sit, Chelsea? I need to get out of this thing." Without delay, Tad dropped to one knee and twisted his body, kind of flipped onto his bottom. Chelsea sat too. Y should grow the manifest by desire to hug hug him for saying kind things about her dad. A need to learn more about that is pool and a ripple of attraction caressed Chelsea. How strangely seductive to be so emotionally comfortable and so close physically for a man who wasn't her husband. A guy impresses peeling his wetsuit down to his waist, no less. P's relationship with the surf, understanding how the sea and the sand were part of his makeup, was not similar to William Scott's. All the comparisons she could make and likely shed more similarities with him than Dale. But other explanation was there for the connection she felt at that moment. Chelsea was the youthful version of herself when life with Dow had been flat out fantastic. Sitting on the beach of the man effectively living the life her dad would have loved, had Chelsea blissfully aware of both his physicality and the pokery of those of fun family holidays. Warm air, relent of coconut woodwax, a wine tropic, and suncooked salt-laden hair. That's it. That's the connection. Tadpole smelled like home.

Oblivious to her musings, the freethinking, easy-talking Larkin with mischievous smirk continued chatting about his travels, his passions, and his life as a boy in Sandbar. Chelsea could relate to the love and respect he had for the woman who raised him, teaching him the same way Chelsea standard guided her. But T's recovery story brought perspective to Chelsea's problems. Tadpole, it seemed, had suffered more than most and lost more than most. Yet, he used positivity about getting up and getting on with life. "I'll be one shaky step at a time. My greatest achievement still today is getting into and out of a wet suit."

"You're pretty amazing."

"Nah, I'm a bloke as a share of stumbles, but keeps moving. But you can't do if you're holding on to all the wrong things, even when it hurts like hell at the start. Letting go of bad habits and cutting those anger lines tying you to what used to be is the key to finding your happy."

That Chelsea might find an element of happy living sitting on a beach beside a man who was not her husband and whose nearness there sport a teens touch of that tummy-tingling sensation due to accuse Dale of wanting was both inconceivable and unnerving. Was Chelsea only now appreciating she was at the point in her life? A moment of awakening that her dad had said she'd understand when she was older. Was little Chelsea Scott ready to more and let go in search of the horizon?

"Chelsea, hold."

"What are you doing?"

"Preparing to leave and cover her uneasiness with a wise crack about him using her as windbreak." Tat's hand on a knee pinned Chelsea to the spot. When did she move so close? Their whole side, shoulders, arms, and thighs touched.

"You look miles away."

Mad was saying, "Where were you?"

"Um, the horizon." The nonsense reply for her ridiculous reaction to this man. "I should go the horizon." His face lit up, his laugh easy. "That's a long way."

Feeling her cheeks readen, and not from too much sun, Chelsea shifted his stretch legs out in front, arms behind to hold her back straight. "I've already come a long way, Tad. I'm sitting on sand within of the water. A massive achievement. Beach today, tomorrow the ocean."

"No way," Chelsea replied. "Some things I'll never do."

"20 years ago, Medico told me I'd never walk the beach again, much less ride a wave. Mentally, I was prepared to try. Physically, I needed a prosthetic that wouldn't drown me on my first wipe out, and there'll be plenty of those. Regaining balance after an amputation takes perseverance and good upper body strength, especially here in the core."

"You have that," Kelsey said, watching his hand trace a six-pack of abs. His grin said he noticed. "I um about your water leg design. Dad was a bit of an inventor, a real ideas man with not enough weekends and nights to see them all come to fruition. Mom also hated me, though the messy ideas stayed in his head. She complained he never tied up after himself or had the commitment to see things through to the end. But I believe, given time, no long commute, no wife and kids taking up his weekends. He might have done more. Genius is one part inspiration, and now you know the same perspiration, but all credit goes to my mate Squid."

"If he penned his design way back, he'd likely be worth a swillion."

"You and your nicknames," Elsie laughed. "If Tapp is not intriguing enough, why would anyone choose Squid for a name?"

"Well, while a local Tapple would hardly question another man's moniker, I recall Busy Superman's business gathering when Squid slot on my shoulder, clamoring about being the chameleon of the sea. The supreme marine master disguises the Book of Crow, able to disappear before your very eyes. Abracadabra, and he did disappear that night. Right outside to throw up, I suspect. By night's end, we'd all given ourselves stupid names. Let me think. As well as Squid, Dave and his son, Barry, chose Marlin and Nemo. Crazy guys. I chose Flipper. The kids at school me that in first grade when they saw my feet." Tad waggled his slightly webbed toes. "Not only was I born of these slippers, but experts say dolphins are supremely intelligent, adorable, and amazing swimmers."

"Might have to agree," he said with a wink.

"Oh, your ocean element, B, Chelsea. The seahorse, of course. Serene, enigmatic, and as adorable as any dolphin, also capable of changing its appearances to fit in with the environment. And I tend to blend in."

"Not agree with the blending in bit," had said, "and you failed to mention seahorses stubborn buggers."

"Says who?" Bely demanded. "There's anyone who knows how fiercely those gorgeous dogs can grip seas anchor them in turbulent waters. No budging a seahorse if they're something they're desperate to hold on to."

"Like a house," Belie almost laughed out loud. "Sounds about right."

As shifted cautious, "I'm very glad I ran into you this morning, Chelsea. To be honest, I was worried about last night."

"Worried? That's lovely of you. But do you worry about all your female renders?"

Tad scratched his head comically. "Huh? According to Elmy, I'm like all the lovely ladies who stay in Tatty's van."

"Ah, those ladies. Siesta regulars for the last few years. Jane and Vanessa and their two fluffy fur kids. They'd be here now if Jane, not her real name, wasn't filming in London. They come here to be not so famous in a place where flying under the radar is super easy. Lack of connectivity helps. There was a whisper a while back about erecting a mobile phone tower in the wetlands to the north until Squid made a fuss. Well, Talia made a fuss on his behalf. She's a diplomat of the family. Squid's like tapware. The blood runs hot and cold."

"Speaking of cold, tap, you'll lift a tiny blue. You're freezing like scales out of fish. Goosebumps are surface armor."

"I'll be warm soon. Not likely. The sun was still low in the eastern sky. The wind stiffening. Sorry, that sounded very half last empty of me. I'm not usually such poor company." She added, feeling a need to explain. "Ordinarily, I'd be home this time of year and be more than by myself because my sister and my mother have never understood my need to remember dad's anniversary. We often share the same wounds but men in different ways. The fact remains, whatever we lose, a leg or a life. Had to sump. If it mattered to us, we grieve the loss. Just a bloody shame crush my pretty foot. Because this one made me of every joke at school, but the girls are green web feed were a dealbreaker and a turnoff."

"Are you kidding?" By chled. "I wish for flippers and a tale. Quite the opposite of my all-time favorite storybook growing up. The Little Mermaid. I wasn't much of a reader. My picture books were printed in National Geographic magazines. Later in life, I enjoy travel books. While these days, armchair trips are my preference. And by armchair, I mean by the fire in the camp kitchen with travel tips told by actual travelers. Did I mention I'm a great listener?" He grinned. "I'm also a Disney expert. I haven't seen The Little Mermaid, but I'm an expert in Frozen. I do a mean rendition of Let It Go."

"Let it go. Let it go."

"Stop. Please don't," Chelsea said a little too quickly. Debb chuckled. "Yes, but not for the reason you're thinking." She explained how the Frozen storyline was about a strange sisters who lose their way and need to heal. And while I have nothing against Disney's Ariel as a mermaid, I prefer the original Hans Christian classic. A story more complex, if slightly bizarre, about a mermaid wanting legs. Now that's a plot line I can relate to."

"Do tell." Pat seemed genuinely keen to hear. His body almost mirroring Chelsea's. Her legs drawn to her chest. Jin resting on knees. Eyes squinting somewhere towards a single cloud thick enough to conceal what would otherwise be a brilliant ball of warming yellow suns to hovering close to the horizon. "There's also a sister thread in the story. They care enough to sacrifice their beautiful hair to save one love struggling little sister. But in the end, the little mermaid must stab the prince and let blood drip onto her feet. Only then can she return to the ocean."

Tad jerks upright. "Are you kidding? The chick kills a prince."

"No. She saves the prince by choosing to return to the ocean where her body dissolves, becomes seafoam."

"Seriously? Then a bueyed Tad. Sheesh. Give me a dizzy ending any day. Preferably one about a hot-looking chick who saved the day by kissing the tadpole and turning him into the handsomes dude he never was."

"How about it?" Chelsea joked back, avoiding Pat's pocket lips and shoving her shoulder so hard she knocked off balance. "Oh, I'm sorry. Served me right," he said, accepting the hyd she extended. "I guess that's a definite dealbreaker."

"Got a bit carried away with the story."

"Yes, besides," Chelsea said with quick to recover. "The looking chick kisses a frog, not a tadpole, and the only prince I ever wanted to save was my father. But that is Paul. You also remind me of dad. I can't quite put it into words."

"Allow me," Dad said, princely, witty, and devilishly handsome. "More like Laren and mad about the beach like I was until my phobia set in. But look at me now, sitting here safe and calm. It's miraculous. You're good therapy. The waves are my go-to place. Dad said after a few minutes, nothing was going to keep me out of the water. I used to be the same, but hearing people constantly say dad went doing something he loved was enough to make a 12-year-old afraid to love the ocean. Not a tone of the water since."

"No. As a child, I blamed the king tie for taking him. Later I blamed myself, but the idea of enjoying the things we've done together felt wrong without him. The beach and all the represented soon became too powerful a reminder."

"Naturally, you were afraid," Tad said. "Every swimmer and surfing the world remains the mercy of the ocean with a change of weather or a moment of complacency changing the odds in a split second. Often it's simply bad luck or good luck in the case of McFenn's recent sharp punching encounter. Real lucky."

At the sound of his name, the dog's head shot up, eyes alert to the next command. Pad pated him and the dog relaxed again. "But you can bet on Fanny not quitting the boards forever. As tragic as my accident was, I sure as never considered giving away what I loved. Better that I let go over the self-lame, which is the most toxic and life-threatening of ailments."

"How do you mean?" Chelsea asked.

"Loing a leg sucked big time, but I could still learn to walk," he explained. "Self-lame, on the other hand, cripples us before we can even begin to move forward. A giant bloody boulder crushed my leg. Nothing about the moment in time was my fault. It was a clear-cut case of the wrong place at the worst possible time."

Bely hugged her dad's card to get around her knees. "Nobody said I was to blame, not to my face. The coroner ruled death by misadventure, likely due to a medical event. A heart attack was possible, but the finding never made sense to me. Dad had the biggest heart of anyone I knew, and my recollections are of a tall, strong man in his mid-30s, even though he lived out west, no beach. He kept fit, rode a bike every weekend, and stayed active with projects at home. As far as I knew, there was nothing he couldn't do except save himself that day."

"Why?" she asked, he was forming. "He grew up on the beach, became a nipper, a lifesaver, a local surfing star. He loved fishing and was doing what he done hundreds of times, and on a day like any other, except for the top-secret fishing spot," she silently reminded herself.

"Maybe, Belie. It was a case of extraordinary events on an otherwise ordinary day," Tadpal offered. "No one was to blame for what happened that February 1938. No one even considered the possibility."

Busy knew of the Black Sabbath of Victoria a few years ago, but not a black Sunday. She asked, "What about Monday?"

"It was a perfect summer beach day," Tad explained. "Approximately 35,000 people were looking for some rest from the heat. My granddad was partway through his first lifeguard shift as a recruit and the sea suddenly changed. He told me it was a peculiar surf with a tremendous undertow. When the tide dropped and an unusually large sandbar formed, which encouraged beachgoers to venture a long wayshore while still only way steep, according to Gramps, after 3 p.m., an eerie stillness fell over the beach. The ocean calmed, oddly silent. Then three ways surged in rap succession, heading high up on the beach. The combined power of all three receding waves created a strong backwash, wiping away the sandbank and dumping hundreds of men, women, and children playing there into deep water. They were knocked off their feet and dragged out to sea."

"And your grandfather witnessed this?"

Tapel nodded. "Whether a fluke or fate, Bondai Beach was mid-surf carnival, which put 70 good swimmers in the vicinity. Belman mobilized on mission to rescue those further south, but dozens of desperate men grabbed the lines. The weight of them dragging the bin under. That's when Grant has mates started calling Belman back in while the powerful whip-like currents dragged others out of sea. There's never been such catastrophic beach emergency. One minute at the sea crowd was drying people. The next Graham said the beach resembled a battleground. Bodies everywhere needed resuscitating, but so few people knew CBR. People died?" She asked.

Tad nodded. "Five lives lost. Five from hundreds and all men. Dong swimmers too. Frank is often no match for the force of a powerful sea or the unpredictable nature of waves."

The pair sat in silent remembrance, repeatedly drawing the infinity symbol in the sand by her foot. "Dad made sure and I understood the sea's power."

"Your sister's name is Ila."

"Yeah, she's four years older. We were close once. She used to care."

"Used to?" queried. "Not the type of sacrifice of her beautiful hair." Chelsea have to laugh. "My sister could distant after we lost dad. While mom seemed to lose interest in everything, including me. I understood. I blamed myself. So to reason they blame me too. At night I would beg the evil witches to return dad. But the only thing that he sent back was his spray jacket found wash onto a beach to the south."

Pat nodded. "Even with today's technology, ties and currents make the ocean a massive moving search ground. But you know what, Joles?" When he reached down and slipped his hand under hers, she held her fingers and held on tight. "While the sea will usually give up secrets, often it will keep the extra special things like dads."

"You're so lovely, Tad. Thank you. It's difficult being back here. I can hardly look at the rocky point and not picture him there."

"Our rocky point to the north," he look towards the headland, then to Chelsea mouth the gape. "Why choose here for yourself in post therapy? Talk about rubbing salt into a wound. I hope to bring about some sort of closure. I've let the tragedy define me. It still rules my life and you chose to come alone."

"Chose? Not exactly." Chelsea freed her hand, point out the sun line on her wing finger. "Ah, gotcha," said nodding. "I should have guessed you were married when I first clamped eyes on you. Probably should have checked before trying the kissing thing. Must have been all that talk of frog princess and happy endings."

Chelsea chuckled. "I take it you're not married."

"Rice was enough for this fellow three times," Chelsea sounded more surprised than she had intended. "What can I say? I make poor decisions. Officially, it's only one marriage. One was the live-in sin kind to which mother said I'd ru the day. As usual, prudence was right. Unfortunately, I was naive enough to think a woman would love me without a piece of paper. Turns out by not making our union legal, I made it too easy for her to walk. Number three was interesting," Dad continued. "There's no piece of paper strong enough to the whole back love meant to be. Elena left me for my best mate. G and senior constable Kio both of New South Wal squad. Final maring as soon as it's legal. Lucky he will be the ring bearer. Oh, I was right, but not as colorful as my manual response to the announcement. Of course, I gave them my blessing, but mutual friends found social occasions with the three of us uncomfortable, so I got right away."

"You said three relationships," she prompted.

"Ah, yes, Kim," he said his mean changing no more. "Kim died after a cave collapsed around her." A beat of silence followed. "One minute we're on the beach and getting all hot and heavy, diverging her into the cave away from crying eyes. We fell into each other giggling like kids and had an almighty cracking noise overhead. Next, we're both under rubble. I was pinned by the leg but close enough to hold a hand as she slowly passed on. I've never stopped wishing it was me who died that day. And that came to raise our girl."

"You had a child?"

"Have?" He nodded. "At the time, I knew little about babies except how to make one. Barely conscious after surgery. Doctors told me they successfully performed an emergency cesarian. Little Elise clearly got a never-say-die attitude from old man." The Joker's mask cracked and tears flooded attached cheeks. "While I eventually forgave myself, Him's parents did not. And with all good legs between them, the authorities determined an infant was better off than the care of her grandparents. I couldn't dispute the decision. I could barely look after myself after the amputation."

"Where is Elise now?" Dussy asked.

"Married with a daughter, Blur. The grandparents live in a big house a few towns north, which is partly why I settled back here. When Elise comes off from Sydney, which is often, she makes sure I get quality time with little Flur. I only drop ocean sands the day before Lu and breaks my heart each time. Those girls are my everything and they keep me on my toes. Toes neither Elise nor Flur inherited from me. God can be kind." Dad's shoulders seemed to relax. "And that, Chelsea, is why I see a clear relationships. Without you for company today, Lucky and I would be sitting here alone. So come on, your turn," he said.

"My turn. What? Tell me why you can't be alone. You're married. Where is the lucky bloke?"

"For 28 years, Dale was right beside me, raising our family. For the last few months, birth," she quipped. "We met high school and clicked. Both of us had lost parents in tragic circumstances. D was an orphan when the foster system was a mess, and my mom walked away a few years after we lost Dad. With Dale and I both desperate to belong, it was natural we connect."

"The mother walked away?" Dad asked.

Chelsea nodded. "The day she dragged me kicking and screaming to the school swimming carnival. I remember making a grab everything. The front door, the letter box, the light pole on the street, the car door, all the way to the pool, I screamed and yelled stuff."

"What sort of stuff?" he asked.

"I guess this all makes a mother not love her daughter because she dragged me out of the car and said, 'I can't live like this.' She left me at the pool with my sister totally unreliable. Aunt Rita came and found me in the change room where I spent the entire day bending off my sports teacher who thought getting in the water was the best therapy. Auntie Rita, not my real auntie, and to back to Sydney. While I loved Rita, I hated her house with his ocean views. But beggars come chooses, right? Ila was old enough to come and go as she pleased, but I was enrolled in a new school where I met Dale. We fell in love, we fell pregnant, and I was determined to be a better mother than Wendy."

"And I'm sure you are," Dad said. "Not if you would ask my daughter, Gabby. Apparently, I don't treat her like a grown-up. While my sons grow up far too fast, I swear those boys were only out of my womb for a matter of weeks before they were hanging girls. As for my husband, life has become all about moving forward." Kelsey's fingers curled into air quotes. "He's seeing out his midlife crisis in Perth. Oh, I guess that means we're separated."

There was something liberating about saying the words aloud to a stranger. But should she have said "sort of separated"? What did that make her sound pathetic and more indecisive than she already was?

And on that note, Ky announced, "As lovely as Ching is, you officially look frozen. The sun is being contrary, much like my sister these days, and I need to finish my magic jar."

"Your what jar?"

Chelsea presented the glass container before scooping up sand to create a layer over the base. Then screwing the lid tight, she said, "I'm collecting morning magic."

"Magic, e, and here's me thinking it's a pickle jar left behind by some [ __ ] with the munchies. There we argue all depends on how you look at it. Capturing the morning's match in the jar was one of his idiosyncrasies. My father have you. Jars are idiosyncrasies. Both much monster grin. Decorated jars popped up all over the place at home. Either filled with sea glass or broken shells or whatever the tie left behind. One day after making the mistake of opening the jar and spilling the layers of colored sand and shell over his desk at home, he sat me down and said, 'Some things you mess with can never go back the way they were. When the magic is gone, misfix, you need to start over and build a new jar.' So the next morning, while still dark, Dad woke me, carried me in my pajamas to the car, and we arrived at the beach in time to capture the first rays of sun. That's the magic bit. And I've clung to the memory of that morning. Just him, me, and the sea and capturing morning magic in jars."

Closing her eyes to stand the surge of new tears for an old memory. At that moment, I had dowled to myself and n sorry. She dabbed her cheeks with card sleeve that had dried too many tears over the years. By the afternoon, he asked me to write gift tags, which is how tied your jars with fine. The words were, "If I can't be with the sea, let the sea be with me." And we ride our bikes to pen with train station and let the jars like random gifts for warning commuters to find.

"For your sake, Chelsea, dad said, I hope the sandbar stay does what you needed to do. Being here works for me, but our experiences are not at all similar."

"Maybe not the aftermath," she said. "But you and I both carry guilt. I questioned my actions that day. Still do. And while there's a little e pray love in my in my sandbar pilgrimage, I remain hopeful of a magic curl as easy as making one of these jars."

"Wanting to be the sea close makes him sound like my kind of guy." Chelsea nodded. "The more time I spend with you, the more similarities I see. I'm certain if he was still with us, he'd be at the beach every second and recording himself with a GoPro, too." She nodded at the compact unit mounted on Tad's board. "I go to my YouTube channel, motivate kids to give surfing a crack," he explained. "I share accessibility tips and hold annual sandbar accessibility school right here."

"There you go. Josie slapped her eye. It's exactly the sort of project dad would got stuck into. He was the best teacher and he loved nature. He wasn't made for silly life."

When a bird landed briefly on the sand in front of them before flying off again, just records something Talia said about her deceased mother. "I do hope dad is a bird or a fish and not tied to one place. I'm thinking your dad is up there right now with good old prudence. Dad wrapped around her shoulders, squeezing her close while he's wondering what he can do to make his smile. Mom is giving me a big nudge." He kept his ear towards heaven. "What should you say, Mom?"

"Oh, R. Mom reckons I should shut the hell up, make coffee, and find some happy biscuits. Reckon I should do what I'm for once."

"I thought you were going to help today," Dy said. "Let me think." He tapped a finger to his chin. "We're holding with space invader. A man with no sense of personal space. Or coffee with you. Come on, Lucky. Time to help me out, mate."

Chapter 26. Chelsea sticking under the bed prayer flags and motion for Chelsea to do the same. Chad opened the caravan door, directing her inside. "Head on in. Make yourself comfy. I need a second out here to make myself respectable. Oh, sorry about those toys." By the time Chelsea had collected and repacked the colorful pencils, bobs a game of snakes and ladders, and put Barbie with a camp of van accessories at the far end of one dinette seat, Dad was hopping up into his caravan. Dressed in navy work shorts, his wine shirt open, he set about making coffee by adding coffee grounds to a stove top espresso pot, setting two mugs, and popping the lid off a biscuit tin.

"Happy honey dumbbells, happy hundreds and thousands, or happy honeycomb crunch." Else grinned. "Is choosing one of each considered a decision?"

"No, but you're allowed. Therefore, favorites. Here's a picture of my little honey dumble girl." He said the phone with his photo app opened towards Chelsea. "Scroll away," he added before returning to his coffee duties.

"Adorable," she said of the picture showing a pretty dark girl.

"I guess she would be. Yeah, thanks after a pop. How often do you get to see yours?" He asked, delivering both black coffee to the table with the cart of milk from the fridge.

"I've learned her a few times, short visits with Gabby and Raw managing for the moment, but we're working on it. Oops, swiped too far. Sorry." She touched the phone back, but not without praising the wild-looking woman in the black and white photo as both attractive and oven guard.

"Ah, prudence in her prime." Tatw hands right before moving through more screenshots, stopping her second picture. "I was trolling through old photo albums and files fast to find information on bunk headland for the geek engineer when I realized how much history was sitting in boxes. Now I'm creating a digital memory album of one diary when under prudence's rule so Phil can know her great granny for the engineers. I copied the original letters and journals which prudence detailed among other things. The warriors battle with council over the coastal erosion in particular the headland and cave formations."

"Too late for me, but he opened a cupboard above the dinette. This is the file I think." The big boarding scrapple landed with a third on the table. Flipping the cover, he scattered the loose newspaper clippings aside. One headline read "Warriors Win Samson and Goliath Battle."

"May I?" Elsie asked her hand poised of images depicting the lazy evolution of the sandbar campground and coastline. Landscapes, crowded beaches, black and white images showing hyunky surfer boys standing alongside taller boards stabbed into the sand. Decades of pictures and news articles all featuring the establishment and growth of oneari intentional community changed to new stories about other happenings including safety concerns for beachgoers prohibiting access to the rock shell from sandbar beach and access to bunker headland.

As Chelsea's page turning quickened, do you have expected to see her father's face among the headlines? "Daughter makes wrong decision. Fisherman lost." And this ring binder pants upside Chelsea to thumb through the scores of plastic sleeves. "Is the dossier regarding the headland? Photos of El's bunk mur will be in here somewhere. Wait." Chelsea hands at the table. "That picture." She flicked back two sleeves.

"What is this chapel?"

"Armament and gunface remnant from World War II," he replied, non lust. "Bunker headland was important to our nation's defense. Ironically, it was the tunnels dug between bunkers that all times record the 1970 landslip. Rud's goal was to keep the government of the day into shoring up and safeguarding the headland and adjoining rock platform. A spool since including the northern king formations as kept the reserves walking trails in the adjoining coastal scrub area to the north limits. Only recently did the government near our 23 million to make safe and reopen the headland and bending the geotech reports. They promised a historical walking trail show the important role the area played in defending coastline. Eventually, the public will have access all the way down to Heartbreak Beach."

"Heartbreak Beach?" Tan nodded and turned the page to point at another article. "An unfortunate name for the section of coastline touted to be the most pristine coastal wetland in the state. To have something so picturesque and tranquil resist along remnants of a war make the place more special, don't you think?"

Disagreement sat on the tip of Chelsea's tongue, but she was only half listening. A gaze glued to the giant structure in the photo she held tight. "At least no development in no form access road as meant to no free load of campers." That continued a local cultural burn sometime back found evidence of an entrance squatter deep in the scrub. The campsite was decades old and the shack demolished after which Talia's dad began monitoring the area. They have a bird's eye view from the shop. Squid took over the task 10 years ago doing banual patrols on behalf of Wendar's landare committee.

"What does this round object look like to you?" She asked, pointing to the picture still in her hand.

"You mean from what it actually is?"

"A big old rusty water gun placement."

"Yes, yes," she said impatiently. "Okay, well," pondered. "It's big, round, and with a chunky length of chain fixed to the center." He sat back, hands copying his mug. "I'd say it looks like a giant plug in the ground just asking to be pulled."

"Exactly. Like in my recurring nightmare when I'm drowning and everyone's yelling at me, pull the plug. Why would I have such a dream?"

"A therapist told me nightmares coping mechanism," Tad said. "By changing the narrative and removing the sister elements, we lessen the hurt and we recover in a way. Well, I never got over what happened, even though mom and Ila insisted I forget and move on."

"How did your sister cope?" Dad had asked.

"Oh, Ila discovered more novel ways to numb the pain. My sister self-harmed, which I only found out when moms the double while talking on the phone to Rita. Here I was thinking Laya and I were different when, in fact, we both coped in much the same way."

Pat stare zeroed in on Chelsea, concerned deepening the lines on his forehead. "You also intentionally hurt yourself?"

"No, I didn't mean physically." Elseie smiled, but in a nervy way given the spoken confession was a first. Was she about to admit to this sweet stranger, not even Dale you knew, acknowledging the truth of self had taken almost half a lifetime? "Every reminder of how I failed dad, every reminder of the man, the momentos and photographs, the family gatherings, the house he loved was a mental cut in my mind by holding on to so much of him. I guess you could say I've been kind of self-harming, wanting to bleed, to feel pain, to feel punished."

When Chad found Chelsea's hands fisted on her lap, the warmth, the comfort and strong fingers clasping tight. Was yet another reminder of the way her dad's hands and hugs reassured and encouraged his girls. Leaning closer, the man wait, Chelsea was unaware she cried. Then he pressed the flat of his palm where her heart banged against her ribs. "And you're holding tight to so much in here. And he reached up, clapping the side of her skull twice in here. Try letting go, Chelsea. Let it go. Let it go," he sang tunelessly. "But if you won't sing, then talk. I'm a good listener, remember?"

He was encouraged by the genuiness of his offer. "Problem, I'm no longer certain if it's possible to verbalize what happened that day with any accuracy. Three decades ago, she'd sat and talked to the police woman. Today, she recalled nothing of the conversation. Only the officer smell in the sung where she'd ask questions like no on play school. Remembering the day was too painful, and remembering him wasn't appreciated by my family. As for my nightmares, they bear no resemblance to reality. The short version is Elsie said one different decision that day and like sliding doors. Dad might have been here today. He'd hate the harboring guilt."

"Chelsea, take a deep breath. Think," suggested. "You remember the police woman by a sentent voice, right?" When Chelsea nodded, he added, "Then close your eyes and go back to earlier in the day. What do you smell? See, here."

Despite Chelsea's disqu, part adventure, part horror, began flickering on the insides of closed eyelids like real on a dodgy home movie projector. Then, bam! With cinematic accuracy, Chelsea was back on that bush, tired and thirsty and complaining. That kept telling me, "We're close, Chelsea." We weren't, though, not really. I so wish we'd gone to the beach to fish like normal. Instead, I'm tracing behind, head down, disinterested and pouting. With little sunlight, the dense bush landed and overrown tracks are a continuous messy cupboard of leaves. I needles and sand that catches in my thumb straps and rubs my skin raw. Suddenly, Elsie flinched to the brightness. We're stepping out of the screen of trees and into a sunny clearing.

"It's incredible. What do you see?" That asked in a whisper, his finger repeatedly stroking back of Chelsea's hand in a hypnotic pattern.

"It's a good memory tells you're smiling. Oh, yes. It's very good. I'm on the top of the world here on the headland like being on a tall stage and facing an amphitheater of sunspeckled ocean. There's a choir seagulls walking over the sustration of windswept yokes and the wind. Wow. Nor was my hair out of the elastic band so billowing and constant. The birds overhead aren't even flapping their wings. They're hovering in close formation, reminding me of white bunting let loose at one end. It's magical, like dad promised, and I've forgotten the long trek of my hurting feet. I'm so high up in a horizon and doing what I love more than anything else in the world. Just me and my dad on an adventure."

"Until what happens next?" Dad prompted.

"I'm sad." By's shoulder slumped. "I'm so wishing I listened to mom and wore more than my swim costume under the flimsy fabric of my spray jacket. It took so long to reach the headland, and the rock platform is so far down. The escarment's steep. Now, can we reach the secret spot?"

"So, I told Dad, 'I don't want to stay here.'"

"'And her hole,'" Chelsea said, looking at him. "I I don't think I want to go there now. Not in person and not in my mind."

That slipped an arm across her shoulders. "You're okay. I'm right here." Perhaps a safe Italian total stranger. Not only would she never see the man again because she made up her mind to go home tomorrow. He wouldn't criticize or judge her. And so, feeling safe snuggled against Tad on his shoulder. Chelsea dipped into that pool of memories to detail all she remembered about that day.

Neither Tapole nor Chelsea spoke for a long while after she brought her story to a close. She did cry though. Chelsea cried the tears of a shattered guildridden 12-year-old.

"You can't blame yourself," Mad said, sitting up to massage away most likely a cramp in her shoulder from holding up for so long.

"I can't. I made stupid mistakes. It's why I kept pushing the details away. Bad mistakes aren't the same as bad decisions. No, when you're young and scared. Had I not turned my back on the water, I would have seen the wave. I could have warned him and he might not have slipped on my shell collection. Then I left him alone on the rocks injured. And I got lost in the dark. But I waited at the big plug. But Leila never did arrive with the usual warning from mom. A man found me wandering close to camp the next morning. A stranger."

"You did the right thing getting to safety. Imagine if you hadn't. Your children and grandkids exist because you were brave."

"Dad was brave," she responded. "And he was supposed to be safe. The tide wasn't meant to be high. The tide lied."

Chapter 27. Ila, "Is this brave or stupid?"

"You're about to find out," Ila muttered while peeking over the cafe's railing to scan the open air car below. He looked like every other holiday maker in the baggy pants, sandals, and a loose-fitting shirt. But she knew the person. He wore no hat, had almost no hair, and his shoulders hunched. There was no doubt in her mind. The man being out of the rusty pajero was him. With no expectations and no idea how the meeting would play out, Ila knew only that if held had no fury like a woman scorned, the revenge of her rejected daughter had to be 10 times more dangerous. Today's reunion might be long overdue, but she was under no illusions about the dilemma she was dropping in the man's lap. The only illusion play was the one William Scott had pulled off 34 years ago. With his deceit starting a domino effect, they would see the family he left behind slowly and agonizingly self-destruct. Lea had to deliberately pick a public space to meet. The Lucky Lotus, a small but busy resort an hour drive from Sandbar Beach. Double has to pick up and drop off for well-watching tours. All the comingings and goings and sliding exchanges and father and daughter could sit at the table in plain sight and among complete strangers. Sitting at the table, hands pressing down on jittery legs. Lea's gaze danced back and forth between the door and her bag with a tiny container of helpers. Today requires something to let us stay composed. Stay the course and stay long enough to say her peace and no more. Hopping her third non-alcoholic grape-flavored magnesium relaxing jube. Lea decides against Daniel waving. No way. Let the bastard search the expense of Erie and bar for her like she'd searched the endless ocean for him that day. 34 years ago.

Chapter 28. Ila, 34 years ago, 1981. With each goblet of wine, Wendy's complaints intensify. By her fourth, she's drunk with fury. "I'm so overweight. Go to the beach, find your father and sister, and tell them to get back here, fish or no fish." Lea grains of the order, even though the task is not a new one. "If he thinks I'm eating at some godforsaken hour again," mom announces to the entire caravan park. Unsure what godforsaken hour means and not game enough to ask. Lea is trying to master the art of firemaking. Dad makes it look so easy and a prepared fire will mean faster food on her plate. Ila is starving.

"Do I have to go, mom?"

"Of course you do." At least once every camping trip, Laya is required to deliver an automatum to a fish-obsessed father. Thankfully finding him is never difficult. Danbar Beach has two deep gullies. One at the southern end near the bluff and the other best for bream to the north. By the time he's along the bush track, grumbling and mumbling to hell. Any beach go already back the caravan or tent preparing food before dark. Only one lady wearing tie-dyed pants, a flowing cheesecloth pop and headband remains on the sand. A mesmerizing salutation to the setting sun momentarily distracting labor and delaying her trek to the far end of the beach. The green gully a little short of the estuary her dad's pot of gold. But when he's not at the gy, Lea wonders have crossed the estuary, forgetting about the high tide. She squints at the rocky platform now in full shadow. Seeing two distant figures and semi-dark conditions is unlikely, and shouting over the roof of an incoming tide is a waste of energy doesn't have because dad's tidiness is also depriving her of food until some godforsaken hour. Back at camp, her mom is wild with wine and anger. Setting her glasses high enough to start a cheese tracing in a pan, he serves a sandwich burn down on a plastic plate. An hour later, having slammed her body onto the double bed, mom snores echo around the tiny interior.

When sunrise brings the numbing realization that Lea's sister and father never return to the campsite, the contrite, hung over, and hysterical Wendy drives to the public telephone box outside the bait shop on the hill. He dies 0 to raise the alarm. On the beach, locals stop the dunes, staring the shoreline and scrutinizing every white cap, every low-flying bird, every sunflare on the water surface. The occasional call of "There they are! What's that?" or "I see them." Nothing more than vid imaginations. Never far away from Wendy and Ila is a young, very young police woman. A purpose and soul to reassure and to answer questions. The possibility of joining the police surface briefly distracts 16-year-old Ila. She could do the job. She loves protecting people. Constantly looking out for her little sister is proof enough. A distant shout snaps her hair around. Someone wait down the beaches waiting wildly. Being young and barefooted, Ila easily sprints along the sand to have the policeman wearing cumbersome boots and a gun belt. When she reaches the young man first, her lungs ready to burst. It's a heart that kind of detonates inside her chest. A bashup bucket buffets back and forth on the shoreline. A green bucket covered with mermaid stickers. A devastating discovery sends a disbelieving Ila back to the caravan with her mother and grateful to be costed from the premature pitting of strangers. As the afternoon sun bakes a metal roof and Wendy melts into a heat on the bed, the nice police woman's words prepare them for the worst. No. Unable to breathe, Ila breaks free of the caravan, rushing outside and falling to her knees. She's looking skyward and pleading with whoever's up there to let Chelsea come home safe. When the police woman catches up, crouching down with a protective

Arm wrapping pipe, Ila makes a final silent appeal. She's promising to protect her sister forever when the police radio creatures alive with news. Two locals have found a distressed Chelsea and are currently making their way through several hundred meters of dense scrub.

"Good news about your daughter, Miss Scott," she quickly tells mom. "Seems she tried to make her way back to camp but became disoriented in the dark. She spent the night alone in the bush."

Mona sees Chelsea straight away while Ila was forced to wait until her sister was questioned by police and heard the same wounded reply to each question. "I should have stayed."

When Wendy's immediate response was to shape more detailed answers out of Chelsea, Ila's promise to protect kicked in and she shook her mother, screaming at her to stop. My sister recovered from her physical injuries and eventually recalled more about the incident, as much as a traumatized 12-year-old could. The details often came in nightmares, later manifesting in a phobia of the ocean.

Ila, on the other hand, never forgot the moment a stranger emerged from the beach track with her little sister, knees scraped, beat bloodied, eyes wide and wet.

Chapter 29.

Ila.

Fast forwarding 34 years. What they couldn't foresee was how a promise to protect Chelsea would ultimately drive them apart. And all because William Scott had made himself disappear that night. But those memories, combined with decades of destructive anger, now negated any nervousness about seeing the man she held responsible for ruining all their lives.

"Once said, 'Lay strength and not a weakness'," was what allowed her to keep a secret all these years. Then he quoted some ancient China man, "Zoo something or other," whose various quotes adorned his walls. One saying had made its way in ink on the soft flesh of Ila's forearm. "Being deeply loved gives you strength. Loving deeply gives you courage."

But a lack of both traits stopped Ila tracking this man down, even after figuring out what her mother had always known and never shared. And despite the clues being right in front of Ila. Unsure which rereading of the piece back together letter had the penny dropped. The answer, suddenly absurdly apparent, was right there.

"I'm keeping the parcel." But yes, those words wanted Ila. How special could one parcel be? He imagined an important package, spectacularly wrapped in pretty paper. The mysterious contents clearly more precious and prized than any person. Why else would he leave his family but take it?

One day while arguing with Wendy, the irony behind the treasure mystery puzzle hit Ila. The same man who objected to his wife's material possession obsession and walked away from his family, valuing one thing: a parcel of land in a place called Wandari. Crazy still, Wari, Ila learned, was the official name for the old sandbar beach community of fishing tragic and squatters. Was it William Scott's audacity or a deliberate strategy to hide in the place where he allegedly died?

Ila eventually stopped wondering. Every so often though, she let him into her head. But the idea of tracking him down usually ended one of her infamous booze or razor blade benders. That wasn't until recently when she reached out to a friend of a friend of a friend whose grandfather used to be a mayor of a local council on the New South Wales North Coast. While a long shot, the conversation had alerted her to online articles about the Wandari warriors and their fight against development. The resulting Wari eco-community, a typical bunch of hippies living together, found it fascinating, and the defiance over the decades appealed to Ila's delinquent side.

Another tip-off letter to a retirement village, an ex-communist with a terrible case of verbal diarrhea, and gifted with incredible recall and a fondness for Skype, recalled two rock fishing accidents from the late '80s/early '90s. Maybe she could have extracted an answer from her mother years ago. Ila had wielded the power in their twisted relationship, but why about the day or the man she never wanted to remember? Once considered a good father and teacher, his only legacy was pain, but his last lesson, the hardest of all. How was it possible to love someone so much that you hated them for leaving you?

Never did imagine sitting at a table opposite the man, but there he was, walking towards her, his expression unreadable. Soon she would get the answer she wanted, deserved, and straight from the horse's mouth. Why did William Scott choose such a cruel way to walk out of their lives?

As he advanced through the cow courtyard with its maze of tables and chairs, Ila felt never before fury into actions. With a strangely steady hand, she poured water from a bottle into two glasses, repositioned the condiment tray and table decoration to one side, then deliberately positioned her handbag. Only then, as she pressed back into the chair to steel herself, arms folded to disguise the exaggerated rise and fall of her chest, did the man double-take. She caught his eye.

Blood boiling, quarters spiking to her earlier courage. Ila's body instinctively shifted into fight or flight mode. "I'll be here briefly." In her mind, there was absolutely no ambiguity and no fleeing. She was ready to fight for a life lost. Hers and her sister's.

"Look at you." He sat in the opposite chair.

"This is so—" Stop right there," Ila interrupted. "Let's skip the big reunion bit. We're way beyond that crap."

His face switched into a smirk. "Though after all this time, going to be like that, eh? Fair enough, I suppose. I am curious though, Ila. First, I see Chelsea and Sandbar. Now you're here. Please tell me your mother is not about love as well."

"Wow. Smile?" Ila scoffed. "This is amusing to you? Destroying our family and your daughter's life is something to joke about?"

The pair eyed each other like a couple of stray cats in a narrow alley until his gaze flickered to the bar at the back of the open-air eatery. "You suppose they'll sell me a beer this early?"

"I doubt it and no," she retorted. "Thanks to you and mom, I developed a drinking problem in my teens. Like I said, I'll meet today only be brief. And about Chelsea," she added, staring hard, "stay away from my sister. The last thing I want is her stumbling upon the truth, especially if I'm not around to support her."

"I saw her, but don't worry, I'll be staying low from now on until she leaves."

"I see. And then you'll be back to live your happy ever after existence? Say for the knowledge you will have traumatized all of us sufficiently enough to never come back ever again."

"Oh, how wrong you are." Ila's conviction intensified. She was a fly caught and an oblivious bird. She was also about to throw those cage doors wide open and let the cat catch amongst the pigeons. Another facial twitch exposed his unease, alerting Ila to the power shift. She'd seen the same when Wendy, when forced to submit and fess up to the insurance money scam.

"Tell me, Dad, when you saw Chelsea, what did you see exactly? Was it a pain? Her confusion? The toll of self-destruction that started the day you disappeared?" Ila clenched her jaw, fists too. "Sitting here now, do you see my pain? Do you realize what this is doing to me?"

"You need to calm down, Ila."

"No." Yanking her hand off the table for his attempted physical contact. "You gave up the right to control me. What you did, especially to your precious misfits, was despicable. You broke our family. You broke my sister. Now you're breaking her marriage. You've been nothing but a cancer eating away at Chelsea's happiness. She's a gentle, accepting soul and a wonderful mother to amazing children. Your only legacy is deceit, and it's destroying everything she loves. Worst of all, Dad, we were sisters until your greed, your indifference, and your dishonesty ruined us."

"Oh, don't look so freaking shocked." Ila smacked the table hard enough to rattle the condiment containers. "Do you never think about anyone but yourself?"

"I do, Ila," he said, the words soft and steady. "I see your pain. I'm sorry for putting that in your life. You were never meant to find out. As for Chelsea, I needed her that day, but she was young. The young forget," he said. "They recover."

"No, they don't," Ila snapped. "Chelsea's kept you on such a pedestal. No one can compete. Which means she's said to lose the one person who is good for her, her husband. I may not be misfits, but I refuse to let you ruin our lives more than you have. Silence is no longer the way to protect Chelsea. It never was, and that was my mistake, which I'm rectifying."

When the deep fries of William Scott's brow showed confusion and something indistinguishable, she said, "Let me spell it out for you. I lied on the phone. Sorry, this meeting is not about reconnecting. You're here because I'm done keeping your secret."

"Ila," his voice ground out a warning. "What are you planning?"

"Honestly, I didn't know until just now. My intention when I found out Chelsea was at Sandbar Beach was to find my sister and save her stumbling into your life of lies. But I'm done covering for you. In fact, Dad, I plan on knocking you off that pedestal once and for all by exposing you for the lying, bold-hearted creep you are."

William stiffened, shifting nervously until perched on the sea edge. A bird uncertain if it should fly away or stay. "Don't do this, Ila. Destroy your careful existence."

"You mean why not? You tore us apart. You selfish bastard." Every head at a table of Japanese tourists turned clearly. Some words or certain tones spanned language barriers. Ila didn't care. "You assume Chelsea was young enough to forget, but the daughter who idolized you still carries guilt. Nor the damage you've done. Did you think money would help us all move forward? I tried. Believe me, I tried every method I could to forget you. But once the brain takes the sights and sounds of a moment, a memory is made. Happy or heartbreaking, it's forever etched in our minds."

"Then why hurt your sister with the truth now?" he asked.

Ila had to laugh. If only to slice the smug expression off his face. "You have it all wrong, Dad. Because of you, I've been hurting the sister I love for decades. Yes, when I found out the truth, I wanted to tell the world what you'd done until mom said the police would lock her up and take Chelsea away. So I walked away. I left my family out of love, Dad. Why did you leave?"

Ila's mask fell away, tears swelling. She fought them back. "In your letter to mom, you claimed to love us."

"What sort of love?"

"A father's love," he retorted. "And I loved you girls equally and undeniably. Never your mother, although I tried. We were friends and nothing more. We hung out at the same spot on the beach. She was friendly and pretty but older than me with different ideas about the future. I had plans for my life." He added with a whiff of emotion. "Until that one night at the beach after her 24th birthday. There was a bunch of us and all drunk. It was one time, Ila, one stupid decision, as I told my parents. First time with the girl and I make her pregnant. Would have got myself a hurry ticket. Instead, I got a wife and a baby."

Not until 2 years into our marriage, mid-argument, did Wendy fess up. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, fingers steepled and flexing. "Your real father and I were at the same beach party. We were good mates and surfing buddies. He lived next door to your mother's house, yet I never knew they were an item. No wonder he declined to be my cruiseman. No reason given. Next thing, without warning, family up and moves. The pain should have dropped. Then Kevin Hodge went on to live my dream life."

Up to that point, Ila had been holding it together, feeling strong, calling the shots until hearing his name sucked them right out of her. "Evan Hodge is my father's name." With such an obvious indifference in William's nod, the man might have been answering yes to a cup of tea.

"We were never with dreams of following the preserving circuit," William's thoughts seemed to drift. "Everyone on living with his parents for years. Traveling anytime you wanted, no responsibilities, no mortgage. If there was an upside to my moving out west with your mother, it was not seeing his surfing successes headlined in the Manly Beach Daily."

When William stopped to get water from the glass, Ila asked, "You saying Kevin knew about me?"

"When he told him, hence the son moved out of town." But he was the real kicker. Unbeknownst to everyone, including her parents, he offered marriage and suggested Wendy move into his parents' place, though she'd have support while he chased a surfing dream. She declined his proposal. "Your mother wasn't interested in being a stay-at-home surfing widow and living with her in-laws. Apparently, I was the more reliable option."

Unsure how Ila found her voice, softer, unguarded. "And when you found out the truth, you stayed with mom."

He shrugged. "No choice. Your birth complicated our relationship. You see, Ila, I loved you." As the coffinness called your chatter turned into white noise, those three words, "I loved you," fell around like snowflakes, serene and beautiful, but complex and sadly short-lived. Spoken by a man she'd spent most of her life hating. His words became barbs of ice. One poked, one prodded, the third pierced her heart.

But oblivious pain, his storytelling continued. "Then, of course, there was your mother, the woman who slapped a man with one hand while seducing him with the other."

"What are you talking about?"

"Convinced a baby of my own would fix her and I and our marriage. He went off the pill to fall pregnant." Of course, Ila gushed. "Miss Fix, I get it now."

"I desperately wanted Wendy to be right and to make us work," he said. "And just like the moment I held you in my arms, I fell in love with Chelsea. But it didn't change enough. I was drowning in suburbia and working hard to support a difficult and demanding wife. At first, I looked for ways to escape with her, like taking her around the country camping trip. But when it was clear, I'd be trapped at that house and in a life I hated until I died. I decided dying was my way out."

"You couldn't divorce him someplace else like any honorable man would do."

William stiffened. "His old person's too gone. I am an honorable man and hardworking. While providing for our family and being loyal to the same insurance company for years, my salary simply didn't stretch to supporting more than one household or mortgage. Wendy left me no choice. I looked after you girls financially," he added. "Money would provide you both with choices. Choices I never had. Whatever else you think, Ila, I never regret loving you, and I will always be your father."

The words sounded right. They sounded real. But Ila closed her eyes and imagined another scenario. She could have. No. A resurgence of the old grief hit hard. It was the same angled up, back away, and try suffocating into a suitcase crammed with crushless travel clothes and comfortable walking shoes. But no matter the destination, Ila could never escape the business and the baggage her parents' lie had brought into her life.

"Yes, Ila," he insisted. "My words are the truth. I tried with your mother, but I was no good as a husband and no good as a family man. Even though I loved you girls, I risked my life because I loved you. Sure, I could have stayed. Resisting isn't enough. Cautious people live to their 90s miserable. Other people make the most of every minute. I needed to live and the only way out was to die. Not to mention risk something terrible happening to your youngest daughter. In my heart, I knew my venture girl would cope. She was smart and brave."

"Well, your adventure girl spent the night alone and lost on that headland."

"She wasn't alone," he said. "I followed her and kept watch only when I had to. When I knew help was coming, they'll disappear. Leaving her to help you pull off insurance fraud," Ila finished. "A very upstanding and loyal father and employee, Dad."

"If you know how those companies operated back then, you'd understand what they paid out to us was a drop of the ocean. What I did, they deserved."

"Deserved?" Ila queried. "You stole from them?"

He nodded. "You could look at it any way you like, but please see from my perspective. Every day another example would come across my desk. The company short-shifted customers without a second thought. Denying claims of unholstered to reduce payouts. In those days, people didn't question and there was no Google and mass hysteria. Reading families didn't share their lives online. They didn't suspect or question paperwork and payoff figures if they even knew what to ask. Businesses back then relied on ignorance. Without proof of death or probate purposes, families of missing persons waited seven years. Even then, claims were often left to some overworked, underpaid processing clerk. If the circumstances of my fishing accident had provided the coroner with enough evidence to make an early inference of death, your mother would have waited years for seeing any money. I knew if you had to get on with your lives, there could be no doubt as to my death and no delay. That's why I did what I did the way I did it. And I took out my form of insurance by making sure to spill the beans while my boss's shy accounting practices after I was gone. An anonymous word in the right ear did the trick," he added. "Management would have been so desperate to do the right thing and do it fast. My claim would sail through and I suppose you consider whistleblowing a form of redemption."

"Not at all, Ila. I made a choice. Either take charge of my future or live in the hope a bad home life turned into a good one. And that is no way to live. But I left you and your sister well off. You had real estate trust accounts your mother couldn't touch and you hurt each other. That was the plan at least."

The way his voice snagged combined with the hand tremor as he lifted the glass of water to his lips made no impact on crocodile tears. Attempted to suggest he should try calling a con artist. She instead asked, "How long had you been planning this escape?"

"Planning?" he scoffed. "There was no plan until, as luck would have it, I saw the name Liam Scott in an archive file and realized one man's death could be my rebirth. I'd long ago lost the will to live my mundane existence, but I removed the will from my name and mentally removed myself from my life bit by bit. How to disappear came to me when I picked up a new tie chart. I realized a predicted king tide would coincide at Sandbar 12 months later. It was a calculated risk that could have gone terribly wrong for me, but like I said, I'd been drowning in that house and in my marriage for years. Turned out the moon and the tie saved me."

"Oh my god." Ila's stomach lurched so finally she had to hug her belly, hold back the urge to throw up. Already shaking mad, her body started rocking. The pressure in her head making eyeballs pulsate as she stands got down. "People actually spent days searching the ocean. I searched."

"Where were you?"

"Nowhere," he said with a toss of his shoulders and a smirk. "They sent in search helicopters and mapped the ocean's currents, but I was never in the water. Even though they thought to look up, my hiding place blended in with the environment. Camouflage works for soldiers, and it works for sea creatures like the humble cephalopod. I only had to stay put, stay very still, and wait for the danger to pass."

"Where did you go afterwards?"

"Anywhere, everywhere until Dawn back to Sandbar. For a few years, I lived in the middle of the bush until a no park ranger stumbled upon my shack. After he raised to the ground, I walked into Sandbar as Liam Scott, claimed my land parcel, no questions asked. Found a jack of all job and fell in love with the locals and they loved and accepted me. Like I said, no questions asked. No demands."

"Why risk confessing to mom? The letter?" He mumbled, his remorse clear in the stone-cold tone. "That was a mistake."

Ila barked a laugh, laughed so hard, heads turned. "Me sitting here today is proof enough of that fact."

"Yes, you are here, Ila. So what now?" he asked, clearly not sharing her amusement.

"I used to say you were like a beach umbrella. No guessing when you might take off. Well, William/well/Liam/whoever," she recorded. "There's no holding me back, and you can't stop me. Is there?" Contemplated hers with a kind of whoever blinks first to lose way. "And I at least asked you for a head start. There are people in my life to consider, things to be settled, and arrangements to be made." Ila finished with a scoff. For a second, she almost felt sorry for the man. Was making him suffer like you made them suffer not revenge enough?

"Relax, William. I won't be doggy to the police and putting myself under scrutiny unless I'm forced. With both made mistakes," Ila admitted. "The difference is I'm going to correct mine. I suggest you consider doing the same by fessing up to your lovely wife sooner rather than later because Chelsea will learn the truth and I can't be sure what she'll do. One thing is for certain. While she'll need a shoulder to cry on, it won't be yours or mine."

For a second time, worry dragged her shoulders down. "Eva, please stop speaking." She flashed a warning palm at him, the irritation skyrocketing. "You don't get to say you destroyed my dream of having a baby sister. To see her grow into a woman, to have her confide in me and share experiences, to grow up to emulate me. Little did I know, as half sisters, she would never be like me at all. Hell, I don't know myself anymore. Only that, despite everything, my love for Chelsea is why I stayed away. As of today, that stops."

Ila poured to breathe as though her racing heart. "I'm going to find out SA because I want to be close by when you break her heart all over again. Protecting each other is what loving sisters do."

"You clearly haven't thought this through, Ila. If you love her, why hurt her?"

"Oh, no. William, you're not hearing me. I'm the sister she thinks doesn't give a damn, while you are her hero, and your memory overshadows everything and everyone. No man can compete with the great William Scott. Not even her amazing husband, Dale. So, no, I'm not telling Chelsea. You are. Only then will the hero worshipping stop. And with luck, she'll save her marriage. So, Dad, listen carefully because this is how it's going to play out."

Ila finally had his attention. When done speaking, she stood. 7 hours behind the wheel of a car combined with hideous case of jet lag allowed her to stay stony-faced or was controlled because she never pictured this unlikeliest of moments, and she no longer harbored expectations of the man who influenced her formative years. "I think we've covered everything."

"For Christ's sakes, Ila, what did you expect of me?"

"Nothing. I haven't beaten you since I was a teenager." A man who's been more mentor than you once said. "If I expect nothing from people, they won't disappoint me. So William, I expect nothing, but you should expect I'll follow through on my threat to expose your secret life."

A ring bell and a burst of activity distracted the pair. Chairs scraped and a coughing of excited voices rang through the cafe as tourists eager to escape the human courtyard headed for air buses. "Please," he said, bobbing sweat from his brow with the back of her hand, his ear arrogance reduced to an uncertain stare. "At least think about what this will do."

"Oh, believe me, since finding your letter, I've done nothing but think about what you've done, some birthday present." But Ila reached her hand into the bag she had purposely positioned on the table prior to his arrival. "I guess something must have rubbed off on me when growing up with you, Dad, because I, too, had an insurance policy in place for today." Extracting the mobile phone from the side pocket. She made a point of stopping the voice no malfunction. "I reckon we've covered everything. Thanks for making time to meet. Wish I could say it's been a pleasure."

Standing strong and sure, Ila tossed her back strap over one shoulder. "And remember, this is not a choice, William. You screwed with our lives. Now it's my turn to determine your fate. Should you fail to show us arranged, I may change my mind about involving the police. Ila, I know. We're all done here. Expect a call within 24 hours. I'll tell you when and where you'll meet with Chelsea and me once I've prepared her as best I can. Or perhaps we might drop by the shop. Squid, space, and tackle. Right. Talia sounds so nice over the telephone. 24 hours. Okay."

Ila made to leave, tucking the mobile deep into her bag. "A bit of advice, though. Use this time to think about what you've done, knowing 24 hours is nothing compared to all the years I've been forced to think about it."

Miraculously, Ila's legs got her away from the table, out the cafe, and back to her resort room, but she threw up in the toilet and threw open the fridge door. She stood back and stared hard at the tiny bright color bottles lined up like soldiers on the shelf. Then, in the mirror above, she caught her battle-weary reflection. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked, unsure if the question related to the booze, or what she was about to put herself and Chelsea through. "Probably both."

Chapter 30.

Ila, day four of seven.

Her decision to save a night to the resort had been a good one, and she slept more soundly than expected. Waking to an alert text from Trent. "Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power." Ila's grip on the steering wheel matched her fierce mental determination. Soon enough, she was whizzing past the lush rainforest while listening to the distracting dirge of local breakfast radio and hoping the snaking stretch of road ended before she threw up her guts again. A welcome straight section of highway saw her car and her thoughts drift dangerously. But as she neared destination, the undulating ribbon of narrow roadway switched to BM as often as Ila changed her mind. When activating the waves clearing of the dead bug and dust in the ocean, you noticed a minuscule crack. What danger might such damage pose if ignored? Ila should know the answer. The Scott family secret like a stone chip in her life. A constant threat that would one day splinter and break.

Suddenly, a sandbar campground sign confounded a destination was close. Too close. Ila had to slow down. Both the car and her racing heart. In fact, she needed to take a breather, refocus her thoughts, and beg the remnants of smashed butterfly from the windscreen in front of the driver's seat. Steering the car to the same small area as a motor home. She raised her hand to the family three seated folding cam chairs. The beaming child, likely around four, five of small for her age like Ila had been, waved back, driving past the well of Winnebago to park up, she was adjusting the rearview mirror to mascara stains around her eyes, when she noticed the little girl wore all pink.

When about the same age, Ila's world had turned very rosy. The bedroom got a fresh coat of pink. Wendy and William stopped arguing and cabbage Caroline got permanent residence at the back of the wardrobe. Despite the always peeing, always pooing and always screaming real-life baby not easily put aside. Ila was determined to be the best big sister ever. And when old enough, he would be the best wife, then the best mother. "I'll have it all," she told her father. He hugged her and replied, "The right person, make the right choices, and the world will be oyster girl." Even after Dad explained the old-fashioned saying, Ila had wanted to question why an adult would make a slimy shellfish the symbol of having it all. Unfortunately, she never did the dream. Wor still to this day eating an oyster reminded Ila of her first tongue kiss. 15 at the time and on holidays their second lasted sandbo as it turned out. Leila had become bored with board games in the confines of a stuffy caravan. Taking a walk she followed the sound of kids laughing and came across a local teen hangout spot among the dunes. Not far from an old boat head and dozen kids sat cross-legged around a collection of coolar wine casts and passed around a cigarette. Two fast drinks later. Lea was necking with a blonde head boy until sand tried finding its way into all the worst places. His hands too. But it was the guys enthusiastic kisses like slimy masks sliding over her lips and the boat shed split wood floor that ended the penning session. Unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. Lea wish she'd stayed a naive young girl with the world as her oyster. Instead, she would soon learn that her parents were liars. The truth bleeds scars and protecting her sister would require a lifetime commitment. By 18, she was a custodian of an unthinkable lie and burdened with the worst birthday present in the world because she bowed out for we can sleep over at Jinnie's family's brand new boat. And for the most pure reason, her period, having wished and prayed she'd get them all like her friends, they come on as Jinn's parents were packing stores into the car. Rather than admit she was unprepared and pathetically uneducated because a self-absorbed mother had never bothered with the talk, Ila's humiliation that day had set her fate.

Chapter 31.

Ila, 1983.

"You must come, Virginia pleads. How can you get so sick so quick?" Um Leila grants to grab her stomach as a very real cramp stabs her belly low and deep. "Tummy bug, I guess." She doesn't admit to the water of toilet paper inside her knickers, making her want to scratch. "I'll have to go home. Sorry."

"It's your birthday," Jenny whines. "Mom champagne and you haven't seen my new bathers."

"What if it's contagious? Mom's been crook," Lea adds, lessening the lie with a pinch of truth. Her mother hasn't been well since the accident. Two phrases that adults use when referring to the family tragedy. Auntie Rita Silvers is regularly to sort out the refrigerator. A task otherwise known as chucking out the booze to make room for fresh vegetables, which I cook each night before hitting the study books. If she is to have it all like dad says she can only top marks in every end of year exam.

Mrs. Peter stops packing food into a big ice box. "I'm sorry you're unwell dear." She looks at her watch. Aware the reason for the sleepover is to make an early start. Enjoying the boat's smooth passage through the heads and into open waters. Ila shrugs sheepishly. She hates lying to her best friend, but the truth will change nothing. Why be on a boat if you can't swim in the water? Do you even have toilets? Bing illness might seem like an overkill, but it's embarrassing enough to only be getting a period now. Lea once asked her mother why she was so much later coming on than other girls at school. Wendy had been dropping panty lines and feminine spray products into the grocery trolley at the time. "Stress menstruation and we've had our share." Then she muttered something about the whole menstruation business being a curse and Lea should enjoy not having it while it lasts.

Virginia dear, Mrs. Peter says, "If Leila's not feeling well it's better that she heads home. Our drive to the ling is long and winding." That's great talk for no one wants someone with a contagious allergy you on a long car trip or on a boat no matter how big something suddenly call the house and cruiser might be. The dawn's early rays are only just sun striping in the neighboring acreages when Mr. Peters slows the car and approach to the beach track. "Just stop me here. I'll walk the rest," says planning to sneak into the house and into the shower without waking mom and getting the third degree. "Have a great time," she adds carefully before waving her best friend away.

Taking the sloppy joe she purposefully sat on during the car ride in case and tying the sleeves around her waist in case. Lea takes the side path to the backyard. She's hoping to find pair products in the pool house. The old outhouse/laundry mom and sister dad renovated the other they got the cloth rubber pool. Buying no pads and uncertain about tampons. Lea makes with multiple peters as she reclaimed from the washing pile. With her emotions ranging from excruciating embarrassment to extreme ecstasy that it had finally happened to her. Lea is rinsing out her shorts in the tub and glancing out the window across the weed-infested wasteland that backyard has become since losing the king gardener and family when she spots smoke wafting in spirals from the ry drum incinerator. Dad. The world ends on an optimistic high note. But he isn't at the incinerator. Beer in hand and busy burning pruned tree branches. Nor is her mother asleep in a bedroom at the front of the house. As expected, Wendy's got his drape over the sun lounge, simultaneously snoring and gurgling through her open mouth. This isn't the first time Ila has found her mother passed out. Grief combined with the accumulation of chemist bottles in the bathroom cabinet, mostly keeps mom comfortably chrome at her state, in front of the television, in bed, and even in a bath turned cold. Some months ago, when it seemed a reader's tough love approach might bring mother out of the dark place she regularly retreats to, a letter arrived. While mom never shared the envelope's contents, whatever was in the little orange bottles in the bathroom, her write-up when combined with a bask of wine. Scattered around the sun lounge this morning are family photo albums displaying pictureless captions and unoccupied corner mounts.

"Mom." Leila tries to tap her awake but only gets a god water. "Mom." When her mother's mouth sags open, Ila tears up, shaking harder. "Please wake up mom." A part snore, part gole turns into a cough and a moan before mom rolls onto one side. "Call Rita. She'll come get you girls. Leave me alone. If asked." And despite battling the illness herself, Auntie Rita would collect both girls and take them back to her beach house which was literally on the beach. Unlike Chelsea who loves Rita and never looks our windows overlooking the beach, Ila loves searching for cruise ships and flames, wishing she and Chelsea could travel far, far away. While Auntie Rita's the girls got so much love, Ila resides coming back home to her mother too wrapped up in her own misery to deal with her daughter's grief. But Ila has never begrudged caring for Chelsea, often using treats to coax her sister out of her bed cover cave. Like Auntie Rita, Mr. and Mrs. Peters are such good huggers. Being reckoned is because as police officers, they see everyday how precious life and family are. Yeah, sure. Ila grumbles while swimming down in the bags of wine from her mother's discarded goblet. So much for sipping her first champagne while boating around the beautiful blue waters of the Huxbury River. The only thing floating at that moment is the incinerator scorched floss on the ponkum green waters of a neglected above-ground pool. As a gust of wind scatters more ash from the incinerator and a tumble we have of chart paper and photographs barrel across the backyard and paling themselves on the chain-wide boundary fence. Before long they'll be on the neighboring property. Mr. Baker won't be happy.

After collecting all she can, Ila returns to the patio dumps the launch of the plastic box. The stackable letter variety that ordinarily stored her father's fitly filed family tax records and bills. About to try working mom again. Lea notices one particular sheet of paper sticking out from the bunch. Different from the rest, this single note has her father's distinctive left-handed scroll. Although singed at the edges, the words are decipherable. The content devastating.

Sitting on the shower floor, back pressed against the wall and knees crushed against her chest. Ila stares blankly at an innocent swinging in red around the drain hole and washing away. "Gone and grow up." Ila only when the water runs cold does she get out, dry herself off, and start rummaging under the bathroom sink, studying the excess period products, but making do with a pair of disposable paper knickers, the type with a built-in mini pad. They feel odd, but not as strange as the face staring back from the mirror. "Who am I?" she asks. "Who is he?"

"Ila. Ila. Mom calls while chipping the door handle. Unlock the door immediately." Secreting extra mini pads under the wrap towel she stuck across her belly their breasts. Ila shouts back. "Go away." More knocking follows as desperate as mom's voice. "Virginia's mother called to check on you."

"When?" Ila wonders. Since blocking herself to the bathroom, she heard nothing other than running water and the words, "He isn't dead." And who is he? Beating a sister drum in her head. "Let me enter into the bathroom this minute or flings open the door."

"Or what, mom?"

"Or you'll tell dad?" Pushing past her startled mother to make a dash for the bedroom, relieved to find a sister's bed on sin. She slams the door and turns the lock.

"Open up immediately, Ila."

"Why? Who is there to care if I rot in this room?"

"Please, sweetheart, you're confused. My mother tries a softer approach. Let me in and I'll explain." With her latest birthday present, a Japanese-inspired happy coach that were all the rage, hugging her body. Besides the door's privacy lock and steps to the side, no longer concerned about full ash around the dressing table. But her mother says nothing, walking instead of the window and easing the Venetian blinds apart as if to see someone in the street.

"Are you looking for mom? Dad coming home."

With a fury evident in every fur of her mother's 41-year-old face, she snaps. "This will never be his home, and he will never be back."

Ila steels herself, swallowing any remaining sarcasm along with the edge to cry. There are too many questions. "So, where is he?"

"Nowhere. Mom says he doesn't exist. He's no longer alive. Not to us, not to the insurance company, not to the world. But get him. Drunk is all I can think to say. I'm not talking to you. I want dad."

"Too bad because he's gone. That's how he wants it. And there's no coming back from the dead. I'll show auntie what he wrote. She'll know what to do."

I'll be like a switch and mom flicks, changing her face from smug to suspicious. "Where is the letter?"

"Safe," Leila replies. "You should never burn off with a belly full of booze."

"Are there more letters? Do they say where he is?" A dramatic chest grabs his mom to play for sympathy as she threads herself to a small stool at less dressing table. "There's only the one letter. Best we don't know more about where he's gone," she adds almost philosophically.

"He has broken at Ila's chair ducts. Best for who? Not me. I want the truth. Tell me or ask."

"Oh, grow up, Ila," mom says, opening the wooden jewelry box on the dresser and the thing that trade to extract to Ila's siggy stash. Taking one for herself, he tosses the crush pack of two vests onto the bed. "Join me."

Ila's jaw drops. "What are you doing?"

"You're not a child," she replies, dragging deep. "You're a grown-up who must accept the facts. Your father started a new life. Without us." The letter suggests so, but Ila settles on the edge of her bed, tears mingling with snot before raining over her chin. "How long have you known? You're not even upset."

Another drag on the cigarette, another sigh. "A little over a year. Of course, I'm upset for you. Fact your father needs more than we can give does not surprise me in the least. I'm more surprised he stayed with us as long as he did. I believe he wanted to leave sooner, but he had commitments."

"What commitments?"

"You and Chelsea," she says, boy stoic. "I tried to protect you, and I'm sad you had to find out this way, but you'll understand in time. He loves you girls." With pinched eyes and agonizing accuracy. Ila launches dags at her mother, even though I'm not his daughter. Mom's expression chills. "What counts, sweetheart? Is he loved you as you were?"

"You tricked him, didn't you?" Leila waits while her mother sucks another lung full of smoke. "I hate you. I hate you. I'm going to tell Rita or I'll tell Jun's parents. What a terrible mother you are and how you drove dad away."

Rising slowly from the stool, causing to grind the cigarette into the ashtray. My mother walks to the bed and puts her face inches from Ila's. Both hands on her shoulders and squeezing so hard, Ila's forced up and onto her tippy toes. "Well, Miss Tattletail, look around. See all the pre-bed pillows, the latest clothes, jewelry, makeup, music cassettes. Go on, look." She hed. "I've given you so much. I've cared for you and your sister. Care we didn't look like the neighborhood hillbillies. I'm tired of you girls wanting more and of mean people talking about us. And I'm tired of this house."

When mom turns back to the dresser, Lea assumes she's about to pinch another cigarette from her stash. Instead, a random handful of jewelry turns into flying shrapnel. "Look at all this. Curless to curl, straighteners to straighten, clips and scrunchies and ribbons. All so you can keep up with Jenny. Money does not come out of thin air. Laya, your father's insurance payout was a generous one. And there'll be more for you both in trust funds. More than you'll know what to do with at 21. But that's your father. Happy to deprive me in favor of you girls. As if he doesn't trust, I'll share. Well, your mother is done sharing herself ragged. It's time I took back. These are mine."

A pair of silver hoops hit Ila in the face before falling to the floor. "Go ahead and tell the truth, you ungrateful girl. See how long you stay friends. As I doubt wonderful parents are the type to consult with criminals. Oh, and forget about our birthday shopping excursion next week and the portable stereo I was planning to buy. In fact, forget our birthdays. Full stop. Now, while I'm certain Peters will make a better mother than me, mom gasps as if breathing for the first time. Then she cries for real this time. Ila has seen enough crocodile tears over the years to spot the difference. "If you tell Jimmy's parents or anyone else, anything other than your father died in a terrible and tragic rockfishing accident. We will all suffer. You and Chelsea can certainly say goodbye to the pretty things and to each other."

"Why? We've done nothing wrong."

Mom snatches our armor from Leila's dresser. "Thanks to your father defaulting his employer. These are the proceeds of a crime. But I knew nothing about anything. You claimed his insurance. The letter arrived well after the lodgement of our insurance claim. And I was as shocked as you and it was Rita who dealt with the paperwork. Mostly because, well, you know how devastated I was."

"Devastated?" Ila snorts. "Is that another word for drunk?"

Mom stiffens. "There's a throat. Your father left the policy document along with instructions detailing what I needed to do in the event of his death or injury and to not delay doing so. A deliberate move on his heart. No doubt."

"But why?" Ila cries. "You're asking me why he left or why he felt the need to rip an already aching heart out of my chest and make me despise him."

Mom shakes her head. "I only know this conversation is over. I'll admit no more. Not with your threat to tell the world. Some cocky corporation lawyer at your father's firm will have me locked up for fraud. They'll certainly take our house, all our money, and you and your sister will have nothing. They may even go after Rita and her house."

"But it's a lie."

"Yes, a big fat ugly lie. And yes, I kept quiet and kept the money for you and Chelsea for our financial security and your futures. And why not? None of us asked for this burden. And as of now, because you came home when you were supposed to be voting, you're as involved." Mom tugs another cigarette from the packet, but doesn't light it. "If you want to tell Jenny's parents or anyone else, that's your choice. Don't forget, when they ask why your father walked away from you, tell them the truth about that, too."

"What truth?" Lea asks.

"That you, me, and Chelsea weren't enough. I'm sorry I didn't do a proper job of burning the letter. We might have avoided the scene, but," she shrugs. "Here we are. Happy birthday. Time to grow up."

"I'm already grown up," Ila insists, eyes now heavy with unshed tears, refusing to fall. "I want to know what you know. Everything."

Mom smirks. "Very well, my grown-up girl. But understand this, you can't be selective, and you won't like everything I tell you. That's not the way it works. There'll be questions I can't answer because I don't understand myself. But by sharing what I do know, Ila, I hope you'll consider your sister's future and the devastating impact of telling your version of the truth because I will dispute it. I'll tell them you're a troubled child. And I'll show them I'm not. I'll tell them how."

I look after my sister when you're too drunk. My mother's face reens. Excellent strategy. They'll claim I'm unfit and take me away, leaving poor Chelsea to foster care. Ila flinches. They wouldn't. Mom nods. At least Chelsea is young enough for another family to want her. Girls your age are well. You said it yourself. You're grown up and needing Sam results to support yourself.

Alternatively, we destroy the letter and properly this time. My mother extends her hand and wiggles. Give me here fingers. Where is it? When Ila doesn't budge, her mother moves to the dresser, rifling through personal bits, including her undies draw which she hid in the extra many pads. Stop. Momia, run the damn letter destroyed. Ila takes a folded note out of her pocket, rips the sheet, and lets the tiny pieces snow over the wicker bin with its dirty cotton buds and snotty tissues. Then, grading the basket close to her chest, she announces, "I'll do the burning this time." Mom's voice tracks Ila down the hallway and out the back door and get the head of yours in order before your sister gets home from a sleepover. Remember, Ila, this is your father's doing because we weren't good enough.

Chapter 32. Ila, no wonder you ended up suicidal on Trent Dashwood's sofa. Laya muted while scratching the last bit of black and white butterfly from the windscreen. Whenever she'd stopped or push the boundaries like a brat in the past, Bren would pull back into line by imposing rules and encourage her to accept and value herself, saying, "Lila Scott, you are enough and you are worth loving." The hot dog had been exactly what she needed. And once she'd accepted his help, their regular one-on-one sessions shifted to schedule group therapy check-ins, finally transitioning to as needed. By that stage, Ila was completely and utterly dependent and in love. In her mind, Brent was the father she never knew and the lover she never dared to want because her heart wouldn't tolerate more rejection when he discovered Ila was not enough. And so her attraction remained another secret to keep. Although she'd suspected Tren known because he stopped being her shrink, putting her instead under the what for of a sober coach to help her stay substancefree and find her a job. But without the mind numbing boos and obbituates, Ila struggled to contain her emotions around her sister. And so she has kept a distance, kept a secret, and kept something trend once told her at the forefront of her mind. Being sensitive is not weakness, Ila, he said, and repressing your feelings does not make you strong. It's the opposite. We're all born brave, but we learn fear from a young age. Then we grow and learn what courage is. The truest version of courage comes from our willingness to experience every emotion, even at the risk of a broken heart. You only need to do one thing every day. he said while tapping her finger against the skull. One small thing to trigger fear in here. Then go ahead and do it anyway. You'll be surprised to discover what you've been missing. While she nodded and promised when she tried, Leila was fully aware the thing she missed most and would go on missing was a sister. Might confessing after all this time be the beginning of a beautiful connection, or might their relationship end up presenting the remains, Laya was still picking off her windscreen.

Chapter 33. Tadpole. Tad closed in on the car idling at the private entrance to one eco community and studied the woman standing translate nearby. Good day. Can I help you? Not if I'm close to sandbar beach. Am I squinting at the embroidery on her pecap? World eco tours. Tad said yes and no. Yes and no. What kind of absurd answer is that? Simple really. Yes, if you own a parcel and no if your hat suggests you're a sticky bee planning to share what you find with the world. One dares value their privacy and a bonafideed visitor should know what power they're looking for. Power it as much. Sorry, but residents are invited guil this point. He directed her attention to the sign stadium as much. Sandbar campground entrances further along and you find sighting opportunities to know what you enjoy or floats your boat. The woman cracked a kind of smile possibly to make up for sounding disproportionately upset by questioning. Flights my what? It's a saying. This part of the country has something for every traveler. So I'm wondering what do you want to see? What do you love? What gets you up in the morning? What drives you? Oh, I see. Well, too easy, she replied, the smile growing more genuine and maybe a little smug. I want to see my sister. I love my own bed. The alarm on my clock radio gets me up in the morning. And Charlie from the bus company drives me into my office in the city. He's the sweetest practice man. He smells of curry and entertains his passengers by singing Bollywood songs. Any more questions? Tad hopped the love. Yes, he had more. Like why this woman joked through sad eyes and why her face was stirring such familiar feelings. Despite the stiff ear, Tad liked her. He liked sass. He also liked women in their raw state, referring his food the same. No artificial coloring, additives or preservatives. That was too long in the truth to ignore his heart, health, physical and emotional. I'm looking for someone, the woman said, more of an afterthought. Perhaps you know her. Perhaps tell me who you are and we'll go from there. Uncare of sandbar campgrounds. Oh, great. Hi, my name's Ila and I need Ila, he queried. That's weird in a good way. It's not a name you hear a lot, but I might have met a long time ago now. Bunch of kids in me on Sandbar Beach. Warm summer night. A little too much miselle, but it was the stone's green ginger wine chaser that did me in. He had her attention now. Yeah, she was definitely a Ila. Good heavens, you're that type. Every speck of stiff side fell away. The one and only, but only my mates and good looking chicks who wond invited into beach parties. He removed the pecap and ran a hand over his balding head. Had more hair on top back then. Yours was long, right? I recall eating at one point. His grin widened when she laughed. A boy never forgets his first crush. It was dark. You hardly saw me. I felt you, he said, his face warm when he glanced back towards Kai in the car passenger seat. Uh, sorry. I mean, I felt a connection. It was nice. Glancing towards Kai, she lowered her voice. You felt a lot as I recall. And then you squealled, Tad said, which got me quite the reputation afterwards. Really? You mean you neglected to mention to your mates that my vocals were less of the orgasmic variety and more due to a massive splinter in my butt? Letting people come to their own conclusion isn't illegal, is it? He quipped. That depends, she said. The spark in her eyes, darling. Thanks for the memory sle, but I need to find my sister. That would be Chelsea. Bad hope is un show. He hadn't spoken to Chelsea today. Last night they both drunk too much and he told her until she fell asleep. Then Tad crashed out on first stretch in the annex and when he woke his visitor still dead to the world. He left her there to sleep it off. Do you know where my sister's camping? Sure do. Head towards those gates of there and half the car. My little man and I will take you. Chelsea moved into a van. There's only one car per sight. He explained them the rules.

Chapter 34. Chelsea. Waking in a hot claustrophobic caravan with a hangover was not fun, and the cold shower did little to invigorate Chelsea. Adding to her dispiet was waking in a stranger's bed, with said stranger nowhere in sight, and with a cotton wool mouth, the beating of 1,000 drums behind her temple, and with eyeballs burning from too many tears. Last night, while pouring her heart out, Patt had poured red wines, his hugs and reassurances offering her empathy and understanding. How did a stranger could understand the way sadness had reshaped life so dramatically? Dale tried, but his life experiences were different. His parents death, while tragic, hadn't been an accident, and he hadn't been involved or responsible for their demise. Rather, his drunken father had got behind the wheel of drag race, egged on by wife, eight months pregnant, who was keen to beat her ex-boyfriend. An orphan shunted from place to place. Dale hadn't experienced love or genuine paternal affection the way Chelsea had with her father. But Dale, the closest thing to losing a parent, had been fairing former caseworker, Bill Ffield, who succumbed to protracted illness. Padpole, on the other hand, had loved and then lost in tragic and traumatic circumstances. He als knew the pain and torment that came with self-lame. Though on that score, not that she was scoring, it was natural Tad would elect Chelsea in the battles better than Dale ever could. Unfortunately, Tad not only knew how to pour wine, but he also made the tastiest past in Politana. Added to that, he was a gentle gentleman who cared enough to let Chelsea come his very comfortable bed. Though keen to thank Tadpole, he hadn't spotted him all day, which given the way she felt was probably a good thing. She'd barely been off her own bed, except for a beachw walk. Yes, another one. Greasy food might have helped her recovery, but with no hot chips within Kui, lunch comprised bread and butter with a sight of imagination to turn it into a hot and salty chip buddy. Unable to sleep during the day, she'd scan the various brochures by the bed, including a narco eco eco community information booklet featuring a set of guardian principles that read a lot like rules for visitors with several topics covering food, scraps, and composting, but seeing options and ocean sands and recipes to serve more food cravings in her. After a cup and a sweet snack, Josie read the fishies department booklet containing both useful and useless facts about fish breeds and their quirky behaviors. Now standing over Siesta's small sink, Chelsea staring differently at the half-drunk and cold cup of tea, at the bread crusts, a landing field for flies, and at the coconut crumbs from her protein balls currently marching across the sink, courtesy of a line of black ants. Some she washed down the sink. Others she wiped away with wet tissue and an apology. Having changed into a fresh pair of shorts and a tank top, Die was taking the rubbish bag to the bin when Kai's swish swish swish noises reached her. She barely put her feet into rubber thongs when the boy tadpole came into view. Walking alongside was a woman wearing a stylish hat and sunglasses. Dy's immediate thought was, "Oh no, the mysterious and famous Jane, no longer filming in London, Jane, Vanessa, and the two fluffy dogs are here and keen to claim their booking." The woman's stride showed purpose unless all women with wafer thin bodies and long legs stride rather than stroll. And her smile, though small, looked familiar. In fact, as she neared, the woman looked a lot like "What the hell?" Chelsea felt a rise of irritation, then unease. "Layla!" Neither made a move to embrace, even though the sunglasses coming off to reveal puppy eyes and dark circles to Chelsea. "Something was very wrong. What else would bring her sister to Sandbar?" I lay tried calling or messaging Chelsea's waterlord phone. I had a lack of replies force to drive here and deliver bad news in person. "Beas, it seems you found my sister." She deliberately refrained from using his nickname. "Layla, this is we've met," she responded. And that's my cue, dad said. I'll leave you to catch up. See you around, Charles. You too, Laya. He nodded, nudged Kai, and whistled his way towards this will luckily wait to beside camp chair, tail wagging. Interesting guy, Ila said, her eyes following as he and Kai walked away. If you don't mind, I'd like to step inside the van and out of this heat. Without waiting for a response, Ila led the way, locking herself in her handbag at the dinette table. Chelsea pured anxiously on the bed, her gaze glued to the woman. Heart sister, art stranger. About to open her mouth to speak and demand an explanation, Laya barked in order at Chelsea. Explain to me what the hell you're doing in this place. Whoosh! Or moose itself right out the caravan door. Ila wasn't unwell with the bear of bad news. She was a self-absorbed and demanding at the last time they buted heads over what Chelsea couldn't recall but she could guess. You tell me what's going on Ila. You might have demanded to know why her personal life mattered after decades of not giving a damn. She refrained and reached for a last bottle of wine. Raising it apart olive branch art hair of the dog manner. A little healthy for me. A sister replied when mind a hot drink. Since when? I'm recovering from a long haul flight. Ila said tea without a nip of annoyance and inquisition would be nice. But first though I need to pee. Then we need to talk. Do I require a key for the toilet? Chelsea shook her head. No, but before you go, how did you know I was here? Gabby told me. We usually catch up when I stop over in Perth. Ila must have read Chelsea's face because she added, "I figured you knew it's no secret." Were the mind too busy wondering what her daughter had said to make Ila come to Sandbar, her sister's last bloody place on earth? All Chelsea managed to say was, "You turning up out of the blue house thrown me." And you come here on your own has worried me. A sister reported. What's going on with Dale? Are you hungry? I have microwaved dinners. Chelsea turned back to Vera through the one food cup sheet stopped. "Yes, I'm starving, but you're changing the subject. When I get back from the blue, you and I are going to talk."

Chapter 35. Chelsea. Chelsea tried several conversation starters, any subject other than her marriage. But years of spread communication between sisters made her slim pickings. Much like the reconstituted chicken pieces in the past meal she divided over two bowls. If Chelsea was going to drink more boos and this random and yet to be explained reunion require alcohol, she needed food. That from recently is Sandbar her next call. Ila shook her head. Genua in Italy's northwest region. I know where Genua is, Laya. I may not be as well travel as the two of you, but I'm not a total hidden ram. Ila prodded her pass with her fork. I got them a good deal on a Mediterranean cruise. She said the ship hooks up with the European river cruise. While his sister round would distract Lee about stopovers and short tours, impatience attached itself to Chelsea's growing list of emotions. The guy hasn't run out of money. Then Lea sat back and half the laugh. Q knew there was a fortune in recycling the garbage. An improvement on Tammy Watson, I suppose, does he muttered. She drank her wine, grateful for the numbing effect of alcohol, and again offered the bottle to her sister. Not yet, thanks, Laya said, but to cover herself a clean glass. How could anyone forget Mr. Watson's wacky invention? You mean the automatic sanitary disposal device he designed? And I remember Tammy turned up for the Easter Bon parade at school with an Aussie cork had made from tampons, the pri in unison, as if a coat of paint made them not look like tampons, spluttered. Oh my goodness, the principal's face. As the night wore on and the quiet moments grew longer, Josie wondered if Leila was thinking the same as her. I've missed this, she said, happily soaking up the big sister thing. I wish you'd tell me why you're here. Assuming it's not only to charge a laptop. The pair poke their tongs at each other. Kids again. Sure you're not unwell. Ila, you look tired. I look old, she joked. And chat life's a [ __ ] at my age. What used to be 12 hours of lethargy now wipes me off for days. Why don't you ground yourself? Get a desk job. Believe me, I've contemplated taking a break and moving away from the city, but I don't know what might happen if I would stop in one place or what that place might look like. Swallowing her last mouth full of the tasteless past. Chelsea rested her fork on her plates before pressing for an answer. Why drive all the way here with jet lag? Of course, I'm happy to see you. More shocked, but that's because, well, you are the last person I expected. Chelsea drank her glass, grateful for the liquid courage having done its job. Since we're being open, Ila piped up. For someone who's happy to see me, you looked to get wasted. Time to talk. Lifting shoulders heavy with too much wine. Believe where? I'm sure you're not the least bit interested to know I had a bad moment. Belie expected an eye roll or one of her sisters who cares expressions. Instead, concerned deep in the lines on Laya's forehead. Hi, the boy with Thaddius gave me this. Reaching into the fruit bowl, Joel presented a cutone and you'll never guess. He calls them mermaids to her boards like Dad and I used to do. I love lots of things about the beach, she said, starting to tear up. I used to love my home and my husband and Dale love me back. Now he's having his midlife crisis on the other side of the country. And that makes this guy you called Thaddius what exactly? H just stopla. I don't know any explanations other than I'm renting this van from him and he's a total gentleman so easy to talk to. He knows about Gabby and Dale in WA. He was on Facebook. He was on Facebook asked Chelsea's wine glass to the fire of the table. Typo was no. The growl grew inside Chelsea since her sister's arrival became a bach couldn't hold back. Dale was on Facebook. Man is moving forward and in the company of a woman one half his age. I'd say Chelsea snatched the phone from the fruit bowl, navigated her away to Gaby's face page and shoved the screen in her sister's direction. I reckon what's good for the goose can be acceptable for the gander and tadpole is lovely. No way, Charles. This post isn't what it looks like. The picture is harmless and easily explained. Ask Dale. How would you know anything? Chelsea retorted. And no, I have not asked him. I've had other family matters on my mind. The most recent sitting opposite me in my holiday accommodation. A noise straight in Chelsea's spine. Look, Ila, let's clear up a few things. One, why are you here? Two, no need to worry about me. I'm fine. Three, I'm not cheating on Dale and I have no intention of cheating on the man I've loved my ent life. I am not moving on and I jump into bed with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. I never said you did, but I saw your expression, Ila. You and I are different. You're more like mom. I was always more like dad. You won't get an argument from me about that. Ila grumbled. You and I are very different, Chelsea. But he didn't get all Williams jeans. You are not a deplorable human being. Dad is a bastard. Talk straight for a second time in as many minutes. Chelsea glared. I see you've matured. We clearly cooked differently, Ila. And you turning up and name calling is not helpful. But to be totally honest right now, I think I've drunk too much for this conversation. I need sleep. I'll meet you tomorrow. Where are you staying? This falls down into a bed, doesn't it? Ila said coolly while running her hands underneath the tabletop. This van looks much like the same as Vinnie. It had a latched thing in me to convert the dinette into a double. A dozen responses left to the edges of Chelsea's brain, but too much wine washed the water away, launching her out of her seat in a hurry. I think I need to pee or puke or something. Come on, sis. Ila said, "I'll help you." The hit of my night air had been Chelsea's undoing, knocking her out the second she had come to the comfy mattress. Not until the pins of unfiltered morning sun prick her eyelids, and she realized she was on the bed. She opened one eye, then the other. A sister, fully dressed on her side, faced Chelsea. They lay so close Chelsea had to pull back and squint to focus. Ila, with the long legs and tiny waist had been, in Wendy's words, the attractive one and real model material until late and Ila's teens and into her 20s, their mother had beon her pre-daughters blue face. Everything, hair, nails, and makeup on shades of blue, mostly dark. While Lea's wrote turned black and body piercings and tattoos turned the model material sister into a real life barbie up close without the facial embellishments and under the morning sun spotlight, the Marriott minuscule skin piercings remain noticeable holes in those nostrils, brow line, and along her hair cartilage. Hey Barbie, Chelsea nudged. Time to wake up and get your own Barbie dream campaign. Within an hour of waking, both sisters had showered and eaten toast with Veimite for breakfast. Now they sat across from each other sipping instant black coffee from matching James Dean mugs. Wearing jeans and a shirt a hair stylist bob. Leila not only looked her age but she appeared strangely subdued. Rather than drinking her coffee, she swiveled and stared while the other hand toyed with a mobile phone tapping it awake every few seconds as if time was an issue. Having managed to an entire hour in each other's company this morning and without a single cross word. Nelie wondered might this return to Andari go one step further and fix her relationship with the living as well. Thanks sis. Ila said out of the blue assuming the half gratitude was unrelated to the coffee we filled was halfway through pouring. She asked for what? Nothing. Everything just saying it aloud. A while back I embraced gratefulness as my daily addiction. I focused on the little things and I'm not sure I've said thanks to you enough. Careful to keep any surprise out of her expression, Chelsea said. You also haven't said why you drove 8 hours to see me when we've spoken fewer than eight times in as many years. That can't be true. Eight? Pretty close, Chelsea returned. We text can be grateful for that. After a bit of silence, my sister looked up from her phone or calmness gone. This is a mistake. What is coming here? Another beat with another check of the time on her phone. And increasingly anxious, Ila said, "Yes and no. Yes, if we don't pack up and just get the hell away today, now and no if it means connecting like we did last night. I want that so much. I want us to be in each other's lives. We are sisters. We'll always be sisters no matter what. This conversation was way too heavy for a hangover. But for such an outburst from Ila, they obviously bonded and more than Chelsea could recall. And you, Ila, were a terrific sister and a better mother to me. You walked me to school, made sure I had lunch money and hankies, help me with my homework. Ila winced. Not too helpful with the homework department. But Chelse, I can learn to be a better sister if it's not too late. Late? Of course not. Chelsea reached out, recognizing this moment of sly solidarity as a perfect opportunity to plunk the elephant smack bang at the center of the dinette. Ila, how often do you think about dad? Groing her discontent. Sudden Ila was back and snatching her hand away to pick up her phone again. For heaven's sake, what's the matter how often? We stick to talking about us, please. But given you're here, I figured it was dad's anniversary. Well, you figured wrong. I'm here for you. Then why drive out here now when in a few days we could have caught up the house? Isn't this your last place on bloody earth? Yes, but I've missed you. I miss us. At Chelsea's jaw dropped, or was the heavy feeling in her mouth ears of unspoken words scramling to form sensible sentences? And you're right, Chelsea. I'm not comfortable being here in this place, or in this van, and any more than veg my toast. Le to life. I have a better idea. Better than what? Chelsea queried. Better than staying here. Let's go together now. There's a terrific resort about an hour's drive. Pool, cabana, a great cafe. Cabana boys. Vicki would love that," Chelsea laughed. Ila did not. Her sister was suddenly serious, efficiently with her throne earring on finani. Oh, I remember her. Invite your friend to join us. Ila was up and opening the small wardrobe, extracting pots and jeans Chelsea had stacked on the shelves. "Where's your bag?" "Stop. Stop. What are you doing?" Suspicion snapped Chelsea straight. "What's going on?" "I'm packing," Ila said. "We'll get three joy rooms and have a small party. You can drink all the wine you want and throw up, preferably in a toilet within something distance." Chelsea stood ready to rescue every clothing item from her sister. "Will you please leave my things alone and sit down?" With a gentle shelf, Ila slipped back into the dinette seat as she resumed the incessant phone fiddling. Chelsea switched seats, squeezing next to her sister. "Gover see quipped. This caravan is too small for both of us. I wasn't expecting company, Elsie responded. But you're right about this van being like the V count. Remember when I chucked a tantrum over broad beans and refused to come out from under the table? I do. Mom gave you a whole bowl of fork and told you to eat the hot. Yes, I sat underneath where you are now. Secretly scratching the letters Y u K on the underside of the table. I showed you remember it was right about where your hand is now. And Ila, Ila, what's wrong here? Water, Chelsea said, forcing her sister's claw fingers from the table edge. Drink the water. I can't, Chelsea. I can't be in here. Please, can we go? Ila, I'm here for a reason. It's that time of the year. Yeah, and you would make sure your mom and I never forgot. So what? Chelsea didn't care if she sounded like a brat. I promise to remember always. Ila wrapped around Chelsea. I'm sorry and so grateful for this opportunity to be with you. Come here. The pair cuddled for several minutes. Chelsea's head resting on Ila's shoulder. What a roller coaster of a reunion. About to ask her sister why now and why here? He looked up and saw tears of real regret in Ila's eyes. I've made mistakes, Chelsea. My most recent was yesterday. Chelsea shifted to face her sister. What did you do, Ila? I met with a man. He's the reason I came to see you. Ila was looking for relationship advice from Chelsea. How ironic. You must be a special guy to bring you all this way. Not at all. I shouldn't have bothered. Meeting him was your mistake. One of them, Ila replied. And that's behind you wanting to leave so quickly now. Chelsea was guessing, but the sudden mood change and the fear in her sister's eyes was worrying. It's because he's here and he poses a threat. Not if we go and go now. Ila flipped the lid on the apple laptop. The screen filling with the sparkling pool and palm trees. I still have the results website open. We can pack and be having a paper bank by lunchtime. My shout an unexpected rap on the caravan and only me. May both women start. Ila looked positively petrified. It's just Eli, Chelsea announced, blinging the door open. Hello, dear. How'd you accompany a sister no less? Quicker than a blink, the old woman climbed aboard, and in Chsy the foil wrapped plate. And there it was, Josie amused. The difference between a house and a caravan despite having walls with windows and doors are locked. When parked in a campground, the caravan had the openness that invited people in. And aren't you lovely? Though brief, the woman's afraid had Laya looking like a proverbial stunned mullet. Polly suggested you might like maple syrup with your pilots. Food is exactly what we need. The Laya, no need to rush anywhere. We can share a banger pilot banquet right here. Goodo, Eli said. I'll leave you girls to enjoy. Bless the food before us and bless the family beside us and the love between us. Cheerio. Ila hedging the door family and putting her back to it. Wed certainly have more privacy at a resort. Privacy is not what I need, Elsie said, wondering where the gratefulness addiction had gone. Please, can we eat while the pipes are warm? Le's answer was in her groin as another knock sounded. What now? Tad stood at the fly screen looking apologetic. Sorry to interrupt. I can come back. Dropping off a brochure is all. Don't go on my account, Laya said, [ __ ] I need space. Sorry about my sister, Chad, and the mess. Come in. Chelsea shoved the tables contents to one corner before sitting. Leila is the untidy one in her family. She used to step out of her clothes and leave them as if her body had spontaneously combusted. And she'd leave her journals open as well. Big mistake. Chelsea was an attempt to cover up her sister's rudess. Nothing she wasn't used to doing. Ila also left her school books, taking space on the dining table. Case in point. As Chelsea pushed the laptop to one side, the device trolled and a text message flashed onto the screen. Bold and capitalized. Mom was the first word Chelsea made out. The reflection of Tad's wine shirt obscured most of the text. When Tad left, you take a closer look, but the words didn't look very much like. Think about what telling your sister the truth will do.

Chapter 37. Tadpole. Tad stayed with Chelsea long enough to drop the brochure and scoff pilot. He knew better than to get involved where there was clearly family trouble of foot. But he likes Chelsea and her sister who was currently sitting in her car, door open, mobile phone in hand. Good day, Labour. He leaned down while the open driver's window. I wanted to say about you and me and your sister. Don't worry, Lea said with a flip of one hand, I'm not announcing our history. Tad whooped. Not sure a couple of sexed up kids in a group a long time ago qualifies as history. Don't keep bathing from Chelsea on my account. And to my experience, he some things are better left unsaid. Well, if you don't mind me saying, I adventured things between you two seem uh strange, she shrugged. We're not the closest family. It was supposed to your father. Lea's expression said, watch out. If Chelsea spoke about our family, Tapole, she would have told you he was her hero. Mom was mostly absent in one way or another. And I'm the sister who doesn't give a damn. That's my description, not Chelsea's. And yet here you are, he said plainly, giving a damn. Because I do love my sister, and I can tell you this is the very worst place for her right now, which is why I'd like to take her home today for her own good. Tat's intrigue spiked. What does for her own good mean? We have spent a bit of time together talking and I like her. I know. I know. He added. She has a husband who she loves. Know how I'm enjoying lady's company. We've talked to Ila. Nothing more. Well, whatever she's told you, Tapple, I miss my sister. I'm not a part of her life, but another day passes that I don't have regrets and wish things could be different. Don't tell me this, he said. Tell her. Ila softened. Keeping my thoughts in my distance is the only reason we're still on talking terms. Me and close confines makes her mad. You didn't notice. I think this is sad about your relationship. Not mad at you. I also think it's strange that the two people she loves, you and her husband, think distance is helpful. Pad kna's raised eyebrows were a warning flag, but the prince of her past was well beyond worrying about upsetting people with the truth. If life is taught me anything, it's saying what needs saying while you still have a chance. Irritation flashed over the woman's face as she led from the car, slamming the door. Where was the flaunty woman who oo sass attitude this morning? She seemed restless, self-conscious, and fixated on the vine neckline of a sky blue top that wrapped around her body to tie the back. I'm not sure why I'm sharing with you, she said. One quick boned boat house hardly means you and I have some kind of Hey, city on. It wasn't that quick. It wasn't even a real bonk. Tad's nudge seemed to knock some of the tightness from her shoulders. All joking aside, and to be clear, my intentions are completely honorable. Your sister is trying hard, but she needs something only you can give her. Oh, really? What? Pat chuckled. It's as obvious as Superman's unies how much she wants you in her life. I might be a bad almost bonk, but I'm observant. Oh, that would make a catchy Tinder profile. Sharing a grin with her, Tad said. I remember your laugh. You should do them more often. Great therapy. I'll take your word for it. Lea smiled. For real this time. Bet you're glad we were only one night. Hey, Tapple. Oh, I don't know. He replied. Life with you would have been interesting. Might have needed a whole lot of dental and band-aids, though.

Chapter 38. Chelsea left alone in Siesta to all over the text message. Chelsea's roller coaster of emotions and completed several loops before coming off the rails and smashing to smitherines. 20 minutes later, when tempered by mistrust, he fixed Sarah Leo, as she stepped up into the caravan. Alone at last, my sister shut the screen door. I ready to accept this place full of busy bodies who want to know the ins and outs of the ducks. What's with the serious face, Chelsea, dropping into the dinette seat, lay com on the table. Did you read all the pilots? I hate to sound like one of your busy bodies, Laya. But a message from my mom popped on your laptop seconds after you stormed away. And like your journal that time, I read it. Let me share it. Joking it open, the screen lit up, while the color from her sister's face drained. It reads, "Think about what telling your sister the truth will do. Care to explain?" Like a curious cautious cat object to check if it's something to fear. Less for smack the computer lut. But not before a faint notification tone sounded this time on her mobile. Go ahead, sis. Check. Might be more dark family secrets I'm not supposed to hear about. No, no, she said head shaking. This is what you think, Chelsea. Really? What is it? A mistake? Another one? My sister replied. The mobile reception out here is presses suck. You said as much last night. It's erratic, Chelsea quipped. Much like our family relationships, a connection that's intimate at best and usually at the most inconvenient time. Like now. When did you become so angry? Le asked. Chelsea hardly recognized her and laugh. When did you begin to care? Why? Why come here after all these years, Chelsea? Because I'm lonely and confused. But you know all this if you bother being my sister. You'd know how empty my house and life are with the kids gone. And now Dale. Chelsea smashed her hand out of reach. She couldn't look at her sister. Would it help that I saw Dylan in purple the same night as that Facebook post? He went home early and alone. Chels, I was at his apartment when he arrived. We talked. Josy's door almost locked open. You what? He wouldn't cheat on you. He loves you. He understands. Lea Farrett did in a handbag, eventually coming up with a complimentary travel size pack of 10 aloe vera soft and tissues. Bray your eyes and we'll pack up and leave all the bad memories behind. I'll explain everything. Only not here. No, Chelsea snapped. This place is not the problem. I came to be on my own and I plan to stay on my own. I want to remember, but you are right about one thing. This caravan is way too small for us both. You need to go. Where? Home? Chelsea suggested or to your fivestar resort with pool and cocktails? I don't care. I don't want to deal with you or mom right now. I need to walk and when I come back I want to be alone. I'm getting used to it.

Chapter 39. Chelsea. Surprised by the level of activity on the beach to the north of the viewing platform. Chelsea turned towards the less crowded southern end and headed towards the small of bluff. Growing closer she noticed an elderly man standing beside five abandoned surfboards wearing white compression shockings with sandals and shorts. He wielded a walking cane in the air. His voice blowing the wind. Can I help boys? He chuckled as Chelsea settled up to him. The boss was one once. Cheeky buggers must have my jeans but keeping the brandyies down here and out of everyone's hair. Now I can't get their attention. Liberty rocks are no place for an old man. Bound to go ass up as they say with a rock shop. There was also no place to Chelsea who was about to wish him luck and walk away when the shriek of a troubled child reached them. Another scream than the first left a little choice. Stay here. I'll go. After assessing the safest route furthest from the water, she moved cautiously, skirting water balls, evading crevices and sidest stepping obstacles into spotting the spotting boys. All five appeared in good spirits and shouting. Get it, get it, get it. The biggest boy, his hair the color of rust brandish to driftwood spear. Stop. Chelsea chastised, startling all five. But the crab made my brother. We were trying to get it back into the sea. Chelsea doubted the story. This little guy will be fine without your help. Crabs aren't like fish. They don't need water to breathe. So I suggest you suck on that finger of yours and learn a lesson. Gring her neck will go over a boulder. raised a thumbs up to the man on the beach before turning back to the boys. You don't disturb tidle pools. They're too important. Important how? The smallest task. Well, looking to leave, she couldn't help reprising a Williams got lesson or two. Title pools are tiny ecosystems with hundreds of living things like crabs, relying on them for food and for safety or for breeding. The concept of populating crust stations amused to audience. Removing the things they need to deliver is no different than someone raiding your house and emptying your fridge. If you saw it happening, you might have been the intruder for stealing your food. My mom fills our fridge when it's empty, a boy said. Yes, and every life form in these pools depends on the tide doing the same as your mom, filling up supplies. As if on Q, a wave crashed too close, sending a cripping sway of the sea water around Chelsea's ankles, dropping to a haunches, suddenly as green as the sea cabbage clean to the rocks, she braced and prayed she'd vomit in the title pool. I explained that to five curious lookers. Are you crying, lady? Boy asked. Did you get nipped? No, Chelsea said. Nothing in the ocean wants to hurt you. Except sharks, another boy touted. I'd kill a shark. Let's move to where it's safe and I'll tell you a secret about sharks. Then we'll head back to the beach. Okay. Boys needed no other incentive to follow. Ray, all five saw crossed their heads nodded. Around your age, I learned sharks only ever move forward. Why is moving forward so important? A boy asked. out of the mouth of babes. Chelsea might have laughed if the if words hadn't hit home so hard. No doubt Dale could provide that answer for them all. Hey, check this out, said the one blonde boy in the group who wandered to an adjacent pool. What do you reckon this is? Delsey recognized the old looking fish with spots from the fisheries pamphlet in the caravan. And a patchulate shark, she said. Honey, as sharks go, and not all interested in you as food. He's stranded himself there to enjoy his own personal smokers board. Ew, gross, a boy said, peering into the rock pool. I won't want to eat what's in here. And sometimes this fellow will too, though he'll walk over rocks to find a fresh fruit source. Then he'll buy his time to conserve energy and oxygen because he's smart enough to know the hide will come in and away he'll go. Speaking of the tides, Elsie followed her panic as more ly foam refreshed rock pools and inundated crevices near the base of the bluff. Let's go. Your granddad wants you back and she couldn't get away fast enough. It was grandad who told us to stay out of the water and out of the way while they search. The redhead says they head for the safety of the sand. Well, who searches? But what the old guy who lives at the shop? Another said he was rock fishing near the other headland and never got home. Alia's father missing while the soft sand high up on the beach slowed her run. Nothing could stop Chelsea or Talia will be frantic and little Kai so confused. But she go to them perhaps provide some comfort. If anyone understood, Chelsea did. But no, the woman had an entire community for support. This was no time for nosy strangers. passing the crowd viewing platform. Do you ever heard two men talking? Once you recognize from the luau, is it true? Does he called to them moving nearer? Space invader nodded. Unbelievably, yes, Palia raised the alarm after returning from overnight stay in ocean sands. If you ask me, said the second man. I'm not sure this past isn't simply a case of raw man staying until the fish go off the bite. Remember the time he came back early hours with big cool enough to share with the entire community? Secret of Burbon never shared the fishing spot. Dy had awake to where the mate stood. By old man, you're referring to her dad, right? No, love. Bas replied. 6 months ago, Tyl said her dad to car ocean sands. That's why she saved overnight from hunch. No, we're talking about squid missing. Folks around here call him her old man because the age difference was the first to use the moniker a mate staring mate with such a good nature revenge given Tad and Tally go way back thieves the pair was as kids until Tyler grew up then Squid arrived on the scene and they fell for each other hook line and sinker base invaders mate chuckled won't stop her getting off squid when he returns with a tail as big as the fish's toing can't blame her I hope so Chelsea said yeah we've got blood checking won't fishing spots hoping it's as simple as a fall and heard her leg and can't walk himself out steady on B in grabs arms supporting her and guiding her through the packed platform gangway folks we need a seat I'm fine really said as the crowd pedal crabs I want to help look for him we all do love and we can help by waiting and watching while those with the no do their

Chapter 40. Ila. The December sun seeping through her eyelids woke Ila. But the crunching of gravel under tires and a creeping police car lifted her out of the camp chair. "You in there, Chelsea?" she called, surprised by the time showing on her phone. The combination of warm sun, a comfortable seat, and two main days with a restful sleep had been undoing. The police vehicle had now stopped alongside a group of people, all pointing as directing lost driver. Although the beach wasn't our destination. Chelsea, he said louder with more urgency. The only times later recall seeing cops for hitting the beach had been. Oh no, no, no, no. An abandoned green bucket with mermaid stickers burst out of their memory box. Chelsea, Chelsea. Not stopping to lock the caravan door, Lea spare foot across the campground and onto the bush track, weaving around stragglers. She knocked shoulders with Doddlers, cussing without concern and clambering up the jeans, stumbling onto all four several times. A sense of dread stop at the top as she walked long into invisible pane of glass. Then she saw her. Chelsea glincing her sister let breathe for the first time. What's going on? I saw a police car and what's with all the people. And why are you crying? Oh, Ila. It's just like dad. What do you mean dad? Another fisherman is missing. Talia reported it this morning. Leila's gag reflex forced to cough. Talia. She has a b shop with squid. My sister explains needlessly. You met her boy with temple. Hawkeye. It's like dad all over again. Can you believe it? Ila choked out a no before her legs gave way and she dropped to the sand in a heap head spinning. Ila, Ila, open your eyes. You're frighting me. A circle of concerned faces hung over her. The massive bent over bodies blocking the sun. The most worried expression belonged to her sister. Don't fuss. I'll be okay. She sat at it to demonstrate and to drink from a profeder plastic bottle. You passed out. You are ill. Kelsey insisted. And it's serious. That's why you've come. I fainted from dehydration. Ila snapped and annoyed the growing attention. I fell asleep in the sun. Could we go back to the caravan, please? I need to talk to you about dad. Orans vanished from her sister's expression. Now you want to talk about him. Were me and mom all those years when I needed to talk, to cry, to grieve. Forget it, Ila. Chelsea snatched

Her elbow from her sister's grasp. I need to be here watching and hoping. It's what people do. It's all I can do other than be there for little Kai. As much as she wanted to drag Chelsea away, fell at the stunt was likely diversion, and right now the man at the moment was high tailing it or making plans to do so. Lea squeezed her sister's hand tight.

"Believe me, Charles, waiting and wishing are not unfamiliar to me. I stood on this very beach looking for you, and when I thought I'd lost you, I made a promise."

"What did you promise?" The confession seems to soften the sharpness in her sister's stare.

"I'll tell you, but I fear I'll pass out again if I don't get out of this sun. If not caravan, could we at least move away from people up there?" Le pointed to a dip between two junes. The snow banksy brushes providing aiding patchwork of shade. Begrudgingly, Chelsea led the way, blocking onto the sand to sit cross into silk like little sisters do. Ila settled beside her.

"Don't get worked up over this missing fisherman."

"I'm not worked up and shattered for Talia. While not exactly friends, we chatted and I sensed a genuine connection. Not only to her, but with Kai." Lea cast her mind back to the sweet sunny woman who taken the telephone from her son. Thought a message about a catch up her husband couldn't afford to miss. Oh, naive woman. Should find Talia and warned her not to waste a time warning an unworthy man.

In his letter to Wendy, Williams got a claimed his deceit was no less wrong or hurtful than being tricked to marriage and rigid in the suburbs in a house he never wanted to live in. Worst of all, Ila mused while stealing a ground at Chelsea crying silent tears. The man had left his grieving 12-year-old daughter behind. Ru herself in the same house. William Scott did not deserve Chelsea's tears back then, and not now.

"I feel your stare, Ila, and it's freaking me out. Whatever you have to say about dad. Go ahead. But I won't tolerate you sticking up for mom. She hasn't bothered to be a problem mother to me since I was 12. She blamed me. I'm aware of that."

"You're wrong, Chelsea," throwing both knees to her chest like an armor for her heart. Ila wrapped her brain to find the words with the least amount of hurt to them.

"Like us, sis, when it happened, mom was sad. And then and then she wasn't."

"Chelsea counted. The pair of you barely tolerated my need to keep dad's memory alive, so I don't care to think about mama at this point. I've come here for some me time and to reconnect with someone who did love me. Dad might have generally called this place nowhere, but it's somewhere to me. I feel him here and I don't want any anti-dad attitudes. Your negativity is not okay. And frankly, Ila, given the situation playing up before us, it's unacceptable and deplorable."

Maybe Ila should leave Sambar while some semblance of sisterly connection remained. Even if that connection was a shared hatred of their mother, what would you achieve by revealing her father's deception other than replacing one giant sister's heart with another? Unfortunately, Ila had set the ball in motion and ultimate left William Scott with the next move. And what a move he took. Clearly, the man could not be trusted. It was up to Ila, even though hurting Chelsea will be the hardest thing. 10 times harder than pressing the tip of the blade into the soft flesh of her own wrists. She rubbed her thumb over the blue heart tattoo. Twice she tried to disappear off the face of the earth. Twice strangers had saved her. Ila let the sand drain from her hands like a fist was now glass. Hopefully, time would heal their wounds. But at that moment, with both sisters mirroring each other, boulders hunched, bins resting on bent knees, eyes fixed on a gloomy seascape. Dosy seemed as frail as the hint of no paper back the caravan. The brittle belly holding together with sticky tape turned brown with age.

"I'm scared," Die said, nudging a dry cut bone in the sand. "Why have you come? What aren't you telling me?"

As her sister turned the white strawby object over and over, Leila knew where Chelsea's thoughts lay because she'd been there that day, too. And equally captivated by the man in his mesmerizing stories of the sea. Collecting cut bone with dad. 1977.

"What a beauty. Dad points to the line of high tideas."

"Now that one, Chelsea."

"And these," I ask excitedly.

"Yes, those as well, Ila. Big is better."

"What are you going to do with the shells, Dad?"

"They're not shells, remember? They're the discarded bones from cutfish."

"Bones? Whoa. Better not get one stuck mouth." Dad laugh when she grabs her neck and rides on the sand before playing dead.

"You look pretty funny chowing down on a cuttlefish bone."

"I'll be getting mispects." He hugs her upright. "Besides, they're not fish. They're mollisks like squid and octopus."

"I shudder at the thought of icky sicky tentacles getting stuck in my throat. I don't like them."

"Ew, me either," Chelsea pipes up. "But you like magic, right? Think of squid as magicians of the deep."

"What magic do they do?" I ask.

"They disappear as quick as this," he says with a finger snap. "And no matter how hard you look, you won't see them."

Chapter 41. Ila. Finding the right words to tell her sister was Ila's next struggle. If she managed, did she string out the sort of details or think like a band-aid? The quicker it's done, the less painful the procedure. Then her phone beeped with a notification. Joel's phone.

"My sister immediately dropped the cut bone, dusted sand from her fingers and shared the screen with Ila. Tyler's Instagram. A new profile picture," she announced.

"My gorgeous goofy boy has popped into my feed yesterday," Laya said, checking her own phone. "Those boys sure love a selfie."

Elseie arched her eyebrows. "You follow my boys on social media."

"And Gabby," Ila announced without a second thought. "It's how I stay part of your lives. I've missed having family. Sorry if sharing yours is wrong."

Her sister's eye roll spoke rings. "It isn't wrong, Ila. The invitation was there any time. You simply stopped coming over to the house."

Ila snorted. "Nothing simple about it. She had to tell her sister now, but how? She would deliver the news like a flu shot. A quick jab would be painful, but what hurt the most was the truth that slowly seeped under the skin. Jayla told Chelsea a diluted version or was subject to every despicable detail and straight from the horse's mouth. Every word was captured on the phone in Laya's hand."

"You won't want to hear this, Chelsea. You may even hate me, but scoot." Ila showed persistent eagle. "I hate to have for what he did to us."

"Hate, Ila, for goodness sake. Dad did nothing to us. He died doing what he loved. He slipped on shells I wasn't supposed to collect, and rather than stay and help, I left him alone to fend off a king tide."

"Chelsea, you were not meant to stay and definitely not to blame. You were a scrawny 12-year-old girl. He was a seasoned rock fisherman, fit and knowledgeable. He wanted to save himself. He could have. wrapped into people desperate to live, find the willpower and strength to free themselves. William was fit and prepared, but he had a plan in which you unknowingly played a part. A plan all about timing and the tide. Your success relied on you getting lost and not finding your way off that headland in the dark. You did exactly what he wanted you to do."

"You're crazy, Ila."

"Yeah, you're right," Ila mused. "I'm crazy. Ignore me. Forget what I said. Live your happy life in oblivion because I love you too much to cause you pain. But Chelsea, just listen to me, please. I'm telling you this because I love you." Ila pressed the flight of her hand on her sister's back, rubbing between her shoulder blades, wanting to soothe. "You were 12 and terrified. Neither of those things make you responsible. and I didn't lose contact because I blamed you or hated you. I stopped coming to the house because I struggled to watch you worship that man."

Dy shrugged Leila's hand away. "That man was our father."

"Yes." Leila prepared to introduce the final excruciating drop of truth from the syringe. "I've wanted to tell you this so often, but every time I made up my mind, mom would pop up and remind me of all I stood to lose. The woman has an exasperating sixth sense like she's constantly in my head and knows when I'm weakening. That's when she calls and and sends text message reminders about things I'm not supposed to know."

None of the people milling around the dunes or wandering back and forth on the beach. Notice the two women speaking too loudly. Most observers gather closer to the shore, eyes turn seawward, heads shaking with lost hope.

"Look, Ila, I'm more than overwhelmed by current events and more than baffled about why you choose this moment to talk. I'm still confused about what you're doing here. Catching up, reconnecting, or..." Chelsea said, the pain started to show in her eyes and in the accusatory tone. "Are you here to throw yours and mom's dead setting life in my face and ruin the fact you have a better relationship with my daughter than I do?"

"Sure. Yeah, that's my purpose, the shitty sister as always." Ila prepared to stand. "Yes, I'll see you in another three decades. Enjoy your return to Sandbar."

"Wait, I'm sorry." Chelsea's hand pronounced pout and I Laya to the spot. "You're not a terrible sister. Please, please, just tell me what this is about. Then we can talk about seeking a professional help you work through the darks about Dad."

Ila smiled somehow. "Oh, believe me, I've tried to forget what he did to our family and mostly all the wrong ways. By the time I could think clearly enough, and I was ready to reconnect, you had Dale and the babies were, 'Well, you were all so happy you'd finally let go of your grief.'"

"'My grief? Yes, but not my memories of dad.'" Ila nodded. "Which is why I'm here to help you let him go. You claimed to have made mistakes and bad choices, but none were as bad as my mistake. 'I was wrong for letting you believe he died.'"

"'Believe. Are you having some sort of drug induced episode?'"

"'No, I'm off that stuff. Years of therapy,'" Ila said, punching most painful part of truth into her sister. "He planned to go missing. He wanted to disappear."

Chapter 42. Chelsea. My sister's revelation was such that it grabbed Chelsea by the throat and the heart. Her response unspoken but cling to the edge of a laugh finally spilled out. The part scoff part hoosing the same stalking seal on the sand in front of the pair. Envious of the bird's ability to take off her whim to escape. Chelsea was about to leave when she saw three decades of tears rolling down her sister's cheeks.

"Bloody hell. What's gone into you, Ila?" She sat back to the sand and wrapped an arm around her sister's juttering shoulders. "This makes no sense. What aren't you supposed to tell me? Why are you here? And why? Why? Why would dad want to disappear? I was there that day. I saw his leg and the blood."

"He was faking," Ila said with a steely voice. "He left because he didn't love his life with us enough to stay on the rocks. You saw only what he wanted you to, like the blood he described to the police. You told them he'd stay because the table was running, right?" Lea waited for Josie's nod, small, scared, uncertain.

"And remember how adamant dad was about bleeding table without delay and keeping the catch fresh in salt water." Another nod.

"You were there to witness his fall, although not a question." Josie answered with a small headshake, a body sagging with a burden of guilt. "I was collecting fresh conjun boy."

"But why catch more fish? Dad's dictad was never take home more than you need, and he had amble for dinner. Besides, booking Taylor requires bait fish."

"Tells sweetie, that day wasn't even about fish. He sent you to collect the bait so he could execute the plan because timing was crucial. Then he wanted you frightened and confused and convinced his injuries were bad. The bloodill rock pool was perfect. Like I said, if a trap farmer can lift a ton of quad bike to get out from underneath, do you not think the season rock fisherman, a fit one, wouldn't endure the pain of a banged up knee to escape an encroaching king before it swept him into the sea. They're desperate to find a fitting defense. Like maybe he did try."

The damn wall behind Chelsea's eyes burst, leaving silence between the sisters to hang as thick as the afternoon seam mist. Chelsea's memory foggier still.

"How can you be sure he didn't try, Labour?"

"Because I can, and I'm sorry to blurt all this out. I've had years to come to terms with the truth, and I still shake my head over a man planning his death, his disappearance, down to the tiniest detail. A plan that may or may not have worked, and involved traumatizing you in the process. He didn't overlook the king tide in his tides table booklet. He knew the tides taught by heart because William Scotch didn't plan to die, Charles. He wanted to get lost, and he counted on you detailing his lie to the police. He would question your version of the events. Please," Ila pleaded. "I swear this is true. The tide was his accomplice, and you were his alibi."

Hubbing her head with both hands, Joel squeezed eyes tight, either to help orient her thinking or dull her sister's utterances. "I understand self-lame tells and now never forgetting is a form of punishment but selective memory not seeing what we don't want to see is a survival tactic you're a survivors."

Wanted to laugh to shout shut up or walk away from her deranged sister she might have done all three a disbelief and despair not drained every speck of energy.

"Why take such a risk Ila? Why wouldn't he walk away like any other happy family man u?" Ila said a life and trans policy that relied on lazy assesses assumptions and a police report containing the evidence of a traumatized and a very believable 12-year-old witness. The coroner's court had no reason to delay granting probate in advance of findings and that's what speeds up policy payouts. I explained in a matter of fact voice. "He worked the system he knew well to become Another tragic rock fishing fatality. One of many to occur every year along this coastline. The police had needed a little convincing. Having seen many fishermen suffer the same fate, they quickly closed the case, declaring Williams got officially dead. Only he wasn't."

"But I How? Where did he go?"

"Nowhere."

Chelsea's head dod up to scrutinize her sister's face. "No, no, not nowhere. Don't tell me that." Craving the comfort that came from her happiest memories, Chelsea picked up the discarded cuddle bone, touching a tie like a magical totem. Ila reached out to hand, but Chelsea resisted her attempt to connect.

"Please believe it breaks my heart to tell you. He resurfaced here as Liam Scott and made a new family. He married Talia."

As much as she wants to scream at Ila, a no lodge in Chelsea's throat. She could barely breathe or think, let alone speak.

"I understand you'll be hating me right about now," Ila said. "I've hated myself for keeping the secret, but I've wept over you idolizing the man who destroyed our relationship. He ruined my life, Chelsea, and while the truth is a horribly cool thing to let out, I can no longer sit back and watch him ruin yours."

"Enough, Ila. Whatever this is, I don't want to listen to your lies. I don't want you near me at all."

Ila grabbed Chelsea's forearm and he to the spot. "I'm not lying, Charles. And I will go, but not until you have emotional support close by."

"Me?" Chelsea squawkked head turned in the sister's direction. Unfortunately, she shared the cut and clenched in her hand and like a bird sharpens it. Jesse honed her next word for maximum hurt. "I am not the one needing emotional support, Ila, but I suggest you get some. You are delusional. Now go, leave me." She jumped her arm away and jumped to her feet. "We're done."

"Okay. Okay, I'll go," Ila conceded standing. "But not until you play this recording. Listen carefully and you might think differently about me afterwards. Take it." She brushed the phone forward. "What we talked about is all here."

Face flinched. "You've recorded us."

"No, I recorded Dad and me, but you do want proof. Take the phone. Listen over and over if you need to." At that le picked up Chelsea's limal, lap the device on her palm, and poked at the screen's play button. The starters gumbbled while waiting for him to sit. "But please listen to the end."

Chelsea stared at the device, then up at her sister, now walking away. "How do I know this is dad?" She called.

Lila turned her back to the ocean, her exhalation long and loud. "You'll know when you're done," she said. "I'm here for you. Always will be."

Preparing to hold the damn mobile device at her sister's retreating finger, both frustration fear killing Chelsea's fingers tight. A faint but familiar voice reached her ears. She raised the phone.

"I saw her, but don't worry, I'll be staying low from now on until she leaves." Even with the speaker of volume up high, some words were difficult to make out. Not her sisters. "I've been hurting the sister love for decades. Then I left my family out of love, Dad."

"Why did you leave?" A loud bang like a fist thumping a table jolted Chelsea. But the recording played on. "You are her hero and your memory overshadows everything and everyone. No one can compete with the great William Scott. Not even her amazing husband. While I remain the sister she thinks doesn't give a [ __ ]." Another th echoed. "So no, I'm not telling Chelsea you are. Only then will the hero worshiing stop. And with luck she'll save her marriage."

As the recording fell silent and the shame and contrition that had coiled itself inside Chelsea all these years wiggled its way out. She dragged her face from damp tears so knees to scan the beach. Picking her sister out from the shoreline crowd was easy enough. Knowing what to say was the hard part. Ila couldn't know of Chelsea's approach. And yet somehow she did, reaching her hand behind, ready to connect, be sisters again. As their fingers entwined, Ila turned to face Chelsea. No words needed. Then finally, and for the first time in years, the Scott sisters hugged and cried together. Their tears this time for what they found. Each other.

Ila pulled out of the embrace first, breaking a hand over Josie's hair before peeling away with strands stuck by Salty's spray and tears. "I'm so sorry."

"No, Ila, this isn't your fault. I I just don't get why he choose sandbar. This place was he swallowed. It was our magic place."

"My guess is he figured we'd never return without him. For over three decades, he was right. Then Gabby said you were here and I had no choice. I had to find you before we bumped into him."

Chelsea rapid blinking squeezed fresh tears to the surface. "Oh my, I think I might have bumped into him," she whispered almost to herself as each moment rose to the surface of her mind. The man staring from across the fire pit, the fisherman on the beach, the person behind the shot curtains as Chelsea had sipped lemonade. Eddie recognized his youngest daughter and stayed hidden to listen. Oralia told him about the pathetic woman who still burst into tears over her dead father. As Chelsea's knees buckled, Lea stopped her from falling. Both hands gripped tight and shaking as if waking Chelsea from a bad dream.

"Hey, come on, be strong. You're hurting right now. You too, and for all those years, yet there I was, constantly shoving his memory down your throat. No wonder you were never sad at birthday and Christmas events. Mom told me early to lie, not cry. She did a good job."

Chelsea judged away so abruptly almost stumbled. "Mom, was she a part of this race?"

"Not initially," Ila replied. "She didn't know, and she didn't plan. Her grief was real until his letter arrived. That's when mom changed. Remember the time she threw everything in the bin. On one occasion, Wendy did a lousy job of destroying evidence in the old incinerator. I found the letter he written to her, basically explaining why, and to reassure her we'd be financially secure if she followed his instructions. I read the note and I ripped it up, told her. I tucked it. Fortunately, I stuck the thing back together. It explains a lot."

"Where is it?" Elsie asked.

"In my bag in the caravan, you're telling me mom's known all this time."

"Look, you can choose to hate mom and me. I hate what he did to you. To us both. I hated myself and the world so much I turned to anything and everything to ease the pain. My hatred nearly killed me. Hating is not the answer." Wiped a tear from her sister's cheek. "And I thought mom couldn't stand to look at me. That's why she left me at the pool and offloaded us on Rita."

"No, no. She walked away from us both, but not before offloading her anger on me, bemoning her wasted life. She said things I've never forgotten about. words like, 'I might not be the storybook mother, but at least I stayed to pick up and put away housekeeper, cook, laundry maid. That's been my sole purpose since I fell pregnant at 22.' 22. Then she added, 'Did anyone ask how I saw my future or what I wanted from my life?' She even said she squandered her youthful beauty on a man who grew more ridiculous and embarrassing every year and that she wasn't raising two children. She had three. I was stuck in this pathetic excuse for her house and watching you girls with your beauty and boyfriends and bright futures remind me every day what I've lost and will never get back. Never."

"I know that speech of bat shells. Hard words to forget. Wow, sis. Didn't we hit the jackpot?" Chelsea Huff was more resignation than rage. "A mother who resents us and a father who didn't want us."

"If it helps, I believe he did love us. That's why he went to such extremes to leave us money. But the man needed his freedom more. Maybe if Wendy had not been so stubborn, putting the kibash on things William wanted and enjoyed, their marriage might have been different. If she hadn't insisted they buy in the boonies, rather than rent close to the beach scene he loved, our lives might be different. Even though the man tested the house according to the rule of Wendy, families made memories in their own home and not in a stranger's rental. He hated our house."

"You can't be serious. No, no, not the beach, Shack." Kelsey hung her head and cried with tears, and she's now burning with anger, confusion, and contrition. "Al said the same thing about homes and memories."

"I hate hurting you, Charles, but you needed to know, especially considering what's happening in your life right now. William Scott was a miserable man. He tolerated the daily commute and all the material things when Wendy claimed to make a home. Yes, that same home he once told me he was drowning in. I remember now. We were on the headland that day. He started to cry and said he'd been treading water for years and that he was tired."

Dy closed her eyes to send the rise of resentment, but she couldn't control the sharpness in her voice, like an invisible slap to her sister's face. "For goodness sake, Ila, I'm almost 50. You couldn't tell me before."

"I was protecting you from the anger and bitterness that sets in and eats you alive from the inside. You and Dale were happy, or so I thought." Ila reached out her hand to dab Chelsea's cheek. "The truth would have destroyed you. And to what end? William had caused enough hurt. But he didn't give me the option to learn the truth. You and mom decided for me. And stop calling him William. He's our dad. Listen to the recording again," Ila said. "Better still read the letter. You'll find the original in the side pocket of my handbag back at the van. On my phone is a photograph version with a filter applied sharpen the text. Zooming in while decipher the words lost to the folds. Take it." Ila dropped the mobile device into Chelsea's card pocket.

"He can't have loved us," Chelsea muted through her backs.

"Guess that depends on your definition of love," Ila said. "He could have done his case. Packed a bag, cleaned out the bank account, bled in the middle of the night. Don't know what. Remember when they found that millionaire living a lavish lifestyle in Mayoka? One day, before I knew his actual whereabouts, I asked mom if dad was living on a tropical island and protected from intruders by high tech security systems. She laughed and said she didn't care. Then on my first overseas trip, I looked for him in every face, always holding on to the tiniest kernel of hope. And what a waste of emotional energy. He hadn't fled country to hide out in some exotic port. The clue had been his letter all those years. The man was living less than a day's drive from the home he hated."

"But how could you be certain mom wouldn't get mad enough to dog him in?"

Ila huffed and give up all that money? No way. She was damned if she told the truth, and damned if she didn't. The tide was on the turn, the waves, white foam, closing on the high tide line of marine waste.

"What do you know?" Elsie asked the ocean. "Tell me." While no one came, the next wave seemed to keep its distance before sinking away as if aware it had done something very wrong.

Chelsea needed to get away from the beach and from sandbar. In 5 minutes, she could be back at the caravan. 15 minutes more. Having thrown every belonging in the car, she could be on the road and headed back to a boring life in an empty pathetic excuse for a house. Once there, it would be just her and the walls and sideboards adorned with memories she dusted dutifully for years. She'd unpack, put on a load of laundry, and after tidying the house no family member cared to live in, but her. She could sit and wait for the family dog no longer had to want dinner, or for her boys to meet her, or for her husband to decide he wanted to come back.

"Chelsea. Chelse. Sweetie, when you read the letter and listen to the recording again, there's one more thing I need to tell you."

"No, no more," she pleaded, mentally exhausted. "I need time." Chelsea turned so sharply the sand gave way. The thankful Ila's quick reaction again stopped her from falling. She shook free of the handhold. "Let me be, please, Ila. I have to be angry with you for a while. Just a while."

The direction Chelsea ran didn't matter as long as it was far away from people, from the sea, and from the lying tide. In the sea of a mostly deserted campground, she was nearing the serenity of Siesta. When the trail ring of phone made Chelsea curse and reached into her pocket, realizing her mistake, she cursed again.

"Damn it."

"Well, you're not Ila," the voice said.

"No, I'm Chelsea. I've answered her phone by mistake."

"Oh, you're the sister. I beg your pardon."

"I'm sorry, that sounds rude. Ila probably hasn't mentioned me. Is she there? I left her on the beach," Kelsey said, struggling to unlock the caravan before realizing it was not locked, her eye rising. "Let me take a message."

"Okay. I'm Trent," the man announced as if she should care to know. "How are things progressing?"

"She's doing okay." The questioning phone sounded more caring than curious, but cautious. And for a moment, the voice was a calming soul to Chelsea's pain. "Maybe Trent, you can phone back, and I won't answer." She slammed the door shut behind her and busy scanned the compact space for assisted belongings. The call goes messages. Okay. Ah, on second thoughts, the man said. "Don't mention I rang. Jill accused me of holding too tight. He's probably right. The guy sounded far too sweet for labor. I worry, and I was sitting here wondering how things were working out for her. She loves you very much. I hope we meet socially one day, Chelsea. Even though I feel like I know you already."

"You can't possibly know me," Chelsea might have replied and her impatience not skyrocketed with the discovery of the crumbling paper in the side pocket of her sister's bag. "I no longer know myself."

"Jels, wake up." Apple called from across the way, his voice breathy, his rush, exaggerating his limp. "Where's Ila?"

"I'm not sleeping," Jessie rose from the camp she fallen into after reading a letter that prompted more questions than it answered. Tadpaw's eager inquiry and the dark circles under red eyes raised more. "I left on the beach."

"Why? What's wrong?" She sent the forward letter safely in her card pocket, then reached for his hand, asking it tight. "You have news?"

Dad nodded. "Some finally without me protecting Talia like a bulldog and with the copper's tight lip. I've been relying on Dar's grape vine. Only now we hear in the truth." Tempted to tell Tadpole she had a chef for today. Tears filled his bloodshot eyes.

"What's wrong Tad?"

"Squid's not the only one missing. He is the only one to not make it home. Talia is inconsolable and I'm bloody useless to her. I don't believe it."

"Believe what? What are you trying to say?"

"Going solo was unsafe, but Squid prefers fishing alone. Always as bad blood. He said shadow chases away the fish. Do I take him? I've asked myself a million times. Palia visited her dad overnight, but when needed, I ordinarily looked after him."

"Who? I'm confused." Thunder cracked open the clouds and rain bucked it down. Tad come inside the van trembling.

"What's wrong? Who did you take fishing?" his son," Pat said in a rare beaten down voice. "Squid took Kai. They're both missing."

Without a word, Chelsea took off, gringless towards the bushrack and the beach beyond. Dad called a warning, but she didn't stop. Little Chelsea Scott ran and ran.

Chapter 43. Chelsea. As the concerned and the curious deserted their spots for the dry comfort of a cabin or caravan, Chelsea understood. Only those who knew the pain of keeping watch prepared to sacrifice their safety of event spotting and saving a precious life would dare endure a beach in a deluge. To prove the point, more thunder cracked, and the die hards who gathered in mortal groups, and those who pace the shoreline solo now raced each other back to camp. Even Ila was gone. One man stayed, camera boys, ready to capture any sign of life to become an Instagram star. Chelsea considered telling him he was wasting his time, but could she be certain of anything while still recovering from her sister's truth bomb and with one explosive question ticking away her head? Is William Scott fooling them all for a second time?

Along the sand to her left, a young board rider moved to Chelsea's peripheral vision and paused, possibly contemplating the swingy conditions. Zipping up his wet suit, he ran next to the strange woman in the now see-through white t-shirt and rain so shorts. Another thunder crack followed by rockers cheering off the beach. Thought the team abandoned his board where it stood in the sand. He raced back up to where his mates congregated under the now empty viewing platform. The glow of their cigarettes in the shadows like flitting fireflies. catching a glimpse of the unmissable hair the color of rust. Does he recall the boys who stared through instant eyes while she explained how a trapped ambulant shark waits for a wave to make good their escape? Is Williams got waiting again to escape detection again? He used to tell his daughters the really clever sea creatures wait and watch and listen to the waves whispers. The sea is slick and it can trick but if you never take the ocean for granted to a girl, you'll have nothing to fear. Is William Scott slick? Is this disappearance another trick? Is he even possible in 2015? Disappearing have been doable in a little known isolated local fishing spot in campground circa 1980. How would a person pull off the same stunt with so many people in proximity, so many zoom lenses poed, so many constant calls for hell posted to Facebook?

"Where are you?" She called towards the rocky platform. Her gaze intent on finding signs of life hidden in the headland shadows. All the while watery tentacles sneaked over the shell surface like a child's finger sneaking over the tablecloth to claim the last treat after Christmas lunch. How often had her mom slapped Chelsea's cheeky hands away from the mixing bowl and cream to saying no more. And when he done the same to her husband, denying him what he craved. Had she forced him to leave them to create a new life with a new wife? Will and Chelsea dare him to disappear again, this time with his son. No, no, she yelled into the saturation of squally wins and rain. Not a special boy like Kai. You wouldn't? The whispered reply came back, confirming what Chelsea already knew. It's possible. It's possible. It's possible.

Chapter 44. Chelsea. There was one way to find out, but the danger posed by crossing an outgoing estary meant she couldn't reach the rocky platform via the beach. She would lose her footing. She'd be washed into the deep green valley and carried out sea in the adjoining rip. That's after the rocks and raised like barns gouged her skin. But she survived the fierce and fast moving current. Ted said both the northern side of the rock shell remained accessible from the sandbar beach side. But hadn't tad also inferred all knew of a way in, how difficult could it be? Another option was to race back to camp, find titled police, ramble inherently about her dead father being alive. And if they didn't cut her away there and then, the police might take goodness knows how long to find Elmy, possibly interrupting pilots with her sister, and force confession regarding illegal trespass of historical defense force location. Maybe then they'll have coerced the wackier woman to tell them how she acts as his buck headland so they could have it sealed back up. Oh, Chelsea, you are the crazy one. But was she crazy enough to do what no one else is doing? Where were the boats? Where was the rescue dispatched from Lindore? Even though the monochrome landscape, the sky heavy with cloud and the sea gunmetal gray, made impossible such conditions. Even the opposing bunker headland was surrendering to the dense sea mist. Would air crew see anything in this weather? Maybe the authorities had already decided based on the circumstances the exercise was more likely recovery than rescue. But what if 34 years ago people would looked sooner and harder and concentrated their efforts on land rather than sea? What if you did that now, Chelsea? The fastest way to the truth was undoubtedly ve the northern stretch of sand locals called Heartbreak Beach. From there she could access the caves and the rocky platform. Something was better than nothing. With no time for incision, but with the team's abandoned board sticking proud out of the sand now firmly in her sights, she chanted to herself that she feel free become one with the sea. Suddenly sprinting towards the abandoned board, she took a deathlight grip and dragged it to the waterline. Soon waist deep, the first wave sharp with cold stabbed her belly. Despite a bigger than normal surf and the undertoe that pulled and pushed, hampering her progress. Chelsea ignored the desperate teens pleading.

"You're moving forward, Chelsea, even if it kills you. Hey, lady." The teen's cussing, mostly music by the sound of wind and waves, was the last thing Chelsea heard as she planted the board, threw herself on the deck, and paddled for her life, headed for the greenies rip to take her out fast. She was not going back to shore, and no longer was little Chelsea Scott afraid. Nothing is lurking beneath the surface. Nothing could hurt you. Nothing. Only more of the truth.

"Hey, Dad." But Chelsea was already three decades beyond the worst hurt in the world. The angst of oceans couldn't stop her now. Not once she was beyond the shore, beyond the fear, and beyond the breakers. To anyone looking on, Elsie might appear insignificant in the vastness of the ocean, but her purpose was far from small.

"Time to give up your secrets," she told the undulating and strangely stagnant surface on which the board now bopped. "No more lies."

"What about the bonkers's board never must have reached camp because the shoreline was again crowded?" One person frantically waved the red umbrella. "Ila," her sister was frightened and for good reason. "Had Chelsea stopped to consider the ramifications of her dash into the ocean. She would likely not be freezing and afraid and straddling a stolen surfboard more than a kilometer offshore." But this was no longer about Chelsea or her phobia. This was about a small boy supposedly missing with his father.

"Or am I right, and you're up there hiding in plain sight?" Chelsea screamed at the distant headland. "We were up there somewhere a capture 34 years ago, Dad. Are you seeing me now? Like when you watched and listen from behind the shop curtain? Tell me. Show yourself. I want the truth now." Joel used to tell her sister and later Dale how she would summon her dad for chats late at night under her bed cover cave. She would conjure him up anytime, awake or asleep, and he would wrap her in his warmth, in his wise words, and in his advice. But like see Miss whenever she moved to reach out, there was never anything there and nothing reassuring to hold. The man had lived in her imagination and in her dreams, the good ones, just as he lived, still lives in every room of the house.

"Because you've let him, Chelsea, he was beside her now in his flowery board shorts, bobbing on his vintage board, and wearing the choker necklace. Mom recommended him look like a hippie. Things don't just vanish. Dad," she said into the wind. The mother was about the same line whenever someone in the house grizzled about not being able to find something in their bedroom. "Or can people disappear if desperate enough? Is that right, Dad? Did you make yourself disappear?" The reply came to her as rolling thunder, accompanied by rapid firing or forth lightning, determined to pick the horizon's tight sea of ocean and sky. But unlike the crowd on the beach earlier, Chelsea no longer looked to the sea for answers, nor to the headland. Chelsea had the answer. She only needed to pick through the detritus of memories inside herself or one moment in time years ago. The answer was in her father's wise words.

"Never play hide-and-seek with cuttlefish. Lesson learned, Chelsea. Lessons with dad 1977. It's what sephopods do?" Dad says as if I should already know. "Like the octopus and squid, the cuttlefish make themselves disappear to evade predators. What's a predator, dad? Someone is something that wants to hurt you, he answers. When sensing danger, the sephopod evades capture by changing color to blend with the landscape. Much like a bug takes the shape of a thorn, and insects come up like a stick. There's a lesson in there, Chelsea girl. What lesson, Dad?" He pokes my ribs and forces a giggle. "Never play hide-and-seek with a sephopod. Of course, I'm too grain out for hide-and-seek. Besides, Ila always wins. Ah, but the secret to winning is to be a cuttlefish, an octopus, or a squid. Ila will never find you. How do you mean? Simple, he explains. Next time you play, stay super still and in plain sight. I scrunch my face. Huh? Blend in, he says. Your sister will be so busy looking in all the usual places, you'll miss the obvious. Promise, Dad, I really want to win." He nods. "I've told you before. If something is important enough, you can do anything and go anywhere. Josie girl. When he loses my beach bag with more dry cut bone, I ask, 'What are you going to do with all these? We have so many already, and mom complains about the stink.' 'Never mind about mom. I have a plan for these. When I finally make time for me.' 'When will that be, Dad?' 'When the little squad stops asking questions, and mom stops asking for everything else. That's when I'll go live on a beach and make beautiful things from all these cuttlefish bones. And when will that be, Dad?' 'When I'm ready to want it more than anything else, more than life, I'll make it happen. Come on, Chelsea. Go. Time we headed back to camp.'"

Chapter 45. Tadpole.

"Here. Touch his landed labor. Look after this and we'll look after your sister. Please, please bring Chelsea back to me. Tad." Tell her we all need her. Tad nodded and hop to the waterline. Aware this rescue, even in his book, was next level ludicrous. And he swell on a stormy day and with his one leg in a bored board. No time to fetch his own. He was somehow supposed to spot herself wearing blue shorts and a white top. And there she was hitting stiff as a board on a stolen board and with both legs dangling into the murky depths.

"What do you think you're doing?" He called on approach.

"I have to do this for me."

"Well, whatever this is," ad said sitting up. "Did you have to try on another place board without permission? Time to get back to its owner. I'm not going in yet. I can't. Look, I get that missing rock fisherman is going to hit you hard, but it's best we leave the sea search to the chopper crew, and you sitting out here won't achieve anything." He didn't add the surfers knowingly conditions are dangerous, especially with on winds turning the surf into unrivalable mush.

"What chopper? Where?" Jesse looked up at the sky. "Do they even care? Our region has one unit. They were diverted to a highway head on. Because missing rock fisherman is just another of those. Too late to rescue recovery. Only suctions you mentioned after the storm that first day. Le wants me to tell you she's sorry. She loves you and to get back to the beach so she can hug you and never let go." While Tad knew the pointy of the message, I required he paused. The changing weather said otherwise.

"She shoved me into the water and begged me to hurry. But Chelsea, now I'm begging you." He might be shouting into the wind, literally and figuratively. But what other choice did he have? The woman had to want to return and under her own seam. He couldn't pick her up and carry her back.

"I understand," He shouted over a wind gust. "There's no better place to think or maybe scream than out here. I get it. I need to look at the world from a different angle many times to make sense of my life. Sitting out here beyond the breakers does that and more. But Tad, the ocean was about connection. As a lifelong lover of surfing, he was no stranger to the rush of riding a wave. Having the energy of that flow through him was surreal and enlightening. This situation was the opposite. with Chelsea bombing up and down on the boardboard. Our blinking gaze is glued to bunker headland. He was growing more nervous by the minute. "Chel, come on," he called. "This car will soon have the north of the rocky point, and that's heading into harbor beach territory. Let's get away to shore before it gets any darker. I'm feeling a little vulnerable with my one remaining incredibly good-looking leg hanging off aboard."

Finally, Chelsea looked at Tad, her expression dead pan. "You've got more chance of dying in a motor accident than you do from a shark attack."

"Yeah, well, I'm not partial to either. Besides, your sister will kill me before anything else, unless I get you back to the beach. Driving her hand into the water, partly his board towards the shore, he said. Come now, you'll be helping me impress later." Finally, a flicker of a smile. But when Chelsea made no attempt to move, Tad paddled alongside and anchored himself to a board.

"Can I at least know why you're out here?" For a moment, he thought she was ignoring him. Then you talk about seeing your world from a different angle, right? Well, as a kid, I love the beach. 34 years ago, that stopped, and I let what happened change me. You might assume I'm only out here to look for a man lost to the sea. I'm also looking for that 12-year-old girl."

Getting side by side on boards, the hair bombed over the rolling waves and going nowhere fast like horses on a watery carousel. "Sorry, Elsie. What will you do when you find that little girl?"

"Grow up," she said, turning to look at him, the harshness back in her voice and her eyes. "I'll sell up, move forward with my life, and hold my husband. Then I'll Oh, wait. What's that?" She pointed towards under headland close to the top. "I see color. As a woman stretched out on the deck, arms poisoned and ready to panel." Tad managed to grab the board's trailing ankle strap. "Well, there holder horses and let me take a look before you go galving off." He blamed to squeeze the salty water from his eyes and to make out the unidentifiable shape. "Could be a kid snapped kite," he shouted back at Josie. "But more likely a safety bunching that's come loose. Over the years, the bad loaded to walkers. More

Of a worry was that it looked like a fresh landslide, as Tad no longer frequented the headland. When serving, he rarely ventured north of Sand Beach to see the scar from this angle and settled him. Even if you could get onto the rocky platform, there's no safe way up. There was a trap three decades ago, Tad. Still is, I'd say. But in what condition? Just look at the gaping bloody hole. That lands up is another reason why Bunker Headline remains off limits. Not even the rule-breakers are stupid enough to try.

"All evidence to the contrary," Chelsea said. "Please let go of the board. Even if you find a way out, Chelsea, I can't help you. With one leg, I'm totally useless."

"No, Tad," she yelled, worsting weather making conversation almost impossible. "The day we met, I saw my father and you. But that is Paul. You are far from useless and a good man. The only truthful thing to come out of my dad's mouth was telling me I can go anywhere and do anything if I want it desperately enough. Which means, Tad, you won't stop me. I want nothing as desperately as I want the truth. And if I'm right, it's up there. But it's mine to find. That's why even if you could help, I'm going alone."

And another thing," she called, a body now horizontal to the board, arms ready to paddle. "I'll happily do this for Ila. All the reasons you and your one leg are a million times more impressive than most men with two."

"And you're brave," she added. "Because you, my friend, are heading back to shore to tell my sister what I must do."

Daughter physically restraining her and likely coming off second best if he tried. Dad gave up. Like prudence, this woman had a mind of her own. As the sky opened, firing skin trap, and pitting the ocean surface. The best you could do was find out where the trouble was, fill them in, and then break the news to her sister. He imagined Leila's response. It looked a lot like the storm in play, all dark, thunderous, and dangerous.

Chapter 46.

Chelsea drove Chelsea around the point, making for the shore, and unsure which scenario scared her more, what she would find or what she wouldn't. For one exhilarating moment, as the waves drove her towards Heartbreak Beach, Chelsea was 12 again, flat on the deck and paddling, her eyes wide with excitement and determination, bought in her body, one preparing to pop tall and confident, despite the firming close-out wave, she heard her dad urging her on, "You're doing it, Chelsea girl. Keep coming. Keep coming."

But Chelsea was no longer 12, nor nimble and fearless, and without the vertical wall of the wave, the surf needed to stand. The crest broke hard and all at once. Without a secured leg rope, the surfboard slipped out from under her. Some assaulted dangerously several times and speared the water surface, forcing Chelsea deep inside the turbulent wash before avoiding being struck. Tumbling, pushed, pulled, and dragged down until thrown against the seafloor. Her entire life passed before her eyes, what seemed like less than a second. Then nothing. It was all over. The monster she once feared and spat onto the sand, and unlike the borrowed board further down the beach, Kelsey was in one piece, flat on her back, and in considerable discomfort. With an uncontrollable shiver, making the simple task of poking her finger inside water ears ridiculously difficult. She tilted her head back, eyes wide, and let the light rain wash away the sea salt and sand. To relieve the tightness in her lungs, she administered two puffs from the pocket of reliever that had miraculously survived the ocean's rough and tumble. Eventually standing on wobbly legs, no time to waste. She made the headland, but with the rock shelf already washed with a white foam of an incoming tide, Josie steeled herself. Half crawling and half climbing, reached the side of the track she knew was there somewhere. When a noise overtook her attention, she slipped, scraping her heel, her ankle bone, and her elbow. The pine voice catcher bird had scooped in for a sticky beak, landing uncommonly close, and again sharing its call, but a noise overhead drowned out the gentle a person, a shout. Unable to see beyond the blue foliage and ignoring the agony of barnacles needling bare feet and the sting of sliced skin, Chelsea found the start of the overgrown walking track and solace in the sandy surface and the cool cushioning under the foot from coastal grasses and pigface plants. Starting out steep, the climb soon took on a zigzag pattern which trend getting nowhere fast, or so it seemed. The higher she climbed, the stronger the wind, but not once did Chelsea look down to check her progress. The only way was up, and the breeze shrubs shaped by persistent winds suggested she was getting close to the top. So bent over was one section of folly as she passed through. The branches that formed a kind of underpass, bringing relief from what was now lashing rain and wind with denseness, however, in darkness reduced her field of vision and turned tree roots into trip factors. Damn it. Landing hard on her left hip and with a burning sensation on the heels of both hands. Dosy carefully crawled forward, hoping she'd find a sturdy tree limb to help right herself. Forward also meant reaching the light, the glow of her head momentarily blinding her into a squint. When she focused her salt and sanded eyes, did let out a gasp and stumbled backward, her feet sending a spray of loose earth into a gaping void. The walking track ahead of her was all but gone. Then she saw him, a man precariously perched amid the crumbling remains of cliff face and barely clinging to a collapsed concrete bunker. And not just any man. You're unsure if her next word was going to be alive or hurt.

"Chelsea," she said nothing. She was too intent on telling herself to wake up from what had to be another baffling and bad dream.

"Except it's not. Chelsea girl, help."

"How?" Down the area for a branch of styur vine strong enough and long enough to reach him and pull him to safety. Two meters would do. Then what? Take his weight and trust noble landfills away. More rubble rained over her father and smashed on the rock platform below decided for her. Remarkably, the tangled remnants of concrete and steel supporting him stayed in place. After the clatter of falling rocks, came the catwing of an anxious crowd looking on from afar. The landslide had exposed a slice of Sandbar Beach to the south. People gathered there. Mere specks on the sand but distinguishable. Ali and Elmy and the unmistakable outfits had pole with Lucky and Ila all watching and all barred from helping by the high tide and a surging estuary.

"People know I'm here," she told the man. "Despite everything, even the bloody thigh wound, the words were coming. Help will come."

"Good, because I'm clearly going nowhere. No matter how much I might want otherwise, the steel rod has my leg pinned." He yanked hard on the length of colorful construction bunting. A makeshift, his expression portraiture of both pain and repentance. "I can't get to Kai, and I need to make sure he's okay."

"I understand. You don't want him scared," Chelsea said. The sharp end of her stare further impaling him to the crumbling cliff face. "You don't want him left alone to survive the night on this headland, where the dark forest limbs bursting with ghoulish bangs of men."

"Please, Chelsea girl, find my son," he said. "Forget about me. Forget about you."

Momentarily tempted to laugh, she steeled herself. "Your son is the only reason I've come. Then please find him. I pushed high to safety seconds before the earth gave way. If he's run off, it's because he's confused about what to do. The headland is not new to him, but I taught him not to tell anyone about our secret spot."

"Secret spot?" His words were as good as a punch to Chelsea's stomach. "He's familiar with the place. We play hide-and-seek up here. He's likely in the southern bunker. He goes there with Elmy. He loves her storytelling. Elm's bunker. From here, head towards the tunnels and the wartime gun placement. Remember you called it a big plug."

"Do I remember?" she mocked. "It's coming back to me, Dad. All of it. Your cruel lies, your fake tears that day."

"I'm seriously sorry for what you went through," he said, remorsing with more pain. "If I could have done one thing differently, it would have been to leave you a camp with your mother and sister. But even if you'd let me, going without you was so out of the ordinary. People would have questioned why I went fishing alone on the very day I go missing. So Ila's right. I was your alibi."

"Dosy girl, you were so much more to me. Such a curious girl and always questioning. There was no way for me to explain starting a new life together, but I couldn't take you away with me. Whereas Kai, he doesn't ask questions. Kai is well, he's Kai."

"You were actually taking him?"

"No," she cried, determined to not so allowed. "This can't be real. Do you know how much I wished and dreamed and hoped you'd come home? I've held so tight to your memory, Dad."

The earth underfoot shifted. Or was the tremor felt Chelsea's world falling apart? Her life, her beliefs, her trust plummeting and smashing onto the rocky platform below, and were the man responsible right there watching? Could he not see her about to crumble and fall? Did he not love his daughter as much as he cared about his son?

"I promise to answer all your questions once you and K are safe. A few meters more and you'll be at the top and on solid ground. Hi, my boy. We'll trust you to keep him safe. You've wanted already, and I know you're a wonderful mother, because now and then Wendy acquiesces to send family photos on news. Right now, though, you need to go."

"Yes. Yes, she did." With the sky her only guide up, she forged an alternative path, eventually finding flat ground at last. But the climb wasn't over. Up and up she went, coming across a dozen stairs barricaded by fallen trees and fortified by sticky spider webs. Taking up arms, a cobweb battling the branch family in hand, she charged up the rotting steps, stopping at the entrance to a tunnel, one of several on the headland, she recalled. Over three decades ago, her father had urged Chelsea to trust him, but nothing looked familiar. The tunnel entrance was caged, but the wire bent back to make a small gap. Enough for a child and for a tiny woman, she thought, a brave one. Chelsea edged close enough to call the boy's name in case he was hiding inside, but the echo too quickly faded. She tried again, louder, desperate, but with no reply and no other choice. She breathed herself skinny, turned her head sideways to avoid the protruding wires, and sung out.

"I'm coming, Kai."

Ready or not, desperation drove Chelsea through the dark and dank confines, the scent of something rotten, something dead, burning her stomach. Making herself small, as if a child again, and in her bed cover cubby, she squinted in the darkness, while dead by shaking step, she made her way across the increasingly familiar and frightening tunnel. There were at regular intervals overhead, cracked with guiding shards of dying daylight, which she counted, stopping suddenly at three. This is wrong. The tunnel had taken her and dad towards the secret spot track and both bunkers. She was retracing her steps, and she was wrong again. Turned back and disoriented. She braced the walls of both hands to stop herself from slipping on the slime underfoot. Out of the tunnel, gulping fresh air, the suddenly wind was cooling on face wet with tears. She didn't realize she cried. With no time to waste, Joselie turned south to hunt down the inconspicuous southern bunker, Elme's bunker. And there it was, like a burrow built into the side of the cliff. Despite only a narrow opening from observing the ocean, there was enough light to appreciate the painted walls. Patted said told the story of mother's love and sacrifice her family. And there, tucked in a corner and covered with captain fabric, was high.

"Hey there, little man," she whispered, or gently rousing the boy and rearranging her face to show fun rather than fear. "You must be the hide-and-seek champion. We must hurry away from here. Mom needs you home. Dad. Dad. Dad."

"Yes, dad needs you to be safe." Taking a calming breath, she just ripped his hand, ready to leave him away. When the remains of war rattled around them, darting as a low brow, the noise grew the ground under her feet judged and the smashing sound falling rocks echoed in the holy space, falling kite tight, bearing Elm's bunk was about to suffer the same fate and fall to the rocky platform. Chelsea bent over, burrowed her yelp in the boy's hair, and imagined Laya waiting on the beach, and no doubt feeling guilt over Chelsea's current predicament, but all blame laying with the man she was prepared to save. For Kai's sake.

"Look, look, look," I said, pointing beyond the slit of concrete where soldiers had once kept watch. The helicopter finally gathering the sway the fabric from the floor, she asked, "Have you ever flown in a welly bed?"

When the boy shook his head, she added, "Me either, so let's hurry. That's exactly what we'll do. Take my hand." Fifteen shards of light later, but with the sound of the helicopter somewhere overhead, urging Chelsea on. The pair emerged from the tunnel. They made it through the maze and bashed the open space with its dilapidated tin huts on the periphery and the giant plug dead center. But the helicopter had her already tan tail. The crew reconnaissance bunker had land completed too quickly. Can they not see a man needs help?

"Hey, we're here!" She screamed, letting the wind catch the silk and captain fabric as she ran into the clearing and climbed onto the big plug. "It worked. Thank you, Elmy. Hi, sweetie. Let's get you ready."

Having circled back, the aircraft hovered while the crew member lowered himself to the ground nearby. "Look at me," Elsie said as she squatted before increasingly confused Kai. Holding his shivering shoulders, she explained. "The harness is the fun bit. It doesn't hurt. The nice man will use to lift you safely into the willy bird. Okay. Dad. Dad. Dad." I cried. His agitation growing as the crim neared. "Rescue harness already. Yes. Kai sweetie. You'll see him soon. But going with the man now will show dad it's not scary. I'll go now to tell him to look up at his very brave boy."

Sorry. The crimman shed over the deafening. [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] of blades. "I'll be straight back for you." With arms akimbo as proving she was uninjured, Chelsea yelled back. "Leave me. I'm not the one needing urgent help." He clipped the second harness from his kid and thrust it towards Chelsea. "We don't leave anyone behind us. We have to. And it's less traumatic for all of us, little guy included. When mom is on board. Let's go, little guy. Mom will wait right here."

"You don't understand," Chelsea insisted.

"I do understand," he cut in. "Delaying in these conditions will drain off your fast. Let's go." He signaled his crew.

"But Kai isn't my son." With the crimman already out of her shot, only she had the words. "He's my half-brother." Despite wishing she could have raced back and tell her the father Kai was safe, Chelsea had waited. Only when dangling midair like a limp puppet did the enormity of what she had achieved and all she'd seen squeeze more tears from her eyes. She cried harder still when one safely bled into the chopper. Free to the harness and set in place. He cradled Kai, rocking him and reassuring him. All the while keeping his face pressed into her body as the pilot took in a wide arc, flying out to sea before turning back towards land.

"About his dad," she ventured. "Will another rescue chopper come with the medical team?" If the crimman's carefully controlled expression didn't vividly betray his reply, the bleak, bare, and broken face of a distant bunker headland said it all.

Chapter 47.

Chelsea. Day six of seven. Other beachgoers might assume Chelsea was there for the same reason, to pray and hope. She wasn't, of course. Chelsea was not a part of the growing collective of wanderites intent on paddling out in honor of the man they lovingly referred to as Squid. Overnight and working against an incoming tide, several teams made up of local volunteers and police had searched the rubble-strewn rocky platform by torchlight. But the ocean had won, beating back rescuers and sweeping the battlefield clean by morning. While the retained tide hadn't washed away from the rubble, a work road continued to comb through since daybreak. Could have a dog and all, though we yet find evidence or remains at the base of the cliff, with the term recovery effort being reported in news bulletins, and the sea once again blamed for taking a beloved family man.

At the base of June, knees bent and pulled close to her chin, Kelsey kept her back to the headland, preferring to observe the abundant board shorts, barley skirts, bikinis, thongs, and sun hats. A colorful array of clothing in contrast to the gloomy day. Feeling conspicuous and pain three-quarter pants and a shirt to watch the going on from a distance. Though connected in ways, Kelsey was not on the beach to commemorate or mourn. Had Ila got her way, Kelsey wouldn't be on the beach at all. The pair would have left that first day and found a resort pool to land around while the sisters reconnected. Dussy would have been none the wiser and Kai might be with his dad. As choices go, staying in Sandbar had been neither right nor wrong, but last night with Ila could have played out differently. So many high emotions followed by long silences and meaningful moments of two sisters trying to heal. At the pet acted like adults and made up after the young match, Josie wouldn't spend the evening alone in CS wanting her sister back, crying over her husband's absence, growing angry at her father and angry with herself for sticking around for this afternoon's battle out. But Liam, Squid, Scott, but Tapel had asked her to stay and she kind of owed him. Lea remained nowhere to be seen, a departure not unusual, nor unexpected. At the age of 18, disappearing was something her sister routinely did, often for months on end. At least Chelsea now understood why.

In contrast to the busy beach, the ocean appeared impassive, but Chelsea knew better. William Scott for his daughters, the ocean is motion, and constantly moving and propelling around the globe in sweeping currents. "There's no holding back a restless wave," he said.

"And no turning it around either," Chelsea muttered. With the sun sinking behind the dunes, and people gathering in groups on the sand, Chelsea recalled Tadpole saying an East Coast sunset helped him reflect on his achievements. Chelsea's successes, the ones to be celebrated, were small, like learning to appreciate who she was, what she was capable of, and importantly, knowing what she needed to do next. The answer so tiny had sat on a various bedside tables for 34 years as she passed the little con from one palm to the other. Dossy pondered how many marine lives this one small shell had protected before snatched from a tidal pool by a selfish girl who knew better. The hermit crab lesson had been one of Josy's earliest. William Scott understood the curious creature because like the hermit crab when he outgrew one house, he simply went on the hunt for a new one.

"Musical mollusk shares with dad 1976. Just this one, dad, please. The shell is light in my hand. It's empty. I add remember the rules." The replies while lovingly unced fingers one by one. "Besides, being empty is more reason to leave a shell behind for the squatters of the sea."

"What's a squatter?"

"Squatters borrow places to live. Hermit crabs out their houses, so they find an abandoned shell, attach themselves, and put it around wherever they go. Like we attach to the caravan, I say."

"Kind of, but for her crabs, they can be too few to go around because little girls take shelters as keepsakes. When someone takes a shell away, like a chair musical chairs party game, the crab misses out. Remember how you got upset on your birthday?"

I nod, and although the conscious my hand is my favorite of all time and very pretty, I tilt my palm and send it back into the water with a pop. We stay and see if the hammer crab finds it. Bad shakes his head. Could be a big wait. Not even sure why they're called hermit crabs, he says, except that they put themselves inside bar shells and rarely poke their heads out. Kind of like mom when we're caravanning. Dad chuckles. He has a great laugh. Even weirder, he says. His hermit crabs aren't homes at all. There can be hundreds living in a community in complete harmony and happily swinging shells or finding new and bigger ones. Is that like mom wanting to make big caravans so she can fit more junk in? Dad doesn't answer yes or no. Instead, he throws back his head, lets out a big burst of laughter, and walks away, leaving me pondering the rock pool, now home to my very favorite con shell. My very, very beautiful and hard to leave behind a shell.

Chelsea might have read more into the recollection than was rational, but it was impossible to not compare the conch to the beach shack. She had selfishly kept both. How had she not understood Dale's discontent? He was living in a borrowed shell and drowning in William Scott memories. She'd been reckless with her husband's love, throwing away her relationship rather than throwing away boxes. Time to write two wrongs. Standing, she brushed the sand from her bottom and stro purposefully towards the southern end of the beach. Going beside the rock pool and observing her reflection, Chelsea opened and upturned her hand. The plop of the little conch, the way it spiraled to the bottom of the pool, stirred the water surface. Hopefully, the ripple effect of Chelsea's return to sambar will also eventually calm, and while impossible to forget completely, she'll learn to remember her father differently, the way he deserved.

"Ohoy there," Tad quarters as Chelsea near the viewing platform. "Missing you already and right when I do with some delightfully distracting company." Although keen to pack her things and bid Sam Beach goodbye, she paused long enough to say, "You're sweet. I'm going to miss you, Tad, but I'll be back after I've sorted my life and two generations of stuff in and under the house. Thank goodness I have a sister willing to help."

"Would my ears be burning?" Laya emerged from behind the June joining them and surprising Chelsea. "You stayed. I I thought you left me here."

"I'm never leaving you again." The sisters hug so tight with pulling away to ask Tad. "Do you mind? I need a minute with Chelsea."

"No problemmo. I have things to do when people to see. The community is putting a thank you event on for the volunteers. Hopefully the rain stays away. Maybe you'll be there." Pat wasn't lucky to aside and called back as he walked away. "If not, it's good to see you two patching things up."

"I honestly thought you'd gone," Chelsea said.

Ila slipped into the lookout seat and smiled at her. "No choice but to say. I can never let you out of my side again. You know all my secrets."

"I sure hope that's all there is. A lot to reconcile. I dread Dale's reaction when he hears how much dad hated the beach shack and abandoned Shel no one wanted me was how he wants to describe our home. I'm unsure how much damage I've done to my marriage, but I'm going to fix it."

"News flash, Chells, you're not losing Dale. Not over a house and not over a woman. Don't take my word for it. Call him."

"I plan to. And thanks to you, I won't be starting this story from scratch when I see him." After a minute, staring at the horizon, Chelsea asked. "You reckon it was dad's plan, too?"

Leila's gaze zeroed in on Chelsea. "Do you really want to let your head go there?"

"No, but what if?"

"No more what ifs. Second-guessing has no way to live. I hate what he did to our family. What he did to us, but that's behind us. It's over. Done." Watching her sister finger trace a heart tattoo that had all lousy dog of disguising the scar. Feli knew. No longer was the reason her attractive older sister had progressed from alcohol and drugs to self-harm a mystery. There could be no more secrets. Later, when her sister nodded, added. "Let's check on it."

"Seriously, we're not children, Charles. We don't cross our hearts and hope to die. But I also wish we weren't grown-ups."

"How about we promise without the symbolism? And if you weren't a grown-up, Chelsea asked if we could go back to being kids. What would you want to do right now?"

"Too easy," Ila replied. "I'd run away. Want to come?"

"I'm serious." A sudden burst of enthusiasm suggested so. "Let's go somewhere. Anywhere but bloody nowhere. Let go of this place and let him go." A distant commotion of color caught the corner of Chelsea's eye as a woman emerged from between the dunes further north. Talia, a woman, husband, a mother wondering what next. Chelsea contemplated what she could say to comfort Talia until a burst of wind-driven sand slapped sensed into her. The same dust called Talia's heavy skirt. As the fabric flapped wildly fleetingly, the flurry of red, green, and yellow reminded Chelsea of the Laura Keys that once crashed into a kitchen window. On that occasion, she stood back and waited because the sunbird will recover if left alone. Not intervening, though have been difficult.

"I can guess what you're contemplating," Ila said. "Forget it. You don't think Kalia deserves the truth?"

"What truth? That her husband is a fraudster and a liar? Do we tell her who we are? Should we make her question his love for her and let her see he's lied to her every day of their lives together?"

"Hasn't he?" Elsie asked. "And not just Talia, but Kai and Tapole." Lea shrugged. "Sure, but he also be forcing a woman to keep a secret. And I know the effects of doing so, like when you're constantly compelled to pretend you're missing a person, when you both love and hate at the same time. I know Talia will go through life pretending she's okay. But she'll be lying to her son and everyone else. The line will impact her, change her, challenge her to keep going. What if dad wasn't pretending to love his life here? What if me come back ruin everything?"

"I'm not listening to this, Chelsea, but if you want to tell Talia that's your decision, and now is your chance. Walk on over, give her the full story, and watch her question everything she thought was true and good about her life. Then wait for her to discover how keeping a shocking secret from family and friends soon as those precious relationships. Pretty soon, she'll cut all ties, and she'll self-destruct. And poor Kai will go through life wondering what he did to make his mother sad one minute and angry the next. She'll start drinking because alcohol eases her pain, but grow to fear the truth will one day slip out because booze loosens slips. For that reason alone, she'll shut down Kai and everyone she loves. And when it all hurts too much and gets too hard, she'll look for a way out several times. If she's lucky, someone will see she's worth saving. They'll let her rant and they'll care enough to pull her through, giving her some semblance of a life back. They'll show her she is worth loving, but it'll be too late." Ila said she no longer trusts the word love. "When a man tells her, 'I love you and I want to be with you forever,' she'll question herself and him. I know what I'm talking about, Chelsea. I am that person. Is that what you want for Talia?"

"No. Look," my sister continued, "You hate mom and you think she ran out on us and too easily moved on to a new husband. Like me, mom did what she did to cope. You and I are lucky. Don't stop. I'm serious." Lea scolded. "We know the truth and going forward we'll have each other through tears."

Chelsea's eyes locked on the horizon. "I like your idea of running away. I once asked him dad how long it will take to swim to the end of the ocean. He replied there is no end. It's all about perspective. What you see is only the horizon. The sea goes on and on. So I asked him where it goes."

"And what did he say?"

"He said everywhere and nowhere. Just huff and dusted off a cut bone. He also claimed to be a chameleon of the sea."

Chapter 48.

Chelsea. Earlier while staring at that unreachable horizon, the blustery winds from south doing their utmost to penetrate the borrowed jumper. Josie watched a bunch of teenagers tasked with building a bonfire on the sand. The same gusts now carried their round exclamations and the smoke of a fire refusing to cooperate. Having watched their struggle and many kindling trips behind the dunes, Josie walked over and surrendered William Scott's around cardigan. A gasp of the crazy lady's actions, Josie smiled at the group and muttered, "Where there's smoke, there's fire. Lesson learned, kids." Now alone on the viewing platform, and having found warmth and comfort from the contents of Lea's suitcase, Josie again sat on the periphery to watch the going on, unsure about her fascination. Was it the fire again or the fact people were lamenting the loss of her father?

"You came," Ads bit her, placing a comforting hand on the thigh.

"Sort of," she replied. "In need of an ear?"

"That all depends," Elsie said. "You need to hear a story about a mother who used her children and a dog as an excuse to hold on to her house. I'm that mother, in case you're wondering. Go on."

"I should have listened to my children and to my husband," Elsie began. "They wanted out of that house years ago. They tried telling me. You obviously have your reasons for staying," had tadpole. "And no," she said resignedly. "Like the stubborn seahorses, I was clinging and refusing to let go. I had to make a safe home for my family and prove I could be a good wife and a better mother because my mom sucked big time. But being back at Sandbar has made me realize I've selfishly held on to all the wrong things, including one empty cot shell. Letting go can be scary, Chelsea."

"Yeah, my daughter once told me I was afraid, and I am," she confessed. "I'm terrified about selling the house. Even the stubborn old seahorse will eventually loosen its grip and let fate have its way. Dad said, 'You know, they're monogamous. The seahorse finds a mate to cling to in turbulent or waters, and when the time's right, the pair let go together and ride the current. I reckon your guy is half as intelligent as a seahorse. He'll be hanging on to you real tight. As for the kids, I'm no expert, but it's said those who fly early are proof we've done a pretty decent parenting job. I can't take full credit for mine, but I was a kid once, and I made mistakes. In fact, maybe while you're confessing, I should tell you something. I um well, there's this incident in my past I want to share with you. It involves Ila."

As T's long-winded confession sank in along with the memory of her sister's splinter and the resultant infection, Chelsea forward. "That's it. Not the reaction I'd expected," he said.

"What did you expect? You and I had a quick grow when you were teenagers. I recall the splinter episode involved with boiling beach. I didn't laugh back then. Of course, I was sad to my sister. But you're the devil." That raised a welcome hand making her way up from the shoreline. "Reckon I might get myself another beer. R squid. Let's go."

"Lucky mate. Wait before you go." He caught him by the elbow. "I have a secret too, but it's okay. We're allowed secrets. If it is one to tell, you'll know the right time."

"Hey." They look downside. "Amazing, isn't he? Which one?"

"The dog or the man?"

"You know exactly what I mean. And look at all Lucky. He's like a pup on the beach. I took a dip earlier, but I still feel old. Then again, you were the water baby. As kids, I always knew where to find you. Looks like I'll have to get used to it again. Things you can't stay away. I am learning to trust the water. I think I'll stay another day. Sitting alone on the beach helps."

"You weren't exactly alone just now."

"He's good company. Pad and his love of the sea have helped me more than he knows. For so long, I've stayed away from something I love. And all because of what dad did."

"Oh, I get that." Ila wrapped her arm around Chelsea, pulling her close. "I stayed away from you."

Chelsea rubbed the thumb over the heart tattoo on her sister's wrist. "That must have hurt."

With the tiniest nod, Ila said, "Wounds heal. That reminds me, I meant to ask. Was your healing helped along by a honey-voiced man called Trent?"

Surprised and maybe a pinch of concern, widened her sister's eyes. "How do you know about Trent?"

"I don't know anything. Relax. I accidentally answered your phone and forgot to mention it, but he seemed keen that you didn't know he called. Said you think he was checking up on you. He asked if you were okay."

Are you glanced back at her sister's rest now? "Friend was a shrink who let me see how harboring blame leads to certain self-destructive behaviors. Why didn't you care?"

"I was blaming myself for dad." Chelsea instantly wished he could retract the question. "Look, Charles, I went off on the rails for a long time, too full of myself. By the time I was thinking clearly, I figured the damage had been done and I hoped you would move forward with your life and beautiful family. But if I could go back, I would."

"I know. And speaking of moving on," Josie said, "Does Mrs. I am mid Mediterranean cruise doesn't bother me? Know the skeleton is out."

Ila shrugged. "I'm not returning her messages. I'm done. I don't want to stay in touch."

"Why not?"

"Because love didn't bond me to mom. Lies did. And it turns out she was worse than William. He at least married the woman he thought he knocked up because it was the honorable thing to do. Then you came along, misfix, the golden head magic marriage cure all. But there was no fixing a marriage that was insisible anymore than you could save a man who didn't want to be saved. The lies stopped with us and they stopped today."

"Agreed. You are the most important person in my life and I'm feeling like I might might get my sister back and I hope I've always had me. I love you."

"Did I?"

Chapter 49.

Chelsea. Day seven of seven. Dale. Chelsea jumped to her feet, brushing sand from her cut of shorts and blindly tidying her windblown hair.

"Why are you here?"

"Because you're here." Her husband's words, his presence, and his embrace unraveled Chelsea in all the right ways. "I've missed you. And after all told me I asked for a few days off. Oh, I've so missed you. I can't believe you've come." Life made sense around Dale. Steadfast in calm times, he kept his family safe and together even when life's raging currents kept pulling them apart. Now standing on the sand in his shorts and open shirt and thongs, Chelsea saw the boy with some bleach chair who moved his school back to the floor for her. Then moved his life to a suburb far from his beloved surf beach. Not until he left Perth that Chelsea appreciated that it takes a family to make a shallow home. Ads moving out and brought her back to Sambar. She might not be in his arms and relishing the hug that unfailingly felt like home.

"Thank you for finding me, Dale."

"I got a little worried myself, Charles, but I'm here now. The GPS got me as far as one dary bait shop where I ran into a local I should try the beach. I was about to question the validity of this tip. I figured he was talking about another Chelsea halt when he called out. You're a lucky man, though. I got to thinking, wifey. What's the black supposed to make of such a statement from a stranger?"

"Absolutely nothing, Dale. Stop teasing. That was Tadpole. I guess as much as I got off the plane in it, you mentioned he was in your dreams. Yes. Uh, no. You're making that sound wrong. I didn't dream about Tadpole. I was talking with Tadpole about the giant plug from my dream, and I look, sorry for rambling. I'm slowly getting my head around all this, which is why I wrote that long-winded email rather than call you."

What you'd written turned out a safe way to confess to her family sins with the writing process cat while too angry to sleep. The early morning version had both sensed and soft in the news while also making more sense. But there were gaps to fill. "I didn't mean for you to drop everything, Dale. I was more than ready to come home, and seeing Ila in Perth. Well, Els, you are the woman who makes my life right." He placed a finger to her lips. "I never intended walking away from all we've built. I'm not your father. My preference is to walk through what's left of our lives by your side. And I see this being here as meeting you halfway. From here, we'll decide the next direction together." They hugged for a second time as Dale whispered in her ear. "Oh, and Gabby wanted to tell you she is more than willing to choose our direction. And I quote, 'The West, as in Western Australia, is awesome all year round.'"

Josie pulled back a ton sober one. "There's something important I need you to understand, Dale. In the past when I've struggled to choose, or in the future, if I ask your opinion, please know it's not that I can't already decide. Maybe it's a bit obvious, but I respect your views. I've cared about what you and the kids want."

"What do you want?" My husband asked besides time to progress the past week. "Like I wrote to you, I'm over and sounded glowing. I hope you still have that real estate agent card."

"Don't rush my account, Charles." In fact, he added, smiling. "We could get some work done. Maybe spruce up the boys' room. They'll be home soon." Dy squealed, having been childlike hands. "Both boys. They wanted to surprise you, but I said you'd had enough to last a lifetime and leave the telling to me. While I'm finishing my P segment, they'll be sorting the house and contents. What's the good of having two strapping lads if we don't use them for their heavy lifting? Oh, and I suggested they start with their closets."

Chelsea chuckled with the notion and as usual they all laughed. "Lovely will supervise them in your absence and hire a shipping container."

"My absence," Chelsea questioned. "Where will I be?"

"Perth, I hope," he replied. "Gabby needs you."

"Gabby has never needed me. She needs her mother, Chelsea. Trust me. And you can't work on a relationship long distance. My segment has confirmed as much. Speaking of work, I love my colleagues to meet you. And after your segment ends, we decide together. I have a few ideas toss around. Will you come to Perth for a few weeks and we back up, Miss Halt?"

"H. Well, while I look for you in business mode, Mr. B. And you prefer this understated board, short, shirt, and thumb look you've got going on." She hooked her finger in his waistband, letting the elastic snap back onto bony bony hips. "I'm so glad I married you."

Stripping down to the to sheep pack, never for a second thinking they get wet, Dale asked. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? Let's have a quick swim before head back to camp. Tomorrow, we can take off and find a beach cabin close to home. How about it, Mr. Halt?" A surprise and Dale's expression could not have been more obvious if it were a neon. "If it's possible, I might have just fallen in love with you more, Mr. Halt." Waiting until he shrugged out his t-shirt. Fel stole a quick kiss and said, "Race you into the water, slowpoke."

Epilogue.

"Welcome back. Apples and brace felt good. Nice bit of will you got there? And good day to you, Ila."

"Hey yourself," she replied. "The difference between our real estate is we plan on wearing out those tires. And who do we have here?"

"Lucky. Two scruffy white dogs. Bark on Q. Sit. Good boy. This is Hug and Cap," Chelsea said. "They're sisters. We rescued them."

Tadpole grinned. "Cute."

"Yeah, brilliant idea," Ila chuckled. "Three months a motor home and 4,000 km from one side of the continent to the other. The dogs were also a kind of self-imposed therapy," Josie explained to Tad.

"We did stop at two. Thank goodness," Ila grumbled as tapple eyes of the motor home. "Congratulations on your decision-making and on the choice of wheels. She's a beauty. But a big change from four solid walls. And it's a home for the foreseeable future. And now the house is gone. Sold to the highest bidder, a consortium with plans to develop a fancy over 50s lifestyle village for people with big caravans and big dreams of doing the big lap of this amazing country."

"What about your boys need a home base?" Dad asked.

"The price surprise. They're not boys. Travis and Tyler are making their own lives like Abby. My children and I love each other and like me, they can go anywhere and do anything, but it's wrong to rely on others for fulfillment, especially our kids. And there are no guarantees they'll be there in a way we want or need. We all get one life, one chance for happiness." Josie paused to smile at her sister briefly, knowingly. "Personally, I'm excited to be getting the road. Being here and witnessing one's tight community mindedness. I see a life in the suburbs is far more isolating than traveling the country. All the years I live in the house, not once did anyone knock on my door and offer pilots."

"Or Elmy."

"Yeah, I was with her when she passed," Dad said. "She seemed content and ready."

"How do you know?"

"She smiled and told me Connie was pestering her for tea and pilots." Speaking of happy, Dad said, "the devishly handsome Prince Dale got his girl, and the girl got a fairy tale ending, the happy Disney kind."

"He always had me, Tadpole."

"Yeah, well, you had the potential to be a pretty nice boy in a storm. Then I realized the ship had already sailed, and the real purpose for popping into my life was to reintroduce me to your sister. And at a time when we're both ready for a new challenge as a couple, we'll have our work cut out for us. But I'm game."

"Don't tell her I said that."

"Sorry, but we don't keep secrets from each other," Joel said, smiling. "But seriously, Tad, spending time with you, let me see how much I needed to be with Dale. The man's smile grew so big it almost split his face. I'm going to take that as a compliment. You're meeting up with him in Perth."

"Yes, and by then, he will organized his long service leave replacement and handed over his case files. In his job, doing anything short notice is difficult, but he's trying. We're both going to try. Gabby, too. In the meantime, Leila and I will enjoy the sites while learning how happy sisters again. She'll fly back from Perth, leaving me to enjoy my grandbabies. Speaking of, how's little flur?"

"Bet you miss Kai."

"I can't believe Talia simply walked away and left the shop for the Wara community." Tat shrugged. "For years, she talked about taking her parents ashes north so Kai could meet his grandmother's family. But when she wrote back to say her family needed her to stay, I was curious. Then again, devotion to family is undeniable. Loyalty is part of the DNA. Maybe I'll see her again, maybe not. Where she is, I'm not sure. I may never know. You could circle those islands for years and never find the person you're looking for."

The question hung on Chelsea's lips until I stepped up into the motor home, launching herself piggyback style the tadpole. "Come on, sis. Let's you and me and the pill and poopers get the show on the road. And I'll see you, Mr. Daddy's pool when I get back."

"Great. And while you're gone, I'll get busy on that project."

"What project?" Chelsea queried.

Her sister laughed. "He's splintering my new abode. Not sure how your sister got on top of the waiting listing, Chelsea. But I'm glad you got a wary parcel. That particular shack has sat empty for years. And the Wendary Warriors could do with a woman like Bruins would approve." Belia had said little upon hearing the news and she remained concerned about his sister claiming the family parcel was her one day about it. "What goes around comes around," Ila had announced after learning of eventful and greedy Wendy had somehow extorted Williams's only remaining asset. When confronted with Laya's ultimatum, however, their mother had handed the parcel over choosing to keep the secret and her marriage. Laya was that determined and convinced Winar Eco community was the right move for her. Ila the crusader had fights to fight and saving Elm's monk top the list.

"Give down my regards Chelsea," Tad said. "And remember, it's a big country and you are too lovely traveling alone. With a couple of killer dogs on board, I quite a sister whose bite can be every bit as ferocious as a bark, right?"

"You should talk. It helps that I no longer imagine monsters everywhere. Speaking of which," Elsie added, grabbing her sun hat. "10 minutes and we can set off." The sea l the shore with small agitated waves as if it too was tired of the blame. Lace like lines of white foam bowed and lapped to Chelsea's feet, creeping high to claim awful prince. If only recollections of a father was easily wiped, but no matter how high the tide, some memories will never completely wash away. They will remain the title detritus to be thrown as guard or to treasure. At least the ocean was back to being a friend. I'll be the kind that required a certain cautiousness and restraint. Elseie might one day learn trust the tides again and herself, knowing the more she fights life's ebb and flow, or the more she thrashes and clings to her loved ones, the more she risks drowning and pulling others down. Better to trust in the rhythm of life and ride the wave, she mused while staring at the horizon and hearing William Scott's ultimate lesson. "Remember Josie girl, just like you can't see where the earth ends and the ocean starts, you must convince yourself it's okay to not know some things."

That is the end of the tides that lie. Written by Jen J. Mcloud and read by Stephanie Tobin. This has been an Overcraft Limited presentation. Text copyright Jen J. Mcloud 2024. Production copyrightcraft limited 2025. The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. If you have enjoyed this production, please call us on 01164-971233 or visit our website www.thereadinghouse.co.uk.