“I still think,” my mother said now, as I wrestled the box open, “that we need to have some kind of waiver involved with this. No good can come of that much tequila consumption.”

“I don’t know. Last time I saw Ivy, she sounded like she might need it.”

It seemed both appropriate and ironic that it was the owners of Sand Dollars who had bought this mega-appliance, which had been on back order so long that both they and we had forgotten all about it. Once we looked at the paperwork, however, I remembered there being specific owner notes about leaving the space above the bar area open for “cocktail accessories.” Which I’d assumed meant maybe a nice rack holding shakers and strainers. Silly me.

“Nobody needs this.” She picked up a pack of shrink-wrapped papers. “Is this the manual? Good Lord, it’s thicker than the one for the copy machine.”

“You’re not helping,” I told her, freeing the huge engine-like base. “Can you make some room on the table there?’

She did, pushing aside the leftover biscuits and drinks from Roy’s, which, as I expected, had been there when we came inside an hour earlier. Sausage had again been all I could smell as she’d led me to a chair, and made me sit, then fetching one of Benji’s supercold Cokes and a box of tissues. I worked my way through both as I told her what had happened with my father, getting a headache from either a brain freeze or the copious amount of tears. Either way, by the time I finally stopped talking, I was a sniffling, caffeinated mess.

“That’s it,” she’d said, when I was done, reaching for her phone. “I’m calling him right now.”

“Don’t,” I said. “This isn’t your problem.”

“How can you even say that?” She leaned forward, so we were knee to knee, her hands covering mine. “The one thing I’ve always prided myself on is that I always did my best to keep him from hurting you. And it keeps happening anyway.”

“I’m a big girl,” I told her. “I need to deal with him like one. Which means not having my mom fight my battles for me.”

She’d done enough of that to last us both our lifetimes. And in truth, what she’d said in our fight earlier was still resonating with me, even if she’d forgotten. Eighteen years earlier, she’d given up her future for mine. That she’d ever think for a moment this might have been a mistake was enough to make me want to spend every day of it proving otherwise.

“He shouldn’t be battling you, period,” she said, clearly not convinced. “I can’t believe he still acts like such a spoiled brat. I swear, it’s like he never grew up at all.”

“I’m okay, Mom,” I told her.

“This is you okay?” she said, nodding at the pile of crumpled tissues on the table beside me.

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

I knew it sounded weird. But beneath the tears and the sobs, there’d been this sense of relief, a feeling that something long nagging at me was finally closed and finished. For months now I’d carried around all this hurt and confusion, not letting myself truly feel it. But in that drive from North Reddemane, I finally got it. We wouldn’t have some big bonding moment, a sudden shift where he became everything I needed him to be. He wasn’t a problem for me to fix, either. Instead, he was a truth to accept, just like the fact that he’d always be on that line of my family tree. There was a peace in that, just as there was in knowing that whether he became anything else would, in the end, be up to only me.

Now, as I pulled out the rest of the pieces of the Slusher Pro, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out to find a message from Theo.

Phase one of Best Future Job Ever begins: now. Going to talk to Clyde.

Clearly, I was not the only one in a life-changing mode. I texted him back, wishing him luck, then climbed down from the chair. “Theo,” I explained to my mom.

“Right,” she said.

We were both quiet a minute as, channeling my dad—known at our house as the Great Assembler—I spread out all the parts neatly before opening the manual. Finally I said, “He’s a really nice guy, you know.”

“I’m sure he is,” she replied. “But I still don’t want you at the campground.”

“How am I supposed to see him?”

“There’s the entire rest of town,” she said drily. “I’m sure you’ll figure out something.”

“So we can hang out in my room, then? I promise to lock the door.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Not funny.”

Still I laughed, and then she was leaving, sighing loudly as she went. I took a trip to the storeroom, where I dug around for the screwdrivers I needed, then got to work. Despite the Slusher Pro’s size and paperwork—half of which turned out to be drink recipes—it went quickly, and within about forty minutes it was done. Which brought me to my next problem.

“Oh, right,” my mom said, after I called her back. “Moving it. Wait, will it fit through the door?”

“Don’t even joke about that,” I said. Of course I hadn’t considered this. “It has to. My point is, I’m not going to be able to get it to Sand Dollars by myself.”

“I’d help, but I have a ten o’clock,” she said. She scanned the office through the conference room windows. “What about Rebecca?”

I gave her a doubtful look. “Have you ever seen her lift anything? Look at her biceps. They’re spindly.”