There were so many thoughts rushing through his head, so many appalling scenarios he was only now considering. Specifically, it was the first time in Jay’s life that it had occurred to him that there might be more than just the four of them. He felt smaller and smaller by the second.

“Let’s not get into all of this,” Mick said, shaking his head.

His children just continued to stare at him.

“I have had three paternity suits brought against me,” Mick said, finally. “And all of them turned out not to be me.”

“That’s your answer?” Kit asked.

Mick lowered his eyes and then looked at Kit.

Kit shook her head. “You’re a real prize, Pops.”

There was something about the mocking way Kit referred to him that took Mick’s breath away.

Why weren’t these kids even a little happy to see him? He had never treated his parents this way. No matter what his mother did, no matter where his father went, he was always glad when they came back.

“Two women I was with terminated their pregnancies, that I know of,” Mick said.

“Charming,” Kit said sharply.

Mick tried to ignore her. “Another woman had a miscarriage. But I was generally very careful. Especially after I left your mother the last time. I was very, very careful.”

“Do you want a prize or something?” Kit asked.

“Will you listen to me? I’m trying to answer your question. I’m trying to explain something to you. I tried my best to be responsible about it. I always told women I slept with that I didn’t want any children. I said, ‘If I had any interest in being a dad, I’d go home to my kids.’”

The beach went deadly silent.

“Wow,” Kit finally said, her fury raging inside her with such a fervor that her cheeks were turning red. “You know what?” she continued. “That’s fine. Thanks for clearing it up. Because I always did kind of wonder if you loved us, and now we know.”

Mick shook his head, but she kept talking. “It’s fine. We had each other. We barely noticed you were gone.”

Mick could see the pain in his stoic daughter’s face—the way her chin quivered, the way her eyes narrowed. He had worn the same face himself as a child, wondering the same thing, coming to the same conclusion.

Mick shook his head again. “You’re misunderstanding me.”

“I’m not really sure how that’s possible, Dad,” Hud said. “You seem clear that you never wanted to be our father until now.”

“It had nothing to do with want!” Mick said, his voice beginning to rise. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I’m trying to tell you that if I could have been a dad, I would have been your dad. I wanted to be a father to you all. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t be a father.

“This is something you have to understand about being a parent—some people just aren’t cut out for it. Some people don’t have what it takes. And I didn’t. But I’m here now. And I’m hoping that we can make something of all this. I just … I simply couldn’t before. But now I think I have what it takes. And I want to be a part of your lives now. I want to … get dinners and, I don’t know, spend holidays together or whatever it is that families do. I want that.”

Suddenly, Nina started cackling. Laughing like a madwoman, like the women they used to burn at the stake.

“Oh my God,” Nina said, putting her hands in her hair, shaking her head. “I almost fell for it. I forgot your words mean nothing. That you just say whatever you want, but you’re never prepared to do anything meaningful, at all.”

“Nina …” Mick said. “Please don’t say that. I’m trying to explain to you why I wasn’t capable of being a father until now.”

Nina shook her head. “If you were any kind of real parent, you would know that capable has nothing to do with it.”

Mick frowned at her and sighed.

“Do you think Mom felt capable of raising four children on her own? Holding her head up high when the whole world knew you’d left her, twice? Making all of the money, and doing all of the housework, and helping each of us with our homework? Making every single one of our birthdays special despite having no money and no time? Remembering that Jay likes chocolate cake with buttercream and Kit likes coconut cake and Hud likes yellow cake with chocolate frosting? Always having the perfect number of candles?

“Do you think I felt capable of taking it all over after she fucking drowned? Do you think I felt capable of trying to pay all the bills and still scraping up enough money for coconut at the fucking Malibu Mart? Do you think I felt capable of holding each one of these guys as they woke up in the middle of the night remembering that they had essentially been orphaned? Do you think I wanted to drop out of high school so I could do it all? That I wanted to be twenty-five years old without a high school diploma?”

Mick flinched as he heard this, and when Nina saw the pinched look on his face, it pissed her off.

“I didn’t feel capable of any of that! But did that matter? Of course not. So I’ve gotten up every single day since Mom died—and even a lot of the days before that—and I have done what needed to be done. Capable is a question I never had the luxury of asking. Because my family needed me. And unlike you, I understand how important that is.”

“Nina—” Mick tried to interject.

“You think I want to be here selling photos of my ass and living on this fucking cliff? No, I don’t. I want to be in Portugal somewhere living in a shack on the beach, riding waves and eating the catch of the day. But I don’t. I stay here. That’s what it means to be a family. Staying. Not just strolling into a party after midnight expecting a hug.”

“Nina, you’re right. I’m a weak—”

“Must be nice. To be able to be weak. I wouldn’t know.”

At this, Kit smiled to herself and quickly rested her chin on her hand in order to hide it.

Nina continued. “You have no idea what it takes to stand by anyone. You certainly don’t know what it takes to stand by a child. Mom did that. And when Mom couldn’t, I tried to finish the job. No, scratch that. I didn’t try to finish the job. I did finish the job. Because look at them. They are all talented and smart and good—and, sure, we’re not perfect. But we have integrity. We know something about loyalty. We are there for each other.

“And all of that is because Mom and I did a great job. You … you have done nothing despite how capable you probably could have been if you gave half a shit. But because you weren’t here, we learned how to go on without you.”

Nina took a moment and closed her eyes. And then she looked back up at her father. “It’s not my place to speak for the rest of us, Dad, so I’ll just say this for me: There’s no room for you in my life anymore. And I don’t owe it to you to make any space.”

When Nina stopped speaking, she dried the tears off her cheeks with her hands and then wiped her hands on her sweatpants. She caught her breath and settled her chest. As she stood there, she felt a peace take over, as if by speaking her anger, she had freed it from where it had been living in her body. It was as if her tendons were loosening, leaving behind a new softness within her in places that had long ago hardened.