He winced at the tightness of the restraints themselves, but as he did, Tarine caught his eye and mouthed Thank you. Vanessa smiled at him. Greg gave Ricky a nod, and the remaining crowd cheered.

Tarine, Vanessa, and Ricky were all going to jail. But at least they’d put up a fight.

Then the police raided the house.

They got the two actors hallucinating from LSD on the tennis courts (Tuesday Hendricks and Rafael Lopez, possession), the one supplying coke (Bobby Housman, possession with intent to distribute), the two throwing serving trays like oversized ninja stars (Vaughn Donovan and Bridger Miller, vandalism), the naked woman blowing a drummer in the middle of the lawn (Wendy Palmer, indecent exposure, lewd conduct), the ones with pockets full of what were clearly Nina’s and Brandon’s belongings (Ted Travis and Vickie Brooks, grand larceny), and the one holding a gun (Seth Whittles, possession of a loaded firearm without a license).

There were so many of them that the cops had to call in a police van. They loaded each of them in as they cleared out the rest of the house. Bridger stared daggers at Tuesday the second he saw her. Tuesday refused to look at him, focused entirely on Rafael. Ted and Vickie tried to hold hands in handcuffs. Bobby nodded at Wendy. Wendy smiled kindly at Seth. Vaughn was trying not to vomit.

Ricky was seated next to Vanessa, pushed together tight, almost no room between them.

“Weird night,” he said to her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Weird night. But thank you, for, you know, standing up to that cop for me.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ricky said. “Sure. I mean, anytime.”

Vanessa smiled and leaned over and kissed Ricky on the lips. “Maybe we could hang out sometime,” she said.

Ricky nodded. “How about tomorrow night, assuming we’re not both in jail?”

“Excellent,” Vanessa said.

The two of them sat there, handcuffed next to each other, smiles creeping across their faces. And in this way, the very end of the night contained its own kind of beginnings.

Tarine was the last one escorted to the van.

“I’m going to come get you,” Greg called to her. “I’ll be right behind the van.”

“Please!” she yelled, as the doors were shut. “These people are crazy.”

On the way to the precinct, the cops came across a crashed black Jaguar on the side of the road. The hood was crunched around a tree, the engine smoking.

They arrested the very drunk but completely unscathed Brandon Randall (driving while intoxicated).

Thirteen arrests, hundreds of people kicked out of the house, and the Rivas nowhere to be found.

By the time the clock struck 5:00 A.M., the party of the decade was over.

5:00 A.M.

The six of them sat on the beach in silence for a while, no one quite ready to move.

They had the answers to the questions Nina, Jay, Hud, Kit, and even Mick had held in the backs of their minds for the past two decades. Would he ever come back? Could he belong to them once more?

Yes. But no.

And so they all sat quietly as the world shifted and settled within each of them.

After what felt like hours, Nina stood up and wiped the sand off her legs. The Santa Ana winds were gearing up, she could feel it against her shoulders. “It’s getting cold,” she said.

The six of them put the surfboards back in the shed and started climbing back up the cliff.

• • •

Jay was reeling from almost everything that had happened over the past twelve hours. He was having trouble processing what had taken place, and he knew it would be some time until he truly understood it all. But there was one thing that felt clear to him now: He did not want to be anything like his father.

There had been so many times over the past years that Jay had hoped his father’s glory or prestige might have rubbed off on him. But now he could see plainly, he did not want to indulge that about himself the way his father had.

In fact, despite everything, he had to admit if there was a man in his life to look up to, it had always been Hud. As difficult as that felt to swallow at that given moment, it was still undeniably true.

As Hud struggled up the stairs, Jay came up behind. He put his arm out to help and said, in a voice that was not a whisper, but was not heard by anyone else, “I need you to be sorry.”

“I am,” Hud told him.

“No, you have to be so sorry that I know you’ll never lie to me again, so that I know I can still trust you forever. Like nothing has changed.”

Hud looked at his brother and allowed his sorrow to surface. Jay could see the pain in his brother’s face and body, and he knew Hud well enough to know that it wasn’t the broken ribs. “I am that sorry,” Hud said.

“OK,” Jay said. “We’re OK.” And with that, Jay took the full weight of his brother’s body onto his shoulder and helped Hud up the cliff.

• • •

All this talk of their father made Hud think of their mother. And he thought of the story she used to tell him, how he had been handed to her, and she had held him as he cried, and loved him right then and there.

She had chosen to love him and it had changed his life.

Hud would love his child the way his mother had loved him: actively, every day, and without ambiguity.

And maybe twenty-five years from now, all of them plus a whole new generation of Rivas would be right here on this very beach. And maybe there would be another reckoning. Perhaps his children would tell him he’d been too permissive or he’d been too strict, he’d put too much emphasis on x when it should have been y.

He smiled to think of it, the ways in which he would mess this whole thing up. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? The small mistakes and heartbreaks of guiding a life? His mother had screwed up almost as much as she’d succeeded.

But the one thing he knew in his bones was that he would not leave.

His child—his children, if he was lucky—would know, from the day they were born, that he was not going anywhere.

• • •

Kit, despite herself, did feel something for her father. She did not like him, per se. But she was happy to have learned that he had a soul, however imperfect. Somehow, knowing her father wasn’t all bad made her like herself more, made her less afraid of who she might be down in the unmined depths of her heart.

As they made their way up the stairs, Kit pushed ahead of everyone as only little sisters can and then stopped when she got to Casey.

She slowed down, and as she passed her she said, “Excuse me.”

Later on, Kit would look back on that moment—that time they were all walking, mostly in silence, back up the stairs with their father—as the moment their family rearranged, made room for Casey to stay, made room for Nina to go.

Kit tapped Nina on the shoulder. “Hey,” she whispered.

“Hi,” Nina said.

“What’s the place in Portugal?” Kit asked.

“Huh?” Nina said.

“The place in Portugal. Where you said you wanted to go and eat the catch of the day.”

“Oh,” Nina said. “I don’t know. I was just talking.”

“No, you weren’t,” Kit said. “I know you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It was the most honest you’ve ever been,” Kit said. “It matters more than anything.”