Hud frowned and sighed, searching for an answer. He finally sat down at the table, resigned. “I have no idea.”

“I mean, this whole thing with Mom … She’s just in a bad, like, moment, right?” Jay asked. “This isn’t a forever thing?”

“No, of course not,” Hud said. “It’s just a phase or something.”

“Yeah,” Jay said, assuaged. He picked up the scrubber again, grinding away at the cheese. “Yeah, totally.”

The brothers looked at each other, and in one flash of a second, it was perfectly clear to both of them that there was a big difference between what you needed to believe and what you actually believed.

When they were done, they brought a half-eaten bag of chips and a box of Ritz crackers into Kit’s room, where Nina and Kit were sitting on the floor, talking.

The four of them sat there, eight greasy hands being rubbed off on eight pant legs.

“We should get napkins,” Nina said.

“Oh, no, are there crumbs on the floor?” Jay teased her. “Call the cops!”

Kit started laughing. Hud pretended to dial a phone. “Hello? Crumb police?” he said. Jay got so hysterical, he nearly choked on a Ritz.

“Yeah, uh, Sergeant Crackers here,” Kit said, as if she was speaking into the handheld radio. “We’ve heard reports of loud crunching.”

Something broke inside of Nina too, causing a wild and loud laugh to escape her mouth. The bizarre sound of it made them all laugh harder.

“All right, all right,” Nina said, calming down. “We should get to bed.”

They got up and put the food away. They put their pajamas on. They brushed their teeth.

“Everything’s going to be OK,” Nina said to each of her siblings as she said good night that evening. “I promise you that.”

Upon hearing it, Jay’s shoulders relaxed one tenth of a percent, Hud exhaled, Kit released her jaw.

Despite having long ago learned some people don’t keep their promises, all three of the younger Rivas knew they could believe her.

4:00 P.M.

Nina stood in her bedroom at the very top of the mansion. It had been rendered spotless. The floor-to-ceiling windows that faced southeast to the ocean were so clean that, were it not for the frames themselves, you would have thought you were looking at open air. In still and perfectly clear moments like this, when Nina could see out past the cliffs, across the rippling sea, as far as Catalina Island, she had to admit there were things to love about this house.

Her bed had been made with military precision. A birch-wood platform bed with a white quilt spread out across it, tucked tightly under the mattress. A comforter lay folded in a perfect crease at the foot of the bed. Every type of pillow and coordinating sham that you could imagine was displayed at the headboard.

How did she own so many expensive things?

The cleaners had moved on to the downstairs. They were washing the stone tile floors and whitening up the walls. They were getting the cobwebs from the crooks of the high ceilings and the dust bunnies from the far corners of the hallways and bookshelves and cabinets.

Nina could hear them vacuuming her area rugs and she wondered if there was any real point to it. They would be sandy and dingy by ten. By midnight, her whole downstairs would be in disarray.

She walked into her master bathroom to find the vanity pristine, the floor flawless; taupe cloth hand towels were piled in neat triangles.

Nina opened up the double doors to the walk-in closet and ran her hand along the left wall, feeling the textures of her dresses, her pants, her shirts. Cotton and silk and satin. Velvet and leather. Nylon and neoprene.

She had so many clothes—so many clothes she had never wanted, never needed, never worn. She had so much stuff. Lately it felt as if that was supposed to be the whole point of everything—how many things you could buy—as if some magical life waited for you on the other side of all of it. But it made her feel nothing.

When she got to the end of her things, she started on the other side, running her hand along what was remaining of Brandon’s clothes. She could feel the gaps in between the shirts, could see the empty hangers left behind. Brandon did believe in the glory of all that stuff. And now Nina was keenly aware of what wasn’t on his side of that closet anymore. His stiff polos and soft Levi’s and broken-in Adidas. His Lacostes and his Sperrys. The things he loved, the things he felt he needed. They were gone.

It hurt. It hurt so bad that there was a part of her that wanted to get out a bottle of Smirnoff and fix herself a Sea Breeze.

1975

It was late 1975. The kids all had sleepovers planned on the same weekend. It was the first time that had ever happened.

Nina was seventeen and had plans to go out to a party at a friend’s house and spend the night there. Jay and Hud had an overnight with the water polo team. Kit was sleeping over at her friend Vanessa’s.

Before Nina left the house that afternoon, she wondered if it was a bad idea, all of them leaving at once. “I don’t want you to be here all alone,” Nina said to June. Nina was in the kitchen, looking at her mother sitting on the living room sofa.

“Honey, go out with your friends, please.”

“But what are you going to do tonight?”

“I’m going to enjoy myself,” June said with a smile. “Do you have any idea how exhausting you four are? Don’t you think I might be eager for a little time by myself? I’m going to run a bath and sit in it as long as I want. Then I’m going to lie out on the patio and watch the waves roll in.”

Nina looked unconvinced.

“Hey,” June said. “Who’s the mom here? Me or you?”

“You’re the mom,” Nina said, amused. It had become a familiar refrain. She answered the next question before it was even asked. “And I’m the kid.”

“And you’re the kid. For at least a little while longer.”

“OK,” Nina said. “If you’re sure.”

June got up off the couch and put her hands on her daughter’s arms and looked her in the eye. “Go, honey. Have fun. You deserve it.”

And so Nina left.

June settled herself back on the sofa and turned on the TV. She grabbed the TV Guide. She planned out what she was going to watch. And then there he was on the nightly news.

“And in entertainment,” the reporter said, “Mick Riva has married for the fifth time at the age of forty-two. His blushing bride, Margaux Caron, a young model from France, is twenty-four.”

June lit a cigarette and sipped her vodka.

And then she buried her head in her hands and bawled her eyes out. The cry came from her stomach, bubbled over within her, and emerged from her throat in gasps and screeches.

She stubbed out her cigarette and threw herself onto the sofa. She let the sobs run through her body. He was never coming back. She should have listened to her mother all those years ago. But she’d been a fool since the day he’d shown up. She’d been a fool her whole life.

God, June thought, I have to get my life together. For my children.

She thought of Nina’s bright smile, and Jay’s cocksure determination, and Hud’s gentleness, the way he always hugged her tight. She thought of Kit, that spitfire, who might just one day rule them all.