Chapter 1: Cousins beach
The highway hummed beneath his tires, a monotonous gray ribbon unfurling toward the coast. Joseph rolled the window down, letting the late spring air, still cool with the memory of rain, whip through the car. It did nothing to clear the static in his head. Two finals in three days. Two code blues during his rotation. The smell of hospital antiseptic seemed baked into his skin, a scent that had started to feel more like home than anything else.
His phone had buzzed on top of a stack of cardiac pharmacology notes. Laurel’s name on the screen. Not a text. A call. She only ever called for two things: truly good news, or the kind of news that sits heavy in your stomach.
“Laurel? Everything okay?”
“Joseph, Where are you?” Her voice was soft, a thread of something he couldn’t place woven through it. Not panic. Something sadder.
“Leaving the library. Why?”
“Can you come to the house? To Cousins?”
He’d stared at the brick wall of the med school building, its ivy still sparse and new. “Now? It’s a three-hour drive. I’ve got a practical on Monday.”
A pause on the line, filled with the distant echo of a television. “It’s important, Joe. I’m here already. There are… some things we need to talk about. As a family.”
Family. The word did it. Jeremiah was probably already there, summoned by the same quiet gravity in her tone. Joseph had shoved his textbooks into his backpack, the movement sharp, almost angry. “I’m on my way.”
Now, three hours later, he turned off the main road onto the familiar gravel track, pine branches scratching lightly at the roof of his car. The scent hit him first, before he even saw the water—pine resin, damp earth, and underneath it all, the sharp, clean salt of the ocean. It was a smell that bypassed his brain and went straight to his sternum, a physical ache of memory.
The house appeared through the trees, a silhouette of weathered shingles and peeling white trim against the dazzling late-afternoon turquoise of the sound. The ‘For Sale’ sign was new, planted crookedly near the front steps. It was a slash of red and white against the green, a punctuation mark he hadn’t been prepared for. He killed the engine, and the silence rushed in, profound and layered with the cry of gulls and the distant shush of waves on the shore.
He sat for a minute, just looking. The porch swing where his mother would sit with her iced tea, a book forgotten in her lap as she watched them swim. The dock, its planks silvered and warped, reaching out into the water like a beckoning finger.
He found Laurel not on the porch, but on the living room sofa, curled under one of the faded nautical quilts. The room was in a state of gentle disarray—a box labeled “Kitchen – Misc.” sat half-taped by the fireplace, Jeremiah’s well-worn lifeguard hoodie was slung over the armchair, and a stack of Joseph’s own medical textbooks sat in a corner, dust-coated, next to a lamp with a seashell base.
“Hey Laurel,” he said, his voice softer than he intended.
She looked up, her face breaking into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Joe. You made good time.” She unfolded herself from the couch and crossed the room, pulling him into a hug. She smelled like lemon soap and the faint, ever-present trace of the lavender sachets she kept in her linen closet. He hugged her back, feeling the delicate bird-like bones of her shoulders.
“Traffic was light,” he murmured. He nodded toward the window. “Saw the sign.”
“I know.” She sighed, releasing him and patting his arm. “Come sit. Jeremiah’s down at the beach, checking the water temperature like he does every year. He’ll be up soon.”
They sat on the couch, the old springs groaning a familiar complaint. The coffee table was a chaos of papers. Flyers from realtors, their faces too bright and eager. Spreadsheets with columns of numbers. A folded, official-looking letter with the logo of the town council.
“What’s all this?” Joseph asked, though the cold weight in his gut told him he already knew.
Laurel picked up the town letter, her fingers tracing the embossed seal. “Taxes, mostly. The appeal didn’t go through. They’ve reassessed the waterfront value… it’s…” She shook her head, a helpless little motion. “Your dad and I held on as long as we could. But with both of you boys grown, and with the upkeep…” She let the sentence hang, a frail thing in the salt-tinged air. “We have to list it, Joseph. Officially. This summer will be the last.”
The words the last echoed in the quiet room. The last summer of sand tracked across this floor. The last July Fourth fireworks viewed from the dock. The last time the specific afternoon light would fall in these exact rhomboids on the worn Persian rug.
“What? No, we’re not selling,” Joseph said. The words came out flat, final, like he was stating a law of nature.
“Joseph…” Laurel went to try and explain.
“I’m sorry, it’s not happening.” He cut her off, his voice rising a notch, sharp with a pain that surprised even him. He gestured wildly around the room, at the water-stained ceiling, the chipped paint. “This is Mom’s favourite place.” He paused, the correction a physical blow. “Was. We’re not selling.” He said it again, as if repetition could make it true.
The screen door slammed, a hollow bang that shook the frame. Jeremiah stood in the doorway, dripping onto the welcome mat, his blond hair dark with saltwater. He’d heard the word selling.
“What? What’s selling?” Jere said, his easy smile fading as he took in their faces.
“Laurel and Dad are listing the house,” Joseph said, not looking away from Laurel.
“What?” Jeremiah said, looking at Laurel, his playful energy solidifying into something confused and hard. “No way.”
“We have to list the house,” Laurel said, her voice quiet but firm, a plea for understanding in her eyes.
“No. Absolutely not,” Jere said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He stalked further into the room, leaving wet footprints on the floor. “This is insane. You can’t sell this place. It’s… it’s everything.”
“It’s a building, Jeremiah,” Laurel said gently, but her knuckles were white where she clutched the quilt. “A very old, very expensive building that your father and I can’t maintain from three hours away. The taxes alone…”
“So we’ll pay them,” Joseph interjected, running a hand through his hair. The medical student part of his brain, the part that dealt in practicalities and cold facts, was utterly silent. This was the other part, the raw, bruised part that had formed here.
A hollow feeling expanded in Joseph’s chest. He saw the numbers on the spreadsheets now, not as figures, but as weights piled on his father’s shoulders, on Laurel’s. He’d been so wrapped up in his own gravity—the dizzying orbit of exams and clinical hours—that he hadn’t seen the slow collapse happening here. The guilt was immediate and sour.
“There has to be another way,” he said, but the fight had leaked out of his words, leaving them limp.
“What?”
Her voice came from the doorway.
Joseph turned around seeing her. The first time in two years.
Isabel looked at him.
She was backlit by the afternoon sun, a silhouette framed in the cracked white paint of the doorframe. Then she stepped inside, and the details rushed at him all at once, a sensory overload.
Her long brown hair was tied up in a messy knot, loose strands sticking to her neck. She wore cutoff jeans and an old Cousins Surf Shop t-shirt that he vaguely recognized as once being his. She was biting her lower lip, a habit she had when she was anxious or processing something shocking. Her green eyes were wide, fixed on him for one fractured second before they swept the room, taking in the boxes, the papers, the grim faces.
Time did a stupid, cliche thing. It didn’t freeze so much as it stuttered, skipping like a bad recording. Two years vanished into the space of a single heartbeat. He was twenty-three again, and she was laughing, dragging him out of bed at dawn to watch the dolphins. Then it snapped back.
“The boys’ dad and I have to sell the house,” Laurel said, her voice gentle, an apology directed at her daughter.
Isobel tore her eyes from his as her mom spoke. She blinked, absorbing the words, then shook her head as if physically clearing them. She walked further into the room, her gaze landing on the realtor flyer.
“Mom you can’t sell it.” Isabel said. Her voice was low, but it cut through the tension with a clean, sharp edge. It wasn’t a protest. It was a declaration.
Laurel looked from her daughter’s set face to Joseph’s, then to Jeremiah’s, her expression softening into a well of exhaustion. She sank back into the couch, the quilt pooling around her.
“It wasn’t our idea,” Laurel said, the words spilling out quiet and fast. “We tried talking to her but she won’t let up. She wants to sell.”
Joseph’s head snapped toward her. “What, who?” he said, looking at Laurel.
She looked at Jeremiah then Joseph, her mouth a thin line. “Your aunt.”
Jeremiah pushed off from the doorframe, leaving a damp patch on the wood. “She wants to sell Mom’s house?” He said it like the concept was in a foreign language, nonsense syllables. “Aunt Helen? Why? She hasn’t set foot here since the funeral.”
“Yes she does,” Laurel said, nodding slowly. She picked up the town letter, her thumb rubbing over the sharp fold. “She’s coming tomorrow to organise everything. She’s been… persistent. Says it’s sentimental foolishness to keep a drain on finances for the sake of ghosts. Her words, not mine.”
Joseph was on his feet. The movement was pure reaction, his body ahead of his thoughts. He paced two steps toward the window, the old floorboards groaning under his weight. The view was a punch—the dock, the water, the bleeding orange of the sunset. His mother’s favorite time of day. “No,” he said, turning back. The word was flat, absolute. “I’ll talk to her when she gets here.”
Laurel shook her head, then let out a breath. It was a sound of surrendered resistance, of a burden shared whether she wanted to share it or not. She looked at Joseph, really looked at him—the tension in his shoulders, the shadows under his eyes from the drive and the studying and the grief he still carried like a hidden stone. “Okay,” she said.
Isabel finally moved, walking to the table and picking up a realtor’s glossy brochure. She ran her finger over the Photoshopped image of the house, its paint miraculously restored, its lawn an impossible green.
“She can’t just decide that,” Isabel said, not looking up.
“She owns a quarter,” Jeremiah said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his damp shorts. “Mom left equal shares to Dad, us, and her. The three of us against her… it’s not enough. We need her agreement not to sell, or we need to buy her out.”
“Which we can’t,” Laurel added gently.
Joseph watched Isabel’s profile, the way her brow furrowed. He knew that look. It was her figuring-out-a-puzzle look, the one she’d get during late-night study sessions in his dorm, textbooks spread between them. The familiarity of it was a physical thing, a squeeze behind his ribs. He looked away, out the window again, where the first star pricked the deepening blue.
“So we change her mind,” Joseph said, his voice lower now. “We remind her what this place is.”
Jeremiah barked a laugh, but it had no humor in it. “Good luck. She thinks sentiment is a currency for poor people.”
“Then we’ll be rich in it,” Joseph shot back, turning to face the room. He included Isabel in his glance, a mistake. Her green eyes met his, and for a second it was just them.
Then she blinked, and the connection severed. She looked down, placing the brochure back on the pile.
“I should get my bag from the car,” she murmured, and turned toward the door.
Joseph watched her go, the shape of her moving through the dappled light under the pines. Then he turned and took the stairs two at a time, needing space, needing air that wasn’t thick with the specter of loss and legal documents.
His old room was a time capsule. The same navy-blue comforter, faintly musty from storage. The model ship he and his dad had built gathering dust on the shelf. The window was open a crack, and the whispering sound of the waves filled the silence. He set his duffel bag on the bed with a soft thump, the zipper catching the low light.
He walked to the dresser. There, framed in simple oak, was a picture of him and his mother. It was taken on the dock, the summer before she got sick. He was tanned, his arm slung around her shoulders, both of them squinting and laughing into the sun. Her smile was effortless, her eyes crinkled at the corners. She looked vibrant, real, forever captured in a moment of pure, uncomplicated joy.
He picked it up. The glass was cool under his thumb. He traced the outline of her face, a hollow opening up beneath his ribs, vast and cold. The silence in the room became a roar in his ears, the happy laughter in the photo a silent taunt. His vision blurred, the details of her face softening into a watery smudge. A hot pressure built behind his eyes. He swallowed hard, his throat tight.
He turned the picture face down on the dresser with a final, soft click. He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, pressing until he saw stars. He breathed out, a long, shaky exhale that did nothing to steady him.
Isabel hauled her overnight bag from the trunk of her car. The gravel was loud under her feet. The house loomed, familiar and suddenly foreign. She went inside, giving her mom and Jeremiah in the living room a small wave she hoped looked normal, and headed upstairs.
The spare room was at the end of the hall, past Joseph’s old room. Her summer room. As she passed his door, which was half-open, movement caught her eye.
She stopped.
He was standing at the dresser, his back to her, tall and tense. He was holding something, his shoulders rigid. She saw the curve of the picture frame in his hands. He was utterly still, looking at it for a long, suspended moment. Then, with a deliberate slowness that broke her heart, he placed it face down on the wood.
He wiped his eyes, a quick, furious motion. She saw the muscles in his back work as he took a deep, controlled breath.
Isabel turned away quickly, her own breath catching. She hadn’t meant to see that. It felt more intrusive than walking in on someone naked. She padded silently to the end of the hall and slipped into the spare room, closing the door behind her with a soft, definitive click.
The room smelled like cedar and sunlight. She dropped her bag onto the quilt-covered bed, the sound muffled. She sat on the edge of the mattress, the springs whining softly. She pressed her palms flat against her thighs, trying to steady the sudden, uneven rhythm of her heart.
Her eye caught the teddy bear.
It was perched on the white wicker dresser, a little dusty, one glass eye catching the late light. It was a ridiculous thing, garishly purple with a lopsided bow tie.
Joseph had won it for her at the Cousins Summer Carnival, the first year they were together. He’d spent fifteen dollars and countless pitches at the milk bottle toss, his competitive streak fully engaged, just to see her smile. She’d named it Bernard. He’d teased her for weeks.
She hadn’t known it was still here.