Page 108 of The Beach Trap

“What are you thinking?” I ask Blake.

Her face is streaked with tears, but she’s grinning. “I’m thinking I can’t believe this is my life. What are we going to do with this house?” She spins around slowly, awestruck, like she’s seeing the place for the first time.

Or like she’s realizing it’s ours. No one can take it away from us now.

“We have options,” I tell her. My cheeks hurt from smiling. “I was thinking maybe we could rent it out sometimes—let other families create memories here.”

“We could do that,” Blake says, nodding.

“And we could block off certain weeks just for us,” I say.

“For our family,” Blake adds.

Her words catch on something deep in my chest—a longing I’ve had all my life, even as a little girl who didn’t understand why I felt so lonely in my fancy house in Atlanta. This was why we connected all those years ago, at camp. Because we saw in each other a need for belonging. And maybe, deep down, we recognized our missing piece.

Blake throws her arms out wide. “This isour house!” she shouts, jumping in excitement. “I can’t believe it! We get to come here whenever we want!”

I laugh and put my arm around her, pulling her against me for another hug. “It’s our house,” I whisper.

As we separate, I get the strangest sensation, a prickling on the back of my neck. Like our grandparents are here with us, likeour father might somehow be here, too. As if the past and the future are colliding and everything in our lives has led us here, to this moment, with each other.

Two sisters—nohalfabout it—with one whole house, and our entire lives to fill it with memories.

EPILOGUE

FIVE YEARS LATER

The Fourth of July dawns hot and humid in Destin, the glittering emerald water and white-sand beaches a perfect backdrop for the throngs of holiday visitors. A parade of golf carts takes over Crystal Beach, each one decked out with streamers and flags in raucous red, white, and blue.

The Gulf is alive with boats, the beaches crowded with sunbathers. As the day rolls toward evening, the air fills with the crackle of amateur fireworks and the unmistakable scent of backyard barbecues.

Down Old 98, tucked between two larger and arguably nicer vacation homes, a small yellow beach house is abuzz with activity. It may not be as fancy as its neighbors, but the siding is freshly painted, the flower beds carefully maintained. And in the kitchen, two sisters work side by side, laughing and singing along to their official Fourth of July playlist as they prepare their grandmother’s famous Jell-O salad and all the other fixings for dinner.

In the past five years, Kat and Blake have stayed at the beach house often, both together and alone. They sometimes rent it out for extra income or invite other friends to join them. Every year,their lives become busier and more complicated, and most of the time, they both feel pulled in a million directions. But the week spanning the Fourth is sacred. Nothing—absolutely nothing—can stop them from being here, at their beach house. Together.

A new song starts up on the playlist, this one so familiar that by the end of the first bar of music, Kat squeals.

“Yes!” she shouts, grabbing a wooden spoon to use as a microphone.

Blake grabs her own microphone—a whisk—and strikes a pose, ready to go when the vocals start.

Kat sings the first line of “Build Me Up Buttercup,” and Blake echoes, “Build me up!”

They continue on, piecing together the long-ago routine they’d worked out as twelve-year-olds at camp, singing along with the Foundations.

“Mommy’s singing!” a tiny voice shouts in excitement, followed by two sets of feet pounding on the wood floors into the kitchen, ready to join the show.

Kat scoops up Emma—three years old and dark-haired like her mama—and spins her around. Two-year-old Jameson runs to Blake and they twirl together, until Blake bumps her belly on the kitchen counter.

“Oof,” Blake says, groaning. At eight months along, this will be the last vacation she’ll take before the baby comes. “I keep forgetting I’m this big.”

Kat smiles at her. “You look great. I love Grandma’s dress on you.”

Blake beams. She’s wearing one of the oldest dresses their grandmother left behind—a handmade floral maternity sundress from the sixties. Their grandma must have worn it while pregnant with their father, and when Blake put it on that morning,she was overcome with the same combination of emotions she always feels here at the beach house: gratitude, grief, and love.

A tall, willowy blond eleven-year-old walks into the kitchen. “Dad says the hamburgers are ready,” Sunny announces, then rolls her eyes when she sees what’s going on in there. “So embarrassing,” she mutters, but she’s fighting a smile.

Kat and Blake shoo their little ones out with Sunny, then gather up the side dishes to head out to the deck, where Henry and Noah are manning the grill. As they reach the door, Kat pauses and glances at her sister.

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