Page 135 of The Book of Summer

“Then we started talking about the hookers… er, uh, about the demise of my marriage. Then it got dark—”

“Oh yeah, it got dark all right.”

“The sun set.” Bess rolls her eyes. “We went to get dinner and I completely forgot about it.”

“Strange,” Cissy says with another shrug. “Sorry I can’t help you.”

“Are you sure you didn’t move it? Maybe you don’t remember?”

Cissy laughs dryly.

“I’ve had enough box-moving,” she says, “to want to strike out on my own. But thanks for playing. It could’ve blown away? It’s kinda breezy today.”

“Breezy?” Evan says with a scoff.

“Cis, it was a box of Grandma’s china. I broke a sweat carrying it downstairs. It couldn’t ‘blow away.’ Even in this wind.”

Bess toes up to the edge of the veranda and cranes her neck out over the cliff. As her stomach somersaults, Bess reaches behind her, as if on instinct, and is surprised to find Evan within her grasp. She gloms on to him to steady herself, though the very touch of him topples her off-balance in an entirely different way.

“Is that it?” Bess squints.

Her eyes sting from the wind and the sand and a million other things besides.

“Oh my God.”

There it is, her box of china, scattered and cracked on the embankment. They’ve lost more bluff overnight.

“Cissy!”

Bess spins back around and staggers toward her mom as Evan conducts his own inspection. His hand flies to his chest and he keeps it there, as if trying to physically hold in his breath.

“Cissy, we have to leave. Now.”

Bess is almost panting.

“You sucked me in,” she says. “I’ve gotten too comfortable here. This is beyond dangerous. We’re losing feet by the day!”

“What’s a little patio?”

“Yes, it is now quite a little patio, that’s the problem. And God knows what’s happening to the foundation of the house. Cis, it’spouring.Are you familiar with the concept of a mudslide?”

“It’s hardly pouring. By California standards, I guess. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“It’s probably time to get a little dramatic,” Evan notes as he backs up to the house.

This is a guy who climbs roofs for a living and his face has gone completely white.

“I know you’re still trying to find a new engineer,” Bess says. “And that’s fine. I’ll even help make calls! But we need to leave. The both of us. Now.”

“It’s over,” Cissy says.

“I know it’s over, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

“I can’t get anyone to relocate our home.”

“Oh, Mom,” Bess says, and frowns. “I’m sorry but…”

“I tried to figure out if I could move it myself, but in the end it’s out of reach. Oh, this poor old girl.” Cissy looks up at the porch’s ceiling. “She won’t see a hundred years after all. Why’d my grandmother make her so large?”

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