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I offer.
    “Everything on the line. Gotta start fresh with all of it. Get choppin’, Skipper.” Trax whips my leg with a dishtowel and continues rummaging through the cooler, trying to find more victims to toss. In the kitchen, I find my mom already chopping onions.
    “I heard,” she says, wiping tears on the back of her hand. “We have to get that cooler looked at. God knows what that’ll cost. I’m out of favors.” She starts hacking away at another onion.
    “Geez, Mom, get Gene to take a look at it. Do I have to think of everything?”
    “I don’t want to bother Gene with my problems. It’s nice enough that he pays you for going out on his boat every day.”
    “I work hard for that money, Mom,” I say sharply.
    “Oh, I know you do, Jake.” She puts the knife down and leans heavily on the cutting board. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just . . . it’s just . . .” She looks up at me. Her eyes are red and streaming, and it’s not just the onions. I can feel the small tug at the bottom of my stomach, telling me to put my arms around her and say it’s okay and that everything is going to be all right. She sends out this vibe every so often, and I have learned to ignore it. I snip that invisible string that is trying to pull me close. I haven’t hugged her or anyone else since Dad went missing, and I am not going to start now. Not today. Anyway, she’s supposed to be the strong one, not me. She is supposed to tell
me
the diner is doing fine, and we can stay here forever, and Dad’s coming home, and everything is going to be all right.
    The kitchen is suddenly too hot and cramped.
    “Morning!” Robin McCaphrey walks past me, and I follow her through the double doors as she kicks off her big yellow boots and strides in her bare feet over to the first booth, pulling sneakers out of her gigantic canvas purse.
    “Don’t leave those boots at the door, Robin.”
    “Yes,
Mo-o-om.
” Robin stretches out the word
Mom
the way she always does when she thinks my mom is treating her like a little kid. I think she’s twenty-three, but I’m not sure.
    Darcy and I pull the red vinyl padded chairs down off the tables, and every time she sets one down, she sort of slams it into place. I can tell she’s pissed because she has this little wrinkle between her eyes that only shows up when she’s upset. Tommy is right; she loves this place. Before she worked here, she used to sit by herself in the school lunchroom, hiding her face with her hoodie and never talking to anyone. It’s because of the burn. The fire. Maybe she didn’t want to have to tell one more person about how her house burned down and that her drunk father did it and how she was in therapy and why she never goes to the beach or swimming and how she doesn’t go to gym class because she doesn’t want to change her clothes in the locker room or any of those things. She’s got her private stuff, just like me. But at the Riptide, she talks to everybody. Trax is like a big brother to her, and Robin’s the sister she never had. And there’s me.
    After another twenty minutes of scurrying around, the five of us have managed to get the diner ready for the day. I karate-chop the main switch, and the lights above the booths flash on. Robin plugs in the OPEN sign that sits on the window ledge next to the door. I watch as the red glow of neon flickers to life and wonder how long we can keep this place going.
There’s no way I’m moving to Arizona.

By 8 a.m. the diner is packed for the first time in months. Every quahogger I know is here. With the whole bay closed, they’ve got nothing better to do than come here, drink coffee, and talk about last night’s hurricane. There are at least four men crammed into each booth, the counter is full, and guys are leaning against every open wall spot.
    “Your savior is here.” Trax cracks a smile and nods over to the front door. I spin around and there’s Gene, taking off his salt-stained Red