The House Above the Sea

2.

Dinner that night is a Vivian Irvine specialty: fish tacos. As soon as Joey and Neo step into the kitchen, shirtfronts dark with sweat from pedaling up the hill so fast, she barks at them to wash up and help her. Neo dices tomatoes for pico de gallo while Joey slathers various seasonings on gleaming white pieces of cod. All the while, Uncle Duke is in the living room, bouncing a happily gurgling baby Olivia on his knee.

"One of these days, when she's old enough, I'm going to tell her she was an accident," Joey told him recently, as Joey fed her orange spoonfuls of fowl-smelling baby food. "I mean, really. I remember very distinctly. My mom told me when I was ten years old, 'One baby is all your father and I need.'"

To which Neo said, wiping Olivia's adorably chubby face with a napkin: "Joey, you absolute monster."

When the fish is cooked and the tomatoes are diced and everything else is ready, they eat. Neo has only eaten three dinners with these people before—barring the few times Uncle Duke visited them in New York, or a few, oddly-placed family reunions that were mere blurs in Neo's memory at this point—and yet he could already predict exactly how each meal would go.

Aunt Vivian talks first, usually about whatever depressing story she heard on the news that day or something the old woman living next door said. (This time, it's a particularly long tale about a French immigrant living towards Haleiwa that is rumored to be "weird and psychic.") Next, Joey recounts the day's events in stunning detail, whether the urban legend in question was interesting or not (and, like the Pale Bridge, they are usually not). Finally it's Uncle Duke's turn. He just flashes an easy smile and says, "Work is good." He's an engineer, but that's about all Neo knows about his uncle's job. Some days he leaves the house wearing a suit while others he's in construction gear—it's hard to gauge.

By that time, Olivia is starting to fall asleep, and that's when Vivian points a fork at Neo and asks, "So how are you?"

Normally he has nothing to say to that, or nothing that seems worth saying, anyway. Tonight is different. "That house," he says, after a breath of hesitation. "The one on the cliff? Is it true that no one's living in it?"

Aunt Vivian finishes a bite of her taco, then reaches back to scoop up a handful of peas from Olivia's tray and roll them in Olivia's direction. "As far as I know," she says, turning back around, "no one's owned that place since '83."

Neo raises an eyebrow at Joey.

"So I was slightly off," Joey admits, lifting his hands in surrender.

"Twenty years is not slightly off, Joey."

"Hey. I'm not good at math. You know that."

Uncle Duke leans back in his chair, interlacing his fingers over his ample stomach. He coaches football at the high school Joey went to, and even still he has that gleam of faded glory: a smile still prepped for the cameras, once muscular arms now cushioned with fat, a pronounced lift to his posture that speaks of better, older days.

"I'm sure the county's not going to leave it for much longer," he says with an impassive shrug. "It belonged to some, what—real estate brokers, or something? Wealthy sorta people, you know. You're a New Yorker, so like...the penthouse type of people, maybe? Anyway there was some sort of faulty gas pipe in the kitchen and, as it happens, whole house filled with the stuff. The guy and his wife both died in their sleep."

Neo draws in a breath. "That...kinda sucks."

Another shrug. "These things happen, kid. Besides, it's not like it matters. Like I said, they're not going to let it just sit there forever."

"Neo, why are you asking about this?" asks Aunt Vivian, raising a dark eyebrow. She's Neo's father's sister, and yet besides the obvious warm brown skin and the dark curls—both features he himself has—sometimes Neo has trouble even seeing the resemblance. He's not sure what it is, maybe the sharp line of her jaw, or her small nose, but something about her is significantly different: a painting done with the same brush and same colors but with an entirely different theme.