The House Above the Sea

5.

The next day, Neo is jarred awake by a dense pillow to the face. With a low groan, he picks up his head, his eyes landing on Aunt Vivian, who's standing at the door with one hand on her hip.

    "It's nearly noon," she says with a tired sigh, her eyes raking the filthy state of the bedroom with barely constrained annoyance. "Get up, Neo. There are pancakes downstairs."

    Neo lifts a hopeful eyebrow, scrubbing a mindless hand through his curls. "Blueberry?"

    "Maybe. Better get down there before your uncle eats them all, though." Aunt Vivian kicks at a sock with her toe, face crumpling into a frown. "And Jesus, when Joey gets home, you two better clean up this mess. If I didn't know any better I'd think a tornado blew through here."

    "Joey's not here?" Neo asks, sitting up. Only then do his eyes light on Joey's unmade bed, the comforter haphazardly tossed aside, bright orange basketball shoes missing from their designated spot on the bedpost.

    "Summer practice, remember?" Aunt Vivian calls, disappearing into the hall once again. "Chop, chop, Neo. Duke's got a surprise for you, too."
     Neo discovers a small circle of drool on the hem of his shirt, and plucks at it in mild disgust. Surprise? he thinks. He's not one to particularly like surprises anyway, but doubly so if they're Uncle Duke's, which tend to be in the noogie/headlock variety.

    When he stands, his ears start to ring, and for a second it all rushes back to him—the fire, his mother's scars, Joey's wide eyes from the night before—but then he blinks, and the tide falls back once again.

There are two blueberry pancakes left by the time Neo gets downstairs—he's lucky, really, to get either one, as he rounds the corner into the kitchen just as Uncle Duke is reaching for them.

    "You're not working today, Uncle Duke?" asks Neo, practically inhaling his breakfast. He's had pancakes before, of course, but never like Aunt Viv's, which are fluffy and monstrously big and truly more cake than pancake. That's one silver lining to this summer with the Irvines: Aunt Vivian's cooking.

    "I'll head out soon," says Uncle Duke. He's standing beside the sink, fiddling with the coffee machine that only works about half the time. "What about you?"

    Neo pauses, fork halfway to his mouth. Amidst the silence, Olivia lets out a happy gurgle, bouncing about in her high chair. "Hm?" Neo says, gently pinching Olivia's cheek. She lets out a gleeful squeal and reaches for him with her chubby fingers. "What about me?"

    Even before Uncle Duke turns, Neo somehow knows just what's coming. Most of the time Neo's father and Uncle Duke are polar opposites—his father, subdued and pragmatic, Uncle Duke, gregarious and idealistic—but on this point, the two of them agree: the summer is no time for laziness.

    Uncle Duke slaps a newspaper down in front of Neo's syrup-drenched plate. Neo raises an eyebrow—he didn't know people still read print newspapers, anyway—and picks it up, warily eyeing the job posting Uncle Duke's circled in blue Sharpie.

    "You didn't really think I'd let you sit around the house the whole summer, did you?"

    "No," Neo answers honestly, "but I can dream."

    Uncle Duke lets out a brilliant guffaw, loud enough to shake the whole house. Passing a proud hand through his thinning, yellow-gray hair, he says, "You should bike down there today. It's right smack dab in the center of town, so you can't miss it."

    "A...fishmonger?" Neo says, squinting at the print in disbelief. His imagination ambushes him; he can already smell that pungent seafood, loud and lingering. "I don't know..."