Page 146 of What You Wish For

Then Kent, who, I suddenly noted, had not apologized to Clay for forgetting him in the first place, reached his hand out to Clay and said, “Come on, son. Time to go.”

But Clay just blinked up at him for a second. Then he shook his head and said, “No. I need to stay.”

Friendly hadn’t worked, so Kent Buckley shifted to mean: “Get over here. Right now.”

But Clay shook his head. Then he climbed out of Tina’s lap, and stood to face his dad, looking so young and so small. “No,” Clay said.

And then we all watched as Kent Buckley leaned over his nine-year-old son and hissed, “Come with me. Or I’ll make sure you regret it.”

But Clay, steady and calm, said, “They need me, and I’m staying.”

It was a hell of a David and Goliath moment. I guess once you’ve befriended a whale, humans don’t seem quite so scary anymore.

And that’s when Tina got up and stepped forward.

“He wants to be here. He doesn’t want to go with you. And I’m not going to make him.”

“You will make him, if you know what’s good for you.”

“And guess what else I’m not going to do?” Tina said, standing up taller and moving toward him. “I’m not going to let you sell my parents’ school.”

“You don’t get to ‘let me’ do anything.”

“Are you really going to fight me?” Tina said, stepping closer. “Because I think you’re forgetting something.”

Kent Buckley’s face said,Oh, yeah?“What would that be?”

Very deliberately, like she was saying much more than she was saying, Tina said, “I know all your secrets.”

Kent Buckley’s face froze.

Tina went on. “I’ve let a lot of things go. I’ve looked the other way, and put up with your demands, and kept quiet. Mostly, I did it for Clay. I did it because I thought he needed a father. But you know what? Hedoesn’t just need any father. He needs a good father. And I’ve tried so hard for so long not to believe it, but you’re not a good father.” She shook her head and then said it again, like the act of saying it was empowering. “You’re a terrible father. And you’re a terrible husband. And you’re a terrible person. My dad was the kind of person who made everything better… but you make everything worse. I didn’t want to know that about you. I didn’t want it to be true. But the truth is, Clay would be a hundred times better off without you. And so would I. Now that I see that… I can’t not see it. That’s it. I’ve backed down from you a thousand times, but that’s not going to happen today.”

Kent Buckley’s tone shifted then, as he realized he needed to manage her a different way. “Look, it’s been a long day. Let’s go home, get a good night’s sleep, and talk it all out in the morning.”

He sounded suddenly so reasonable. I had a flash of worry that Tina might fold.

But then she said, “No.” Then she shook her head. Tina said, “I want a divorce.”

Let’s just say it was a statement that wasn’t going to go down easy with Kent Buckley. He stood up straighter. He took a step closer. And then he shouted, “You bitch!”

A gasp from the growing crowd of teachers on the beach.

“Dad!” Clay said. “You’ll scare the whale.”

Kent Buckley glanced at Clay before turning back to Tina with a lower, even more threatening tone. “You can’t divorce me.”

That’s when Babette stepped up next to Tina. “Sure she can.”

And then I stepped up, too. “She absolutely can.”

Alice stepped up after that, and then Coach Gordo, and then, one by one, the rest of the teachers. A silent army of support.

And the last person to step up—and wasn’t it just like him to appear just as soon as I’d stopped looking—was Duncan.

That’s when Kent Buckley decided he was outnumbered and stepped closer to grab Tina’s hand and pull her away from the group. In response, Clay ran up to break his grip and push him back—though Clay was hardly strong enough to do it.

Kent Buckley shoved his son out of the way, and Clay hit the sand.

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