“She shouldn’t have to remind you.”

“You try it!” Kent Buckley said. “You try working as hard as I do and see if you can remember every tiny piece of minutiae!”

But Tina was shaking her head. “This wasn’t minutiae,” she said. “This was your son’s birthday. It was a trip you’d rescheduled three other times. He never complained. Every time something came up, he forgave you. But this time…” She shook her head like she was too angry to even keep talking. “No more.”

But Kent Buckley wasn’t really one to take criticism. Right? He wasn’t just going to sign up for personal growth. He wasn’t going to have an epiphany right here on this beach that he’d ignored all true sources of nourishment in his life in the relentless pursuit of status.

No. He was going to attack back.

“And what kind of mother are you?” he demanded. “This child has literally been out all night. He’s wet, he’s half-unconscious. He should be home in his bed, fast asleep. And yet here you sit, in a beach chair, like it’s some kind of all-night party.”

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? He doesn’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.

In a flash, Duncan was between them. “Hey,” he said to Kent Buckley. “Take it easy.”

“Back off, pal,” Kent Buckley said. “This is not about you.”

“Why don’t you take a walk—and a few minutes to calm down?”

“I don’t need to calm down!” Kent Buckley shouted.

He was definitely upsetting the whale. The crowd hummed a little louder.

“Kent!” Tina said. “Just go home.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Kent shouted.

“Okay, buddy,” Duncan said, stepping closer. “That’s enough.” And Duncan was putting his arm around him, presumably to lead him to the seawall steps for a little distance, when Kent Buckley turned around and slugged him right in the gut.

I was standing a few feet away when it happened, just one in the still-humming crowd that had shifted its attention from the whale to the real-time divorce happening before our eyes.

As soon as Kent Buckley’s fist connected, Duncan doubled over and hit the sand.

All questions—of whether Duncan had freaked out over my seizures, or whether he had let me down, or whether or not we were even still friends—disappeared. I ran to him without thinking, without deciding to, just as two of the cops from the harmony section grabbed Kent Buckley and cuffed him.

Something Kent Buckley didn’t take too kindly to.

“What are you doing?” he bellowed.

“That’s assault, pal,” one of the officers said. “We’re taking you to the station.”

And with remarkable efficiency, they maneuvered Kent Buckley to the seawall steps and up to the squad car. Tina watched them go, not protesting, as they pushed him into the backseat and then drove away—no siren.

I don’t want to say it wasn’t big news for Max’s daughter to demand a divorce from the chairman of the school’s board, and then for that chairman to punch the principal before getting hauled off to the slammer. On any other day, it would have been the biggest news we could imagine.

But today, it barely registered. Before he was even off the beach, we’d turned our attention back to the majestic creature in peril before our eyes. We had work to do. A rescue attempt to complete. And let’s not forget Christmas carols to sing. Everyone turned back to the whale—all except me, and Chuck Norris, who was now on Duncan’s other side, licking him.

Duncan was still panting and coughing.

“Did he get your scar tissue?” I asked.

Duncan gave a wry head shake. “It hurts like hell … but I’m fine. He’s stronger than he looks, though.”

“Can you get up, do you think?”

“Only if I have to.”

I helped him to his feet, and he tried to look into my eyes, but I turned away. I stepped closer to the water, as if to say that the whale needed all my attention. Which felt, actually, kind of true.

The rescuers were still in the water, still working on the last section of net.

The water levels were lower with each roll of waves.

The sun was rising, and we were running out of time.

I watched Duncan move past us all, out toward the rescuers, and pull out a utility knife of his own to get to work, helping.

I told myself to stay focused. That my personal heartbreak could wait.

It was not looking good for the whale. And I didn’t even realize I was crying until Alice showed up beside me and put her arm around my shoulder.

There wasn’t anything left I could think of to do, so I prayed.

I’m not even a praying person, but I prayed for the whale. I stood right there, ankle-deep in the waves, and I just prayed like hell for something good to come out of this day. For all this human kindness to amount to something. For somebody on this beach to get a happy ending.

Even if it was a fish.

Clay would later correct me with an eye roll and explain, again, that you can’t call a marine mammal a fish. “It’s insulting.”

But nomenclature aside, my praying worked.

Fine. Maybe I should give a little credit to the rescuers who actually cut the net away. Or the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Or the nine-year-old boy who started it all.