The Blanks (The Shivers Collection, #3)

by Grady Hendrix

“That’s what men do,” Tom Docks says, sitting under the string lights on our back deck, shucking oysters with a flathead screwdriver. “Something goes wrong with the car, and they pop the hood and look at the engine. They don’t know what they’re looking at or what to do about it, but they feel that caveman compulsion to stand there and scrutinize.”

to me beach towns were always hard scoops of overpriced ice cream on a boardwalk packed with angry sunburned parents and their screaming sunburned kids.

out here with no cars, fewer screens, and slower schedules, everyone was their best self.

We always tell the kids that if they see something funny, look away. Ignore it. But we never worried too much. The Blanks never act like this. They haven’t acted like this in years.

Nothing bad happens if you leave them alone, if you just pretend they don’t exist.

When you don’t have anyone left, you still have your family.

Things were so good until they weren’t.

“Mistakes” is too small a word for the things parents do.

I am not going to be a single parent because you wanted to do performative macho bullshit!”