“This is very touching, but I’m not paying any fine.
I have two hundred thousand followers.
I’ll post about this and have this beach’s management fired by Monday.”
The lifeguard looked at her calmly.
“You’re welcome to do that, ma’am.
The citation stands either way.
And the video has already been submitted to the county office.”
“What video?
His?” She pointed at the old man.
“That’s one person’s footage.”
“No,” the lifeguard said.
“Ours.”
He pointed toward the lifeguard tower thirty feet away.
A mounted camera sat at the top, angled toward the waterline.
Her face went still.
“We record the entire shoreline during holiday weekends,” he said.
“Liability reasons.
Your actions are on that footage from three different angles.”
She looked at the tower.
Then back at him.
Then at the crowd.
A woman near the front of the gathering spoke up.
She was maybe sixty, holding a sun hat against the breeze.
“I saw it too,” she said.
“I’ll say so in writing if anyone needs it.”
A man beside her nodded.
“Same.”
Then another voice.
Then another.
The entitled woman’s jaw tightened.
She looked at the citation in her hand like she was deciding whether to tear it up.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” she said.
“That’s your right,” the lifeguard said.
She gathered her bag, her phone, her designer sunglasses, and walked off the beach without another word.
The crowd parted for her.
Not out of respect.
Just to let her go.
Nobody watched her leave.
They were all looking at Noah.
He was still standing with his fist closed around the bronze pin, staring at the flat wet sand where the castle had been.
The tide had smoothed it over completely.
Nothing left.
I knelt down beside him.
“You okay?”
He thought about it for a moment.
Really thought about it, the way he does.
“She kjlled it,” he said quietly.
“The castle.”
“I know.”
“But…” He opened his hand and looked at the pin.
“Mr.
— ” He glanced up at the old man.
“Walt,” the man said.
“Mr.
Walt knew about Dad.”
“He did.”
Noah looked back at the sand.
“Can we build another one?”
My throat tightened.
“Right now?”
