I don’t know how we came to own a beach house. I think it was our grandfather’s, and we just kept it in the family. My parents, my aunts, my uncles, none of them own a home. They all rent, and their kids all rent. But for some reason, we’ve kept this place.

It’s technically in Mexico. I say technically, because its so white, and so American, it’s as though someone took a picture of Mexico, and desaturated it. Cabo San Lucas is at the end of the Baja Peninsula, hours into the country. But, everyone on the block is white. It’s barely Mexico. But it is a beach house on the edge of Los Cabos, and that’s not nothing.

I lived in rural Illinois once, a mistake I won’t repeat. Knowing the ocean was so far away constantly pulled at the thread of my sanity. It was like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch, and it drove me nuts.

“Hey man!” my younger brother saw me from the water and found his way up the hard-packed sand. “I thought you weren’t here until tomorrow?” he grabbed a towel from the deck and aimlessly patted himself down. He didn't even unfold the towel, which bothered me more than it should have.

“I didn’t have anything better to do.” This was a bald-faced lie—an absolute untruth. I just started a new business and it was taking everything from me. My marriage was emaciated and my focus was on life support. “Anyway, it’s always nice to get some time at the Beach House.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He slipped a cigarette out of the pack. He pulled an extra out and shrugged in my direction. I nodded. He grabbed a third and slid it behind his ear. “It’s like time stands still here. That’s probably why we keep it around I guess.” His muscle memory for lighting two cigarettes was deeply ingrained. He held them both lightly in his lips, flipped his Ed Hardy zippo open, covered the ends with his carpenter-rough hands puffed twice, and in one move pushed his cigarette between his teeth and flipped the other around to hand to me. It worked on all the girls in high school, and I can’t pretend it didn’t impress me then.

I took a drag, the first in years, and exhaled in feigned agreement. I looked towards the house and saw the rest of the family settling into the table for dinner. My mom kept grabbing ‘one last thing’ from the kitchen to take to the table. My dad opened a bottle of discount wine from Trader Joe’s.

My brother was looking too, a smile swelling across the one unoccupied corner of his mouth.

“John,” I said, catching his attention. “I sold it.” I paused and took a deep pull. “Turns out it was in my name, and I sold it.” I exhaled and watched the reality take hold of him. “See you tomorrow.”

I walked around the side of the house, puffing until I came to the car door. I dropped it to the ground and climbed into the seat -letting the rest of the ember run its course on the end of the cigarette.