Nina is the oldest of the Riva children. After their mother’s death, 17-year-old Nina became her siblings’ guardian, ensuring that her Jay, Hud, and Kit were cared for and sacrificing her dreams for them to be able to succeed: “Nina fully understood there was no one left in the world to count on, to lean on, trust, to believe in” (146) except her. Since then, Nina has carried the past on her shoulders, wanting to keep Riva Seafood open, “not only for the people of Malibu but for her mother and her grandparents, who ran it before her. The weight of their sacrifices to keep it standing pushed her to do the same” (45).

Nina finds peace in the ocean. Surfing provides Nina with rare moments of solitude and time not to think “of future or past, but only present. How can I stay, how can I hold on, how can I balance? Better. Longer. With more ease” (29).

During the course of the novel, Nina grows beyond her mother’s passive acceptance of men’s whims, rejecting Brandon’s pleas to get back together and her father’s out of the blue proposal to reenter her life. As she sees her siblings mature into capable adults, Nina finally moves past her role as caretaker, leaving for Portugal to get some much-deserved peace.