[PJO] What if Sally found a better husband first?
If Gabe was never in the picture and Sally found a good husband would Montauk still be a significant part of Sally's and Percy's lives? I know in book 4 after Paul and Sally got together the family was still seen vacationing in Montauk, but at that point Montauk was already cemented as a place of sentimental and emotional significance.
In the proposed hypothetical it's a clean slate, the only significance that Montauk would have is being the place where Sally met Poseidon. Without Gabe to inflict his brand of misery and suffering, Montauk wouldn't serve as the same bastion of comfort and safety it was in canon. From the start Percy would have had a caring and attentive father and Sally would have a loving and supportive husband.
I could see it still being a birthday destination for the family so Poseidon can still discreetly check in on Percy but I feel like it would be closer to visitation between divorced parents than anything else.
What are your thoughts?
Edit: Gabe was chosen because of his mortal smell and how it was able to mask Percy's scent. It was never really specified why or how he has such a strong scent i'm going to assume that it's completely unrelated to him being a shit human being. So in this case we can assume that this character has the same level of smell but is the complete opposite of a human shit stain.