Behind me, I heard Margo, who was in the next office, snort. One look at her face—biting back a smile as she studied her computer screen—and I knew my hunch was correct. I turned back to my mom. “He told you about the phone message, didn’t he?”
“What?”
“Mom. Come on.”
Finally, she stopped pretending to look, instead sitting back in her chair. By now Margo had moved to the doorway as well, all the better to hear every word. “He might have mentioned that your father had something important to tell you.”
If hearing this made me nervous, I can only imagine what it did to my mom. In fact, if I’d opened up her top desk drawer right then, I knew I’d find all the saltier, crunchier offerings of the office vending machine, partially consumed. She was a stress eater from way back. Lucky for her, worry also boosted her metabolism, so it usually balanced out.
“He’s on his way here,” I told her. “With Benji.”
She just looked at me. Margo said, “That’s the kid, right?”
“What about Leah?” my mom asked.
I shook my head. “Didn’t mention her. All he said was that his aunt died and they’re putting her house on the market.”
“Miss Ruth passed away?” my mom said, looking genuinely sad.
“Do they have a realtor?” That was Margo. Because of course this was the most pressing question.
“She’d been sick awhile,” I told my mom. “Apparently.”
“Who’s Miss Ruth?”
I turned, and there was Amber, holding a paper sack from Amigos, the Mexican place up the road. “What are you doing here?”
“I got an SOS call,” she replied, pushing past me to walk over to my mom’s desk, where she deposited the bag, which already had grease staining the bottom. “Someone needed a taco, stat.”
“You deliver now?” I asked.
“If someone else is paying. I’m broke and hungry,” she replied, plopping down in the chair opposite my mom. “Who’s Miss Ruth?”
“Emaline’s father’s aunt,” Margo informed her.
You could literally see Amber figuring out this relationship, her brain wheels spinning. Then she said, “The one he used to stay with, in North Reddemane?”
My mom, unwrapping a taco, nodded. “Such a nice lady. She made the best chicken salad. It was to die for.”
“How long’s he staying?” Margo asked me.
“He didn’t say.”
Silence. Which was rare when we were all together, if not unheard of. “Maybe,” Amber said, “he’s planning to apologize for being such a jerk about the college thing, win you over, and be your favorite parent again.”
My sister did not have that many talents. One she had cultivated, however, was the ability to zero in on the single thing someone absolutely does not want to hear and then say it aloud. I looked at my mom, who, sure enough, was already stuffing the back end of her taco into her mouth.
“Not happening,” I said. “And besides, this isn’t about me. His aunt died and he’s taking his kid on a road trip.”
“Do they need a place to rent?” Margo again. Who else?
“I’m sure they’re staying at Miss Ruth’s,” my mom told her, chewing.
“She’s dead,” Amber pointed out.
“But her house isn’t,” Margo replied.
“Maybe,” Amber said, “we should offer them our guest room.”
“Stop it,” I told her, and she snorted. To my mom I said, “Do you have a delivery for me to do or not?”
A pause. Then she shook her head, slowly, still chewing. I sighed, turned on my heel, and headed for the door. “I’m sorry,” she called after me, once she’d swallowed. “I just really wondered what he wanted.”
“If he needs a good realtor,” Margo said to me as I passed her, holding out a business card, “put him in touch with me, okay?”
“You people are ridiculous,” I said, but I took the card, stuffing it into my pocket.
“Don’t be mad!” my mom yelled, halfheartedly, as I walked across the office. I didn’t answer her.
As I headed out the door, I saw an older guy in cargo shorts and a COLBY BEACH T-shirt opening the complimentary ice cream cooler in our lobby. He reached in, helping himself to a Popsicle and a Nutty Buddy cone, then held them both out to a little girl in a pink bathing suit and princess cover-up.
“Which one?” he asked. She pointed at the cone. After he unwrapped it, handed it to her, and opened the Popsicle for himself, they both wandered over to the big map on the wall, staring up at it as they ate.
WHERE’S HOME FOR YOU? said the letters over the map, this year in bright yellow. The previous year it had been red. You could still see tiny traces of the color, like faint shadows, especially around the curvier letters. Scrape down to the wall itself, through the fifty years of layers, and you’d surely find every other color of the rainbow as well. Not too much changed in Colby or even our office itself, but the map was new and the letters freshly painted, every single season.
It was my grandfather, way back in the day, who had first put them there. Then he added a YOU ARE HERE over Colby’s spot, put a cupful of pushpins nearby, and let people leave their mark. Pretty soon, for many families, it was part of the vacation tradition, just like getting ice cream when they got their keys, and coffee when they dropped them off. You just had to put in a pin, marking the place you would return to when your time with us, in this place, was over.