“What?”
I swallowed. “You said you thought you’d wanted me to come, but—”
She was just looking at me, clearly confused. Then, suddenly, she exhaled, putting a hand to her chest. “Oh, God! Honey, I wasn’t talking about you when I said that. I was talking about the party.”
“Party?”
“To watch the ECC tournament,” she said. That was an acronym I knew well: Eastern College Conference, the one to which Defriese and the U belonged. “I’ve had it here the last few years, when I didn’t go with Peter. It was planned way in advance for this week, but once we got here, I realized I didn’t want to have to deal with it. I wanted it to be ... just us. That’s what I meant.”
So that was the party Heidi had mentioned. “I just assumed ...” I stopped. “I just felt lost all of a sudden. This was the only place that was familiar.”
“This place?” my dad said, glancing around the room.
“We had a lot of good times here,” my mom told him. “It was where we always stayed when we took road trips to the beach.”
“You remember,” I said.
“Of course; how could I forget? ” She shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Colby. And Peter’s right, there isn’t much here anymore. But I still drive down here now and then. I like the view.”
I looked at her. “Me, too.”
“Although I have to say,” she added, “I don’t remember it smelling quite so mildewy.”
“It did,” I told her, and she smiled, squeezing my shoulder.
For a moment, we all just sat there, no one talking. Then my dad looked at my mom before saying, “Your mom and I think we all need to sit down and talk. About what happens next.”
“I know,” I said.
“Maybe, though,” he said, “we can talk and eat. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”
“Agreed,” my mom replied. She tipped her wrist up, glancing at her watch. “Last Chance opens at seven a.m. That’s only ten minutes.”
“Last Chance?”
“Best diner on the beach,” she told him, standing up. “The bacon will blow your mind.”
“You had me at bacon,” my dad said. “Let’s go.”
Before we left, though, they helped me pack up my boxes, each of us adding books and pictures. It seemed like a ritual, something sacred, putting all of these pieces back away again, and when I slid the tops on, pressing them shut, the sound was not so different from the one made when you pushed a piece onto the model. Click.
When we stepped out to the parking lot, the wind was stiff and cold, the sky a flat gray, the sun, barely visible, rising in the distance. As my mom pulled out her keys, I said, “What about the twins? Don’t you need to get back to them?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Heidi called in two of her sitters, Amanda and Erika. They’re covered. We have all the time in the world.”
All the time in the world, I thought as we pulled out onto the main road, my dad following close behind in his truck. If only there was such a thing, really. In truth, though, there were deadlines and jobs, school years ending and beginning, time running out with every breath. As we drove past Gert’s, though, the OPEN 24 HRS sign still on, I looked down at the bracelet I was wearing, twisting it across my wrist. Maybe I didn’t need all the time anyway. Just a couple of hours, a good breakfast, and a chance to talk with the two people who knew me best, no matter who I was.
We were the first ones at the Last Chance, there when a blonde woman in an apron, looking sleepy, unlocked the door. “You’re up early,” she said to my mom. “Kids have a bad night? ”
My mom nodded, and I felt her eyes on me before she said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
We took our menus, flipping over our coffee cups as the waitress approached with the pot. In the kitchen, past the counter, I could hear a grill sizzling, someone playing a radio, the notes punctuated by the register bell ringing as another waitress opened the drawer, then shut it. It was all so familiar, like a place I knew well, even though I’d never been there before. I looked at my mom beside me, and my dad across the table, both of them reading their menus, here with just me, just us, for once. I’d thought that I didn’t have a home anymore. But right there, right then, I realized I’d been wrong. Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.