“Is that your phone?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” I was still frozen, afraid to move, breathe. I had no idea where my phone was.
I heard Mary moving around behind me. “I think it’s here somewhere. I hear it. Ethan had it.”
“He did?” I was trying hard not to appear frantic. “Forget it. It’s no one, probably just Sal.” I turned around and, along with Mary, began to look for the thing, clawing at the bags in the backseat, tossing them aside.
“Got it,” she said.
What happened next was nothing less than divine intervention. Looking back on it, I’d like to think Ethan knew exactly what he was doing, that he, with one amazingly well-timed gesture, decided to thank me for a lifetime of baths, basketball, and Stinky Bear. I would remember that moment for a long time: how he grabbed the still ringing phone from Mary, how he looked me dead in the eye before doing what he did. How I did absolutely nothing to stop him.
Mary yelled. “He’s opening the window! John, get it!”
I finally made a token effort to grab Ethan’s wrist but had no intention of stopping him. He finished lowering his window and threw the phone out. I saw it bounce once on the road before disappearing.
I felt the van slow. “Should I stop?” Karen yelled.
“Forget it. Keep going. It’s gone.” I exhaled, tried to regroup. “See what you guys caused? Monkey see, monkey do. He was just imitating his smart, older sisters. It’s not his fault.” I was trying to act angry, but my voice sounded singsongy.
“I can’t believe he did that!” Mary said. “Ethan, that was bad! Very bad! And John, you just sat there! You could have grabbed it. You just sat there.”
It took everything I had not to kiss Ethan. “It’s the girls’ fault. Monkey see, monkey do,” I repeated. “They were acting like idiots.”
“What are you talking about?” Mary asked.
“The girls were acting like idiots. Karen threw her phone out while you were asleep because Roger kept calling.”
“She did what?”
“Idiot,” Ethan said.
“Right, Ethan, right.”
“Karen. Idiot!”
“Yes, she is,” I said.
“Mindy. Idiot!”
“Absolutely. It runs in the family.”
“Dad. Idiot!”
“Hey, I wouldn’t go that far.”
We were laughing when I saw the sign on the side of the road: WELCOME TO MAINE: THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE.
“Look,” Mindy said, pointing. “We’re here.”
“Finally,” Karen said. “Maine.”
We all stared at the sign as we passed. No one said another word.
13
Sal was leaning against a black Escalade, blowing streams of smoke through his nostrils in the parking lot of the Ridgewood Inn. He was wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and an enormous Sox T-shirt that still fit him tight across the chest. He smiled, flicked the cigarette away, and pushed off from the SUV.
“How’s my favorite family?” he said as we piled out of the van. He swallowed me in a sugary Old Spice hug.
While we were still in heavy embrace, I heard both Mindy and Karen mumble, “Hey, Uncle Sal,” then saw them scurry past, toward the inn’s wide wooden porch, dragging their luggage.
Sal released me. “That’s all I get? Hi. Bye? That’s it?”
“It’s been a long afternoon,” I said.
Ethan, red-faced from crying, emerged from the back of the van with an exhausted Mary. The last three hours had been among the hardest of the entire trip. It had taken everything we had not to stop. When he saw his beloved uncle, though, he exploded with delight, running frantically toward him, skinny arms waving. He leaped into Sal’s arms.
“Sal!”
“There he is, Mr. Big!” Sal said, tussling Ethan’s hair and smiling. “Now, that’s more like it!”
“Hi, Sal,” Mary said. “Where’s Sally?”
Sal let Ethan go and gave Mary a hug. “Yeah, she’s in her room taking a nap. How you holding up? Gotta be tough, this whole thing.”
“We survived,” she said. “Thank you for coming,”
“Yeah, we flew into Boston and drove up. Made a little detour, drove by Fenway, first time, if you believe. And I got to say, I wasn’t all that impressed. From what I saw, Wrigley is better. Wrigley has got more class, more something, history. All they got is the wall there. Here, give me that.” He took Mary’s bag from her.
“Your back,” she said.
“Forget the back. Here. Come on, give it to me.”
Ethan ran ahead, up the porch steps, and Mary hurried after him while Sal and I, saddled with bags, slowly followed. I was exhausted, my head crowded, and I needed to be alone for a while. I was in no mood for anyone, particularly Sal.
“How was the drive?” he asked.
“Started out great, but the last few hours were total hell.”
Sal readjusted the shoulder strap of Mary’s bag. “Yeah, me and Sally thought this was crazy. All the way from South Carolina.”
“You mean all the way from Wilton, Illinois.”