The way things were going for my family, it’s a wonder Tom wasn’t arrested for human trafficking as he walked through town with a romper-clad teen, her pale-blue Longchamp bag slung over his shoulder.
I was in the kitchen and heard them coming before I saw them, the flip-flop of her Tori Burch sandals, the familiar clearing of his throat, from drinking too much wine and smoking too many cigars. I stared at them walking down the street for a second before realizing who Tom was with.
“Sydney!” I called out in a low growl. “Does Courtney’s family vacation in Nantucket too?”
“No?”
“You didn’t…invite her, did you? When Pop suggested it, and I said no?”
“No, Mom, why—”
She followed my gaze and looked back at me solemnly. “I swear I didn’t, Mom.”
“Dad!” I bellowed. “Mom!”
“What?” my mother asked, hurrying down the stairs with my father in tow.
“Maybe Dad can explain to us how Sydney’s friend Courtney managed to get herself invited here to Nantucket?”
“Dang it!” my dad said. “It was supposed to be a surprise!”
He and Sydney walked outside and hugged the girl, my father talking loudly, volubly.
My brother came into the kitchen.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad teenage tidings.”
“Well, she’ll have a playmate. That will make everything simpler,” my mother said.
“Mom, it makes nothing simpler!”
“Why on earth not?”
“Because Dad is ill! Because we’re not in our house. Because we have no room!”
“Oh, we can always go back to the house.”
“Mother, we are not going back to the house! No one is setting foot over there until the yard is dug up and the sod is delivered!”
“Well, there’s plenty of room here,” she said with a wave of her hand. “They’re children! They can sleep in a tent on the lawn!”
I felt my brother’s eyes move from my mother to me. I locked gazes with him and felt something I haven’t felt in decades: complicity.
“The girls can have the porch if you like,” Tom said. “I’ll bunk on the couch.”
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“You’re welcome.”