“J. T., what are you thinking?” I overheard Mom ask as my father hung up the phone in the kitchen. He’d been back in Texas less than a week. “They made it very clear they want you, despite—you know, everything.”
“A one-armed wrestling coach?” Dad scoffed. “That’s about as useful as a one-armed pilot. It wouldn’t be fair to the team in the long run, and I don’t need their pity.”
“That’s just pride talking and you know it. You have plenty to offer.”
My brother and I, who were doing our homework at the dining room table, looked at each other wide-eyed. We probably weren’t supposed to be hearing this conversation.
“Did Dad just turn down UT?” Hatcher whispered.
“Um, I think so,” I whispered back.
“That can’t be good.”
The whole reason my parents had decided to settle in Texas—besides the fact that my mom’s family was there—was because my father had two job offers lined up. The airline he was going to fly for was based out of Austin, and on top of that, the University of Texas had offered him a part-time job as an assistant wrestling coach. Dad had been an all-star wrestler for the Longhorns, recruited out of high school on a scholarship, and UT was where he’d met Mom. After college, he’d joined the army, but he and his former coach had stayed in touch, and when UT heard he was retiring, they’d jumped at the chance to add him to their coaching staff.
All of this was before Black Monday, of course. Since the injury, my father’s plans for flying had been dashed. Apparently commercial airlines aren’t exactly lining up to hire one-armed pilots.
And now it looked like his wrestling days were over too.
Dad wouldn’t reconsider, despite Mom’s pleas. Lieutenant Colonel Jericho T. Lovejoy has a stubborn streak.
After that, he turned into Silent Man. He barely went out, and none of us kids quite knew how to act around him. We’re used to Dad either barking orders or joking around, but while the barking continued, the joking did not. Our fun-loving father seemed to have vanished into thin air. He still got up every morning, still shaved, still got dressed in khaki pants and a white shirt, his usual off-duty uniform. But he rarely wore his prosthesis—the hook at the end of it scared Pippa—so one shirtsleeve was usually empty, and there was an emptiness to the rest of him too. Mom tried to make up for it by being extra cheerful, but by Halloween, her upbeat attitude had wilted, and she was looking strained and pale.
And then Gramps and Lola showed up.
The two of them arrived unannounced in early November, a taxi having deposited them on our doorstep one evening just as we were finishing dinner.
“We thought it would be fun to surprise you!” Lola told Dad, giving him a hug. She stepped back and looked him up and down, then patted his good arm. “You’re looking well, J. T. Much better than when we saw you in Maryland.”
My grandmother turned and spotted me. “Truly!” she cried, flinging out her arms.
“Lola!” I cried back, flinging myself into them. We’ve always called her Lola instead of Nana or Grandma or anything like that. Mom says it’s because her name is catnip to kids, the way it rolls off the tongue, like “lullaby” or “lollipop.”
“How’s my most beautiful eldest granddaughter?”
I laughed. “You mean your only eldest granddaughter, right?”
“You’re still beautiful,” she replied, kissing me on the cheek.
When Lola says something like that, I almost believe her.
Lola and Gramps are two of my favorite people in the whole world. They live in New Hampshire, where Dad grew up, and where they own a bookshop. We usually go to see them every summer, but this summer, because of the move and because of Dad’s injury, we didn’t make it there. Having them turn up in Texas was a nice surprise.
The real surprise came the next morning, though, when they sprang the true reason for their visit on us.
“We’ve joined the Peace Corps!” Lola announced at breakfast.
We all looked at her like she’d said she was planning to take up belly dancing.
“You’re kidding, right?” said my father.
“It’s something we’ve always wanted to do,” Gramps explained.
“Since when?”
“There’s a lot about your mother and me that you don’t know, son,” Gramps said loftily.
My dad’s hippie-dippie sister is usually the one to drop bombshells like this. Aunt True—who’s named after the original Truly Lovejoy, just like me—is always heading off to go trekking in Nepal or sea kayaking in Patagonia or volunteering in some third-world orphanage. She sends us postcards from all over. Our fridge looks like the United Nations made a house call.
I looked at my grandparents, trying to imagine them in the Peace Corps. If they were birds, Lola would be a dove, small and serene. Gramps, on the other hand, with his piercing gaze, bushy eyebrows, and prominent nose—he calls it “the Lovejoy proboscis”—was more of a great horned owl. He was quiet like an owl too. Quiet like me. Gramps was the one who’d gotten me hooked on birding. Whenever we get together for a visit, he takes me on walks and tells me the names of all the birds we see. He sends me bird books every Christmas and every birthday, and he’s the one who got me started keeping a life list, which birders do to record all the different species they’ve spotted. His is about the size of a dictionary, though, while mine is just a few pages.
Lola cleared her throat. “The thing is,” she continued, “we’ve decided it’s time to turn the bookstore over to the next generation. You’d be doing us a big favor if you’d consider taking the reins, J. T.”
Gramps nodded. “Things haven’t been going so well, and we think the business needs a fresh approach. Your sister says if you’re in, she’s in.”
Dad looked stunned. “Run Lovejoy’s Books? With True? In Pumpkin Falls?”
“Unless you plan to pick it up and move it, yes, in Pumpkin Falls,” said Gramps, sounding a little testy. He’s very proud of our family’s connection to the town. There have been Lovejoys in Pumpkin Falls since before the American Revolution.
My father swiveled around, pinning my mother with one of his signature Lieutenant Colonel Jericho T. Lovejoy glares. “Did you know about this, Dinah?”
“It’s either turn it over to you and your sister or sell,” Lola said briskly. “We’ve been avoiding this for a while now, but it’s time to face facts. Not that selling would be the end of the world, but the bookshop has been in the family for nearly a hundred years.”
Dad grimaced. “No pressure or anything, right?”
My grandfather placed his hand on top of Dad’s remaining one. “Would you at least consider the possibility, son? Nothing would make your mother and me happier.”
I could tell that running a bookstore with his sister wasn’t exactly on my father’s list of “Top Ten Things I Most Want to Do When I Grow Up.” For one thing, he’s not the biggest bookworm in the world, plus he and Aunt True don’t always see eye to eye on things. Hardly ever, in fact.
At first, Dad flat-out refused. He said it was all a plot, hatched by Mom and his parents, and that he wouldn’t be backed into a corner, even if it meant selling the bookshop. But with no pilot job, and no coaching job either, what choice did he have? By Thanksgiving, it was a done deal. Our new house went on the market a week later, and the movers came right after New Year’s.
And now here we were: stuck in Pumpkin Falls, in the middle of the coldest winter on record, moving into the house my father grew up in, in the town he couldn’t wait to leave.