6. Six
“They’re here!” my mom yells as she waves her arms and scrambles down the steps of their stilted canal-side house.
My dad is in his usual attire—blindingly bright floral shirt and flip-flops—while my mom floats across the yard in a long skirt and paint-splattered sleeveless shirt. Her hair is long, wavy, and wild, like her, and her eyes twinkle as she claps her hands together with a gasp. She gazes at the camper in her driveway like it is the most magical thing she has ever laid eyes on.
“Penelope, this is simply wonderful.” Her tone is pure whimsy, like she’s imagining a thousand fairy tales playing out. “I came to the Keys in a van a lot like this in the 70s. I was going to find my big break as an artist, you know. Instead, I found your dad. He cared more about a good time than art, but still, it was love at first sight.”
Her face fills with a dreamy smile.
I shake my head. I’ve heard the story a million times, but my mom’s love of it never really gets old.
Marin beams as she shows my parents the new and improved Avion in the driveway. It had taken us three months, but we made it. After tireless hours scouring flea markets and thrift stores, the Avion had returned to its 1978 glory.
We painted the inside a creamy white and layered on textures of polyester, macrame, and a burnt orange shag rug. It almost makes me laugh at how good it looks after I hated it so much when Travis brought it home.
Finn leans on the side of the hood, disinterested, as he scrolls his phone before wandering into the house.
I try to ignore how that simple gesture lashes yet another shallow mark across my heart.
My arm hooks through my mom’s as we walk.
“Thanks, Mom. I can’t believe we leave tomorrow. It feels surreal.”
The truth is, I’m nervous as hell. Even though the trip has Travis’ engineering behind it, he isn’t here to execute it—I am. The person who doesn’t like driving long distances or living dangerously is in charge of keeping us alive as we drive thousands of miles away from home. Over mountains and through deserts. To another ocean. As excited as I am for the time with the kids, I am scared to death I’ll fail. That I won’t translate Travis’ plan into an actual meaningful experience.
“You don’t come back here until you figure it out,” she says, turning to look at me when we get to the top of the steps. “You are going to get out there and want to come back when things feel hard, I know you. It will feel hard, and you’ll think it was a mistake. I want you to keep going. I want you to see what you need to see until you can come back here and breathe easy. Until you find yourself again, even if it’s just miles and miles of pavement.”
I hate how well she knows me.
I let out a long exhale. “Finn doesn’t want to go.”
“Ahh. Well, he’s seventeen, would you?” She laughs softly, her wild hair blowing in the breeze. “Remind him how fun you are. He’ll come around. You lost your husband, but he lost his dad, and his mom didn’t fully walk away from that crash either.” She wraps her arm around my shoulder and leans her head against mine. “Some people say time heals all wounds, but I always thought laughter was the real salve for a wounded soul. You all need to go out there and find some.”
Her familiar lavender scent envelops me.
“Now let’s get a glass of wine, and I’ll show you some new stuff I’ve been painting. I’ve been exploring nudes.”
She gives a sinful smile and wiggles her eyebrows as we step into the kitchen.
Gabe meets me there, shoving a glass of tequila in my hands.
“You’ll need this to soften the blow. She’s already shown me,” he says, face puckering. Mom slaps him in mock offense before disappearing down the hall.
I take the glass and give him a hug. “That bad?”
“Just wait.”
His dark eyes widen so dramatically, I laugh.
Gabe’s wife, Jenny, walks into the kitchen and squeezes me in a hug.
“I’m so excited for you!” she says in a near-squeal as we pull apart.
She’s a little thing—a former cheerleader with a blunt brown bob, shiny blue eyes, and a huge smile. If she wasn’t my sister-in-law, I would have hated her for how adorable she is. The red polka-dotted dress she’s wearing would make me look like a clown, but she pulls it off effortlessly.
“I can’t wait to hear about every single place you see!” she says, leaning into me. “And I’ll vicariously live through you.”
As if planned, one of her boys screams from outside, and she rolls her eyes then gives me a look that silently sums up the chaos of parenthood perfectly.
Again, I laugh.
“I will. I know, I really can’t believe it. I’m sure Gabe here has told you what an excellent driver I’ve become,” I say, shooting him a look.
“We’ll be lucky if they make it off the island,” he teases.
I flip my middle finger toward him with a fake smile, knowing he isn’t entirely wrong.
“That’s not fair. You never stopped yelling at me,” I argue.
“Because you never stopped hitting the curb! For the sake of everyone, I hope Finn drives the whole time.”
He rubs a hand over the stubble on his jaw, but his expression stays playful.
“That’s not—”
My mom appears in the kitchen and destroys the rest of my words.
She’s holding a large canvas of a man—a very nude man—that looks exactly like my dad.
I spit tequila.
“Yikes, Poppy!” Marin screeches, using the first name my mom insists on, and shoves her palms into her eyeballs.
“Christ on a crutch, Mom! Is that Dad?” I shriek, turning away as Gabe and Jenny groan and do the same.
“Don’t be such a prude, Penelope. It’s art!” She points to the penis—my dad’s penis—that is highlighted with shades of turquoise and yellow. “It’s very difficult to get the male anatomy just perfect with these colors. It took me hours. Hours! And you won’t even look. Imagine how that makes me feel to know I raised you to be so unappreciative of the efforts of others. The human body should be celebrated!”
I don’t know why, but I glance back at the painting again, this time with a gag.
Then groan.
“I’m going outside, Mom. I love you, but never show me this again. I’m sure you painted dad’s… pieces… great, I just never ever want to see them.”
I hold my glass up to Gabe, signaling the need for a refill.
He obliges.
Poppy is a woman who lives and speaks the taboo, but even as her daughter, the shock of that never fades.
Outside on the deck, the coastal breeze licks at my skin as the shock of my mother fades. I watch as Finn throws a football to his cousins in the grassy yard below. My heart squeezes. I catch a glimpse of my sweet little boy playing and laughing in his almost man body.
I had always been so excited to have a teenage son. I imagined we would have this funny banter and deep connection. But I screwed up, or life screwed up, and that’s not the relationship we ended up with. Another dream lost.
Gabe leans on the railing next to me. “Kids,” he says.
“Kids,” I echo.
I turn to him and sip my drink. “How’s work?”
“Fish are biting.” He grins. “I had a good season with the snowbirds, and the spring breakers survived in all their drunken glory. Can’t complain about much.”
Gabe owns a local fishing charter business, and it”s as though it”s what he was made for. Like there’s no place else he’d rather be.
He’s a year older than me, but we could pass as twins with our brown hair and amber eyes. Where my skin is pale from my year of self-inflicted isolation, his is tan from a million hours on a boat.
“Thanks for all of your help, Gabe. I mean it.” I turn my attention back to the kids running below us. “I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for you. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have survived the last year without you. Or the funeral…” my voice trails off with my unspoken when I tried to swim away.
“We’re all glad to see you doing this. Something fun.” He taps his finger on the railing, smile pulling at his lips when he adds, “Randy Miller is hoping you’re going to be ready to date when you get back.”
He takes a sip of his beer with a cocked eyebrow.
I slap him on the arm and groan.
“Okay, first, how many times has Randy been married? Like four?” I ask, offended at the mere thought of Randy Miller. “That man cannot keep his thing in his pants. And second, I can’t imagine ever dating anyone again, but if I ever do, please know, it won’t be one of your disgusting friends from high school.”
Gabe laughs as I down the rest of my tequila with a shudder.
“Also, are we going to talk about Mom’s new art, or are we just pretending that isn’t happening?” I ask.
“I’m good with pretending,” he says with a grimace and too-long gulp of his beer that makes me snort.
When my mom yells, “Dinner!” it’s the familiar smells of grilled steak and citronella candles blowing in the breeze as we settle around the table.
My dad raises his glass.
“To our Nelly, Finn, and Marin. May the road treat them well, and they return to us with only the best stories.”
“And may Nel keep four tires on the highway,” Gabe chimes in with a lift of his beer.
I shoot him a look that makes everyone at the table laugh.
As we clank our glasses, emotion sits like lead at the back of my tongue. I’m nervous as hell and have no idea how we will manage it all, but I know I need this more than anything. I need to leave with my broken pieces and come back mended.
After laughs and plates of good food, Finn and I are the last ones sitting at the table.
I study him, his brown hair longer than I realized. “You going to be okay with all of this? I mean, I know it’s a lot, believe me, it’s just that—”
“I don’t want to do this, Mom,” he cuts me off. “I don’t think that’s a secret, but I’m not going to fight you on it if that’s what you mean.” He pauses with a puff of a breath. “And I know you look for him, I see it. You miss him differently than Marin and me. You miss him in an out loud way all the time. I miss him when I hear an airplane buzz overhead. You miss him when you see there’s an airplane or when you see space maybe an airplane might be someday. I just… I’m worried you think we’ll find him waiting at a random truck stop along the interstate, even though we won’t. He’s gone. Whether we like it or not.”
Surprisingly, the expression on his face isn’t annoyance, it’s concern.
He’s right.
“I know.”
I spin the ring around my finger.
“Me too.” He nudges me with his elbow, lips lifting slightly. “Plus, I’d do anything to get you to stop being so weird. You’re freaking the whole island out.”
I throw my napkin at him, but there’s no use denying it.
“You got smart, kid.” I look at his face like it’s the first time I’ve seen it in years.
“I know.”
Then we turn and watch the sunset in silence.