had a shot at a school like Alden, but Coach Marty knew the baseball coach. Alden needed a freshman center fielder, and Joe Skinner was it.
“Joe, don’t take Bill!” I called from my seat on the front lawn. “I love him!” For the first hour of packing, I had helped, sort of, but the tolerable morning temperature had given way so quickly to a sludgy, heavy heat that I’d declared myself overwhelmed and found a place in the shade. “Just cut Ted off,” I called. “Take Ted, but leave Bill.”
My childhood baby fat had not melted away as we all (or at least I) had assumed it would. That summer I was fifteen years old, alarmingly pudgy from puberty and Coke and frosted doughnuts and a general aversion to physical effort. For three long months, I’d moped around the house, reading too much sexed-up Updike and working a stinky, mindless job at a burger place in Bexley that paid me eight dollars an hour to cut tomatoes and onions and lift buns off the grill before they burned. I felt a persistent exhaustion brought on by the act of pushing my body through the days. My knees ached, my back ached, my fingers stank, my friends all annoyed me. I had no desire to grow older; I was already old enough.
I had started work on a dandelion chain when Nathan Duffy’s dented old VW pulled up to the house. The passenger door opened with a rattle, and out tumbled Caroline in a short flowery dress, her waist-length dirty-blond hair falling like a cape behind her.
“I’m so glad you guys haven’t left!” Caroline called to Joe. “I thought we’d missed saying good-bye.” She scanned the lawn. “Where’s Renee?”
I pointed: Renee was sitting on the bumper of the rented UHaul, the U-Haul she’d packed up the night before with everything she’d need for her first year of medical school at Boston University. A fine sheen of sweat covered her tan limbs, legs in micro running shorts. Her arms were crossed against her stomach, her long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail that bobbed slightly as she tapped her foot. Renee, impatience personified.
“We’re still an hour away from leaving,” Renee told Caroline. She checked her watch, then looked pointedly at Joe. “At least.”
Joe grinned back. Look after your brother, Noni had said when it became clear they would both be going to school in Boston. And Renee had answered, Have I ever not?
Nathan ambled around to sit next to me on the grass. “Morning, Fiona,” he said.
“Renee, should we bring the snow boots now or wait till after Thanksgiving break?” Joe called across the lawn.
“Bring them,” Renee answered, examining a cuticle. “It might snow before we get back home.”
Back home. They were leaving, all of them. In one two-week stretch, I was losing Joe to college, Renee to medical school, and Caroline to Lexington, Kentucky. That spring Nathan had graduated early from University of Connecticut and was set to start a biology Ph.D. program. Caroline would transfer schools. Although there was still some question about her credits, there was no question that she was going with Nathan.
Noni and I would remain alone in the gray house.
“I’ll miss you, Fi,” Joe said. Sighing, he lay down beside me on the lawn and shaded his eyes with his hand. “A lot.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“You’ll be happy we’re gone. Really, you will. No more noise. No more of that awful Indigo Girls.” The last he said loudly in Renee’s direction, but she ignored him apart from a quick flip of her middle finger.
“Or farting,” said Caroline, staring pointedly at Joe. She lay down and settled her head on Nathan’s thigh. “The house will be a lot less stinky.”
“Um, Caroline,” said Joe, “perhaps you haven’t noticed, but our mother can pass gas like a champ. Right, Noni?”
“What? Joe?” Noni was coming out the front door carrying another box. “Joe, why are you lying down? Why is everyone on the grass? Aren’t we still packing?”
“I’m taking a break,” said Joe. “Fiona looked sad.”
“I am not sad,” I said quickly. It was a lie, of course, but I objected to the idea that I was so easy to read. The truth was that I didn’t want this, us here sprawled on the lawn, to end. I wanted this miserable, hot day to go on forever. I wanted Joe beside me, Caroline and Renee within earshot. All of us close enough to touch.
“Noni,” said Joe from his prone position, “I just want you to know that I plan to be home a lot, so don’t forget the Dr Pepper and the sour-cream-and-onion Lay’s potato chips, not that Pringles bullshit, and those peanut butter M&M’s and mint-chocolate-chip ice cream—any brand is okay, but it must be green.”
Noni stood above Joe, hands on her hips.
“Are you taking notes?” he asked. “Mental notes?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Now, would you get up and help me finish here?”
“Fiona needs me more,” Joe said, but he pushed himself up just enough to throw his arms around me and kiss me on the cheek, and then he was up, running back into the house.
“Yuck.” I rubbed Joe’s spit off my face. Nathan smiled, but there was tension and distraction in his face.
“Caro,” Nathan whispered to Caroline. Her eyes were closed. “Now?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered without opening her eyes.
“Now what?” I said. I’d heard a tremor in Nathan’s voice, an unmistakable wobble of excitement.
“I think we should get your mom,” Nathan said. Caroline’s eyes fluttered open.
Soon all of us stood in a loose circle in the shade thrown by the towering locust I had never been able to climb, all of us looking at Caroline and Nathan.
“Caroline, what is it?” asked Noni.
Nathan looked to Caroline, who smiled and nodded. Nathan cleared his throat, but it was Caroline who spoke. “We’re married!” she said, and clapped her hands quickly like a child.
The words dropped quiet as a cloud into our circle, and for a moment we all stood muzzled, stunned. A crow called across the empty street. Somewhere, a lawn mower started up with a bewildered buzz. Caroline was nineteen years old.
“Oh, Caroline,” Noni said, her voice thick, her face fallen.
“We did it last week, at the courthouse,” Caroline said, ignoring Noni. “Here’s the ring.” She held out her hand, and yes, there it was, a thin silver band with a stone so small it seemed merely a nick in the metal.
“And I thought I would be the last,” Noni said.
“The last what?” asked Caroline.
“The last to … to decide something like this. For a man.”
Caroline said nothing. Nathan shifted, his discomfort clear. We all waited as our mother considered the news of Caroline’s marriage. She shook her head and looked up at the sky, which was flat and heavy and absolutely blue. I thought she might yell or begin to cry, and for a moment all
