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“You want to turn it into a pet store, you say? Sorry, pal, that’s not on the cards.”
Nope, it definitely was not on the cards. This excursion into my past was going to be temporary. Extremely temporary.
I hopped back on my bike. Seeing the bar was one thing, but now it was time to go back to my childhood home.
I wasn’t used to riding this bike on country roads. At least I didn’t have too much stuff with me. When I’d cleared out of my apartment I’d left a couple of boxes of my humble belongings—pots and pans, mainly—with Helen, my friend from The Tortoise.
My legs burned as I fought against the steep hills.
Anthony snuffled around in his basket, no doubt wishing we were back in the Big Apple surrounded by delicious pies.
"Sorry little dude," I huffed out between labored breaths, "I promise we're almost there."
The farther along the main street I got, the more fancy the storefronts became. This end of town looked a lot different to how I’d left it. Quirky boutiques and delis lent the place an air of hipster charm that would've been unthinkable a decade ago. It was no New York, obviously, but it was definitely punching above its weight for such a small, backwater place. I chuckled to myself, wondering what Dad would have thought of it.
Eventually, I cycled past another storefront I'd been looking out for.
Happy Ever Affogato.
This was Lily’s new business venture. Lily was my best friend from high school. She'd always told me that one day she'd open a romance bookstore and coffee shop, and she'd finally done it last year. I made a mental note to stop in for a celebratory latte and long overdue catch-up session soon later. But first—home sweet trailer.
As I rode up to the end of town, toward the cliffs, I felt a lump in my throat. The park looked like something from a postapocalyptic zombie movie. Overgrown, abandoned. There were empty concrete plots with chain-link fences, crawling with weeds, and just two trailers still standing at the very edge of the land. One was my dad’s trailer, the other belonged to Patrick McCoy, who later gave it to his son, Cole. I doubted whether he still lived there now, though. Nobody would be crazy enough to keep living in a place like this.
I rolled up to the overgrown drive of Dad's old place. The last time I came here, I was helping Dad pack up to move to the veteran's home in Bangor. He'd been equal parts surly and heartbroken, but we both knew it was for the best, with his declining health.
Of course, I'd offered to move back in with him, to be his caretaker. And being as stubborn as a goat, he'd refused. "You’re not gonna miss out on life because of me, sweetheart. I'd never forgive myself."
The irony is, he'd missed out on life because of me and mom. Mostly mom. She had type 1 diabetes and no insurance. Every cent they made went toward her treatments, which meant the trailer park remained our permanent address. By the time we lost her, Dad was too attached to leave the home they'd shared.
And now he was gone, too.
I leaned in and gave Anthony’s warm little head a kiss. "It sucks to be back, Ant."
Taking a deep breath, I slipped off my bike and lifted Anthony out of his basket. As he sniffed around the overgrown grass, I glanced up at the house, taking in its peeling paint and sagging roof. Was it even safe to go inside?
Next door sat Cole McCoy's old place. Growing up, I'd harbored the most ridiculous crush on him, despite our ten-year age gap. I'll never forget the day he returned from the Navy, all grown up in ways that 14-year-old me was not prepared for. I'd been looking out the window and this huge, broad-shouldered figure emerged from a cab. He was wearing a bright yellow US Navy T-shirt that hugged his muscular torso so tight it was almost obscene. I’d watched him walk back to his dad’s trailer and shake hands with his old man, and I swear to god, I went weak at the knees.
I watched him like a hawk in the weeks that followed. The way he walked around with that serious expression of his, doing jobs around the trailer. I tried saying hi to him a few times, but he was gruff and standoffish. Somehow, that made teenage me even more obsessed. It became my mission to try to make him smile.
I never managed, of course. He didn’t smile when I offered to help him chop wood one day. He didn’t smile when I goofed around tipping a bucket of ice-cold water on my head one hot summer’s day. He didn’t even smile when his dad, Patrick, left to move in with his partner, Susie, and handed over the trailer to him.
The first time I saw him smile, I think, was the day he brought Stephanie back to the trailer. But those smiles stopped soon enough, too. . . .
Oh man, the hours I spent dreaming about that guy. Hating Stephanie for not being good enough for him. Wishing I was just five years older. Woah. Even thinking about him brought heat to my cheeks, all these years later.
I took a deep breath and tried to regain my composure. "Come on, Anthony," I called as I led the way inside. "It’s time to face the music."
Stepping into the house, the musty smell hit me like a wave. Amazing how a smell could transport you through time. Suddenly I was a gawky kid again, stomping through the squeaky screen door after school, my mind buzzing with half-formed plans to escape this tiny town forever.
I closed the door but opened some windows, hoping to air the place. The decor was a time capsule of grief, the fading photographs a shrine to my mother. I hadn't noticed as a kid—I’d been too mired in my own adolescent dramas, no doubt—but it was painfully obvious now that Dad had never really recovered from losing her. His whole life, this whole damn trailer, was suspended in memorial, gathering dust while the world outside moved on.
For a moment, I thought about saying something. Making a speech. But what would be the point? Who would it be for?
Shaking off the melancholy, I beelined for the kitchen, the heart of so many bittersweet memories. The room was dark, the appliances dated, but I could still see it as it was—Mom and I baking up a storm, flour on our faces, while Dad supervised from his recliner, chuckling at our floury handprints on the cupboards. I could almost taste the apple pie as I remembered it.
"All right, Elara," I muttered, pulling out a notepad from my backpack. Nothing like a brand-new notepad to focus the mind. "Time to get serious."
The first step to the future was fixing up the past. My plan was simple, and I wrote it down now so I wouldn’t forget it:
