Page 52 of Rhodes

"Italy is in three weeks, and then Easter's right after that. Did Daddy tell you my idea about Easter?"

"He mentioned it."

Something happens to his voice on those three words. Not a change exactly, more like a man setting a glass down carefully on a table he can't quite see the edge of.

"And?"

"And it's a real pretty idea, honey."

"That's not an answer, Grandbank. Why are y'all all being so weird about it? It's a simple change of venue."

"Let's talk about it." He clears his throat. "Do you think you can come home before Easter so we can talk logistics?"

"That's going to be pretty tight, Grandbank, with school and Italy, but I'll see if I can swing it.”

"Grandbank."

"Mm."

"That's the fourth time somebody in this family has changed the subject on me about Oak Moss." I keep my voice level, because getting hysterical isn’t going to work. "Is something happening out there?"

The line goes quiet long enough that I hear his chair creak through the phone. "Come home, and we'll talk about it, Tilly girl."

“I don’t like the sound of that."

“You need to get going before you make yourself late. Now go to class. I love you."

He's gone before I can tell him I love him back. I set the phone down. Jo raises an eyebrow.

“He’s a cranky old man," I say.

"Naturally."

I drain the coffee, check the time, and stand. "You ready to head to campus?"

I'm cross-legged on my bed, trying to do Algebra homework and going nowhere. I’d planned to stay at the library after my morning class, but every table was packed by the time I got there, so I gave up and came home with my lab report and homework.

Cooper's face lights up my phone with a FaceTime call. I click to answer.

"Til." He's outside somewhere, wind noise, a stone wall behind him. "You alive?"

"Barely. School is trying to kill me." I prop the phone against a pillow. "How's Spain? You look sunburned."

"I'm not sunburned, that's the phone."

"You look like a boiled shrimp."

"See, this is why I don't call you." He grins, tips the phone so I catch a slice of harbor behind him, boats and cranes and gray water. "We pulled up mussel lines this morning, and I thought of you. The ropes come up solid black with them, Til, floor to surface. It's insane. I took a hundred pictures."

"Why didn't you FaceTime me then so I could see in real time?"

"Because it was three AM your time."

"Then send me pictures, you dodo!"

"Libba already yelled at me for sending too many."

We fall into it easily, the way we always have. He talks with his hands, which I love, while I pick at the report I've abandoned. I don't mention Slidell. I don't mention the dirt bikes or the porch or any of it, and it isn't even hard, because there's nothing to tell. It's closed. There's no version of this call where I bring up a weird thing I already decided was nothing.