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She knew he’d be home. He was pretty much always home. And despite the progress he’d made in the many months since she’d known him, he was still a bit scared to drive alone. And his mother was no help, naturally. She still insisted on driving them whenever they went out—even if his dad had suggested they replace their van with something sleeker since Archer had his own vehicle. She wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that there could come a day when she had to drive him to the doctor because he wouldn’t feel up to it. So if Brielle hadn’t made him drive them out on dates half the time and Pauline hadn’t made him drive on errands, he might not have gotten much use out of his newfound skill at all.
Considering his girlfriend lived averyshort walk away.
Brielle jumped out of the car and clicked her car remote to lock it, took a step toward the sidewalk, then remembered her phone and the books Jim had given her to read up on for the upcoming exhibit.Oh my god.She’d been distracted enough to leave her phone on the seat. And her purse. And everything. Luckily she’d had brains enough to grab her keys before she locked the door.
Her phone buzzed as she shoved the books into her tote bag—there were more books than there was space—and tossed the purse strap over her head in a hurry. It practically choked her as she bent over to grab the phone.
She’d been exchanging some mushy sentiments with Archer the last time she’d used it. The picture he’d sent her had made her want to rush home—or more accurately, rush tohishome. Screw the bathroom and freshening up trip she often made to her place first. She didn’t want to wait even one more minute.
CALL MEread the text. It was her mom.
She didn’t cringe every time her mom wanted to talk to her anymore since even though her mom hadn’t been thrilled with the sort-of-low-end salary she’d been offered at the museum, she wasn’t living at home, either, so her mom had little room to criticize. Plus, shewasdoing something with her degree. Not that her mom had revealed any concrete plans to downsize since, but maybe that was because Nora was still living with her.
Nora. Grimacing, Brielle decided she had to call and make sure her little sister hadn’t run off once again. She’d thought she was making progress and it was too late for that language camp she’d wanted to go to (she said she was saving her earnings from the summer to go to the camp next year—promised she’d even keep working one day every weekend during the school year), but you really could never tell with Nora.
“Hi, Mom,” said Brielle, adjusting the phone between her shoulder and her cheek so she could shuffle all the crap she was juggling in her hands. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” replied her mom. “What do you mean?”
Brielle rolled her eyes, even though—or more likely because—there was no one there to see it. “I just got a jolt of panic when I saw your text is all.”
“Oh, sorry, no. I just wanted to check in with you. How’s work?”
“Great,” said Brielle. And she meant it. “Jim is giving me more and more responsibility every day. I might have a big part in the presentation of the next traveling exhibit.”
“Wonderful!” The phone went silent for a moment. “I wanted to ask you… and Archer… over for dinner. Maybe this weekend?”
“That’s nice of you to ask,” said Brielle, straightening up and switching the phone to her other ear. When it buzzed with a notice of a text, she pulled the phone away from her ear to see that it was from Gavin. Leave it to everyone she knew to be contacting her when all she wanted to do was run inside and jump Archer’s bones after she saw what he’d teased her with when he’d sent her that picture. She snapped back to the point at hand. “I don’t know how easily he can get up the couple steps to the porch,” she said. She’d gotten used to that—thinking about accessibility. Something she never thought she’d have to think about until maybe her mom was so old she required more help from Brielle than Brielle did from her.
“Right,” said her mom. “I didn’t think about that. We can go out or… Maybe I can ask someone to install one of those ramps?”
Brielle almost dropped the pile of papers in her hands. Wow. Her mom reallywasbeing supportive. “Another railing would do,” she said, placing her large pile atop Archer’s van’s hood and hoping it didn’t cause a dent. “He can get up a couple of stairs if he has the right support, just really carefully.”
“Hmm,” said her mom. “That would work. It might help with the value of the house too.”
Brielle had gotten used to her mom dropping little hints like that. That she wanted to downsize, that even their small three-bedroom ranch was getting to be too much for her to clean, that she was tired after spending all day cleaning and just didn’t have the effort to put into its upkeep. “Just let me know when you want me to finish clearing out my stuff,” said Brielle.
Her mom laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I think Nora would kill me if I made her move before the end of her senior year.”
Brielle started shuffling her pile again, feeling her heart jump as one of the papers started fluttering and almost went flying in a gust of wind. She snatched it only a few inches into the air and clonked her elbow down on the hood, wincing at the loud sound.
“What was that?” asked her mom.
“Wind,” said Brielle. She wasn’t entirely lying.
“So how about Saturday? 6:00?”
“Sounds great,” said Brielle. “I’ll check with Archer to make sure he doesn’t have a deadline he can’t miss, but I’m sure he’s free.”
“Okay,” said her mom. At the sound of more rustling paper and more clomping on the car hood, she laughed. “Bri…?”
“Yeah?” Both hands spread out on the hood, the phone cradled on her shoulder again, Brielle spit out a piece of hair.
“I’m proud of you,” said her mom.
That so stunned Brielle, she almost loosened her grip and lost a pile of papers. She was going to propose they focus more on digital handouts in the future. Bring the museum out of the mid-twentieth century already. “Thanks…” she said after a bit.
“I’m sorry for how I acted this summer,” her mom added. “I’d just been thinking and well… There was the stuff with your sister to deal with and I’d read so many stories about kids moving back home after college and I was afraid. I was afraid things would never change for any of us, afraid you’d be just as stuck in a rut as I was, afraid you’d make mistakes you couldn’t take back.”
