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“They’re delightful all the time. I’m sure it must seem hard to believe when you’re in the trenches like you are now, but the time will go so quickly. My older sister talks about how she cried her eyes out when she sold her minivan after her youngest went to college. She said she raised her kids in that car, and she grieved that time in her life for a long time, even as she upgraded to a Mercedes two-seater.”
I laugh at that last part. “Good for her. And I know it’s going to fly by. It already is. I can’t believe I’ll miss this car someday.”
“You’ll miss what went on inside this car. I remember Heather telling me to enjoy every ride I gave my kids, because the second they got their licenses, I’d never drive them anywhere again.”
“Mom, are you coming?”
“I gotta go,” I tell Gage.
“I’ve got to make a call. I’ll be right in.”
“Take your time.”
As I go inside to supervise snacks, drinks, chores and homework, I ponder how Gage offered to build the model with Tyler and agreed to stay for dinner. For a man who says he wants to stay removed, he’s not doing a very good job of it.
12
GAGE
Before I go inside, I call my older sister.
“Hey,” Heather says, “this is a nice surprise. Everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. I was thinking about you and figured I’d give you a call.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Your minivan and how you cried when you sold it.”
“I still cry when I see it around town, packed to the gills with kids.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I know,” she says with a sigh. “I used to do nothing but complain about their never-ending schedules and running a taxi service. Now it’s a major event if all five of us are in a car together.”
“I remember the complaining.”
“I regret that now,” she says softly. “More than you know.”
The loss of her twin nieces devastated my sister. “It’s perfectly normal to feel that way when you’re in the heat of battle with your kids. Nat used to complain all the time that their lives were way better than hers.”
“I remember that,” Heather says with a laugh. “She was so funny with the commentary. I miss that. I miss her. Every day.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“What brought on memories of me and my minivan?”
“I took a ride with a friend to pick up her kids in her minivan, which looks—and smells—a lot like yours used to.”
“Ugh, the smell! It was revolting! Dave used to clean it once a month and joked that he needed antinausea medication ahead of time.”
“That sounds about right,” I say, amused. “Two little girls made a hellacious mess of Nat’s car. She used to say we had to take my car occasionally to keep things fair.”
“So, you’re riding in a minivan to do a school pickup with a friend? What’s up with that?”
“Just what I said. I went for the ride.”
“During a workday?”
