I wasn’t sure why my brother was calling, but the fact that he was opting to do it over FaceTime meant it wasn’t any sort of business emergency. Maybe he wanted to show off his genius daughter—that seemed to be the theme of our recent video chats.
The call connected. “Hey, guys, how are the seven seas?”
“Hi, Uncle Harry,” Noah flapped his hand at the screen, beaming. “I surfed today!”
“You did? Well, it’s about time you got on a board! You come from a family of surfers. I can’t believe it took your dad so long.”
I refrained from mentioning the ill-fated attempt from our past, when Noah temporarily lost his swim trunks and then opted out of the ocean entirely.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “As nice as it is to see you, we need to get ready for bedtime shortly.”
“Got it. I’m going through some stuff at Dad’s, and I found a box of your stuff. I think I can toss it, but I wanted to check with you first.”
Our father was at the beginning of the long, slow process of downsizing the family home, and we were all at different stages of grief at the thought of leaving it behind. Logically, it was too much house for my dad on his own, and none of the rest of us had lived there in years, but still. It was more thanjusta house—it was the last place where we’d been a complete family, with my beautiful mother at the helm creating magical memories for all of us.
Even after six years without her, going back was still bittersweet. While it was comforting to feel her spirit everywhere, being there was also a reminder that she was gone. The void my mother left when she passed from cancer felt just as deep now as the day we’d lost her.
As the oldest, Harrison was leading the charge organizing the decades’ worth of accumulated stuff that filled the house. Mymiddle brother, Drew, was managing my dad since they seemed to share one brain.
That left me to scramble between them as my dad got ready to make it official and finally put the house on the market.
“If it’s still at the house after all of these years, then you can probably toss it. But show me anyway.”
He rustled around in the box in front of him and pulled out one of my old remote control race cars.
“Pretty nice little Porsche you got here,” Harrison joked as he held up the sleek black car in front of the screen.
“Yeah, right,” I chuckled. “I was addicted to those things back in the day. But they’re probably all rusted out now. And the tech is ancient.”
“There’s a couple more in here,” Harrison said. “A vintage beach buggy, and something called a Hellraiser?”
“We can donate them,” I said.
“Nah,” Harrison shook his head. “They don’t work, I tried. The battery section is all corroded.”
“Okay, toss ’em.”
“No, wait,” Noah said as he pushed closer to the screen. “Iwant those, Daddy. Don’t put them in the trash. I play with those all the time when we visit Grandpa.” His little hands were twisted into fists.
It was a little tell that meant he was trying not to spiral.
Harrison paused with the Porsche hovering at the bottom of the screen. “Bud, they’re broken. They don’t work.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the remote. They’re still mine,” Noah insisted.
My brother frowned. “Bud, if you’re interested in remote control cars, we can shop for a new one that you’ll really love. Does that sound fun? We can spend a few hours looking at all of the choices, then pick your favorite.”
It actually sounded like a great time tome, and I hoped he agreed.
His bottom lip trembled. “But I want those cars. At Grandpa’s house. I want them to be there the next time we visit him.”
I cleared my throat. I’d been trying to warm him up to the idea that we were selling the house. Given everything he’d dealt with over the past few months, I didn’t want the house sale to be yet another source of upheaval in his life. But I couldn’t really do anything about the fact that it was another big change at a time when Noah wasveryresistant to change. Not to mention, Noah loved the house. He’d spent plenty of time there since my dad was a doting grandfather with his first grandchild.
Noah was trembling, and I knew we were headed for another meltdown that I needed to stop in its tracks.
“Noey, it’s okay! We’ll spend some time looking for even better cars. Those are old and broken. The new ones they make now go faster!”
“Daddy,no!” Noah wailed. He stomped his foot and fixed me with a defiant glare.
