He laughs.
“Maybe you could teach me more survival tactics later?—”
“Hell no. That’s rule number twelve. No sex in your mom’s house.”
We are currently driving over a little wooden bridge and I ignore Jeff’s tsking sound to hear the sound of running water beneath the engine. Over the river, and through the woods, to?—
“That rule is unfounded and hypocritical. We’ve had sex at your mom’s house. Remember?”
I smile. Remember? Ha! Um, yeah, Jeff. I remember. I could write a dissertation on every time he’s touched me. But I just nod and enjoy the distress my booty probation is causing him. LikeI could possibly uphold this rule if Jeff and I are in the same vicinity for 24 hours.
“Outside structures aren’t mentioned in the rule, so sheds don’t count. And I live there…”
My voice trails off as Jeff’s childhood home appears before us like the only star on a cloudless night. The one-story rancher is wrapped in white light, so warm and inviting I think for a second I can smell freshly baked cookies. Our headlights fill the covered porch that hugs the entire front and I see them, two dark-haired women standing, bundled in real winter coats, the rocking chairs they just occupied still tilting back and forth behind them, and Sammy bouncing up and down, moving at impressive speeds as she bounds down the steps toward us.
Jeff squeezes my thigh and kills the ignition. He’s out of the car before I have a chance to exhale. He lifts Sammy in his arms and spins. She’s stuck in his orbit. Welcome to the club, Sammy girl.
I open the door to the scent of burning cedar, a smell that makes me think of the huge chest at my grandmother’s house where she kept her favorite sweaters and hid her chocolates from my mom. But never me. Jeff carries Sammy over and her smile melts what’s left of my already gooey insides. She opens her arms for me to join the hug and I do.
“Do you think I could be your flower girl, Devon?” she asks into my hair.
I choke on my spit and then smoothly play it off as a laugh. Jeff rubs my back.
“Sammy, are you planning J.J.’s wedding again? I told you that’s my job.”
I let go of Sammy and Jeff and find myself face to face with the woman, the myth, the legend.
“Thank you so much for inviting me, Mrs. Harrison. And thank you for the salmon you sent me and my mom!”
I’m happy to say that I have made it in this world as I am now the proud recipient of Donna Harrison care packages. Last week she sent me ten pounds of Alaskan salmon. My mother and I had to clear the freezer we never use in the garage. No one could possibly ingest that much salmon. Not even a grizzly.
She waves away my thanks and puts her arm around my shoulder and steers me toward the house. There’s a Griswold-sized Christmas tree in the front window, home to at least four squirrels.
“Devon, we’re so happy you came. J.J. has brought home one girl in all of his life and she was forced to partner with him on a group project on ancient Etruscan aqueducts,” she explains, leading me up the path toward Jenny. She is an exact replica of her older brother, but her chin is softer, her eyes a lighter shade in the twinkling light. She’s smiling at the memory, one trademark Harrison dimple indenting her right cheek.
“I remember that project because we had piles of toilet paper all over the house when J.J. took the rolls for his architecture,” Jenny adds. She opens her arms to me and I step inside. She hugs like her brother. I nearly sigh, but then realize this isn’t Jeff squeezing me.
“I want all the stories,” I tell her and she pats my back.
“I’ll write them down for you,” she promises as her mom tugs me away.
“Could you two please not scare her away? I just got her to hold still.” Jeff’s voice reaches me through the front door as I’m ushered through a living space with the biggest couch known to man and a stone fireplace that reaches from floor to ceiling. I will live here.
I blink away the fantasy of curling up on that couch as I’m pulled into the kitchen where a huge farmhouse table is covered in cheese and bread and wine. It’s nearly midnight, but the smell of marinara sauce coming from the crock pot at the centerreminds me I’ve had nothing to eat since the nasty, stale soft pretzel at the Philly airport.
“Are you hungry, honey?”
My stomach answers with a Chewbacca sound and Jeff’s mom laughs.
“Sit. Eat. Drink,” she says, pulling out the bench for me so I’m across from the huge bay window that frames the back of the space.
Donna catches me staring out at the moonlit silver land that cannot be called a backyard. A back world? It goes on forever, a huge blanket of snow, the fences separating the space like stitches on a quilt. And in the center of it all sits a red barn, the lanterns on its outer walls illuminating what must be fresh paint. The red is so bright, they must have painted it yesterday—to welcome me. I giggle to myself.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Mrs. Harrison says softly. I look up to find her taking in the scenery with the same awe that just swept over me. But there’s sadness tucked in the corner of her gaze.
“It is. What a place to grow up,” I say. Imagining Jeff out there, chasing his sister across the grass, hiding in the barn, riding a horse—Oh Mylanta—adult Jeff atop a horse might make me orgasm on the spot. I swallow hard just as Jenny appears in the large doorway that’s framed with weathered barnwood.
“You have a small amount of catching up to do,” she tells me as she pours wine into my glass. “I gotta put Sam to bed, but I’ll be back to drink with you.”
