Page 126 of Rhodes

The phone buzzes in my hand, and I look down to see it's Cooper. We haven't talked much lately, and when we do, I keep it short. That's been a small mercy. He's been busy wrapping up Spain, and I've gotten good at being unavailable when our time zones line up.

I walk up the stairs out of the bunker to sit on the porch of the main house.

I watch the screen, letting it ring several times, and consider letting it go to voicemail.

"Coop," I finally say into the phone.

"Brother." There’s a lot of muffled noise behind him, like always when he calls. Spain must be the noisiest country in all of Europe. "Hold on, I'm walking out. These guys won't shut up about some soccer game they are all watching."

"Where are you?"

"Cádiz. Down on the southwest coast." The noise drops away until there's nothing but wind. "This is my last stop, man. I fly into Charleston, see my dad a couple days, then I'm coming down to y'all."

My stomach drops.

"Good."

"Heard Til and Jo finally signed a lease this week for the fall. It will be weird not to have a place there anymore, so I may really crash in your spare bedroom, at least to help them get moved in, if that's cool. I still don't know what I'm doing after graduation."

"Yeah." I set my coffee on the gallery rail. The oaks out front hang low over the gate, and the street is empty at midday. "Are you glad you did the whole Spain thing?"

"Fuck, yeah. This experience has been amazing. I'm so grateful you pushed me. You and Mom were right. I needed to do this."

I pick up the coffee and take a drink that has gone cold.

"You talk to anybody back home?"

"My dad, Sunday. He said Easter was rough. They stayed at the house instead of going out to Oak Moss. Birdie cooked, everybody came over. Sounds like they mostly missed Mom and tried to make the best of it."

I look down at the coffee in my hand. I'm not sure how to respond to that. I want to ask how Tallulah is, but I stop myself.

"Libba said Til was pretty quiet, but I think they all were. First holiday without Mom and all."

"I'm sorry, Bro. That's hard."

"Then I talked to Til Thursday. Actually, she sounded a little down. She chalked it up to school and finals coming. She seem okay to you?"

"I think we're all just ready for summer," I say, finding another answer that is technically true and completely useless.

"Everything still okay on the home front?"

Goddammit. I look out over Creston's porch. More than a month here, and Coop still thinks Tallulah is sleeping down the hall from me. Fucking peachy keen.

"Yep. All good."

"Yeah. She's carrying a lot with that Oak Moss thing, on top of missing mom and exams." He goes quiet a second. Water slaps a hull somewhere near him. "Hey. Do me a favor. Make sure she isn't taking on too much with Oak Moss. It sounds like she got them to shelve the development plans, for now, anyway. It's a lot for her to take on."

My fingers stop against the coffee cup. She did it.

"Yeah, course." I haven't heard her voice in more than a month. Until thirty seconds ago, I didn't even know she'd stopped the development.

The lie sits in my mouth like something I swallowed wrong.

Four months ago, I'd have done exactly what he asked.

Now Tallulah has made the boundary pretty damn clear. Coop sure as hell falls inside it.

"You're the best, man," he says. "All right, they're waving me down. Talk soon."