The Rest of the Story(115)

I looked at him. “Mom?”

He nodded, swallowing. “You know how she was into disappearing. She could hide anywhere. But she loved that shed. She told me she always went there when Mimi and Joe were fighting.”

I looked back at Gordon, kicking her feet as she read. “And you remembered?”

He looked surprised. “I remember everything about your mom, Emma.”

I turned the page of my paper, over to sports. “Me too. But I want to hear all your stories, remember? I mean, sometime.”

For a second, he was silent. Then he said, “Right. Yeah, I’ve been thinking. I’d like that too.”

I looked at him. “Really?”

“Really.” He smiled, then reached up, rubbing his hand under his glasses. “We can start with this table, right here. Do you know that was my seat?”

He was pointing at the one I was in, to the left of the head. “It was?”

“Yep. Right next to Joe, who did not like PDA of any sort. Your mom sat across from me, but kicked my leg under the table throughout every meal. I had a permanent shin bruise.”

I tried to picture him with his own seat in this place I thought I knew so well. “Really.”

“Oh, yeah.” He smiled, a little sadly, looking out at the lake. “It was like a whole new world, being in this crazy house after living with your grandmother. I loved it.”

Me too, I thought. Then I kicked him under the table, and he laughed.

The last few days we’d spent packing, getting ready to leave. I slipped my notebook with my family tree in the bottom of my bag, then threw my shoes in on top of it, all jumbled together. Then I took them all out again and put them in neatly. You couldn’t change everything all at once. It was good we had time.

The album was one of the last things I packed. Before I did, though, I’d gone up to the office, where I found Mimi standing behind the counter facing the window, her hands on her hips.

“What are you looking at?” I asked her as I came in, the cold air smacking me in the face.

“Oh, just the traffic going by,” she said, even though there were no cars at that moment. “Helps me think. What are you up to?”

“I wanted to show you something,” I said. “If you have a minute.”

“For you, honey?” She gave me a wink. “Always. What is it?”

I walked over, putting the album on the counter between us. As she leaned over it and I opened the cover, I said, “Roo gave me this. But there’s something in it I want you to have.”

“Oh, my,” she breathed softly as I turned the page to that first picture of my mom scowling at church camp. “That brings back some memories.”

She was studying the page so intently, her eyes moving across the pictures, that I stayed quiet for a moment. When I saw her eyes get wet, I said quickly, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Oh, no.” She waved her hand in front of her face, turning another page. “I’m not upset. Just remembering.”

I looked down too, at all those pictures Roo had told me about, wondering if she recalled the same things. Because the story can change so much, depending on who’s telling it. I hoped, over time, I’d hear more of hers.

“This is the one I wanted to give you,” I said, flipping to the page I’d marked. There, at the bottom, was the picture of us together on my first visit, sitting in that lawn chair. I’d driven to Delaney to a drugstore to get a good copy of it, which I pulled out now from behind the original. “I thought maybe you could put it under the glass.”

She was still for a second. Then, slowly, she moved her hand forward, taking the picture from me. “Well, what do you know,” she said, then smiled. “If it isn’t George.”

We made room for it beside an old shot of Celeste and my mom, right by the register. If I couldn’t be there, I liked knowing it was.

Now, back in room seven, I looked around as Nana unpacked the meal she’d ordered from the Club, which was running a shoestring kitchen to try to accommodate all the displaced members. “Oyster salad,” she said, handing the container to Bailey, “and cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches. Not too fancy, but it’s something.”

“It’s perfect,” Bailey told her as I heard her phone buzz. She glanced down at it, balanced on her bag, then smiled, helping herself to oysters. I looked too: VINCENT, it said on the screen. Apparently, Roo and I weren’t the only ones who had found each other during the storm. At the Station, Bailey and Vincent had taken shelter in the snack bar, even as a piece of roof metal blew against the doors, trapping them there. By the time Silas and Jack got them out, something had changed. All I knew was I hadn’t heard a word about Colin or Campus since.

“Let’s have a toast,” Nana said, once we’d each helped ourselves from the carry-out containers and I’d filled our glasses with Pop Soda. She lifted her glass. “To family.”

“To family,” Bailey said, looking at me.

“To family,” I repeated, and I had that feeling again, of being complete, as we clinked our glasses and drank. The next day I’d go home, see Ryan and Bridget, move into a new house and new neighborhood. Even with my wild imagination I couldn’t picture it, not yet, but that was okay. The details would come, and then I’d capture and add them, image by image, onto the pages of the book Roo had given me.