Page 126 of Every Beautiful Mile

Me: Okay.

When Marin finds me folding laundry late that night, I'm lost in the tangled web of my mind. She stands next to me and starts sorting.

“Do you think the trip worked, Mom?” She pinches two blue socks together and folds them in on each other.

“I think I’m done feeding you boxed food if that’s what you mean,” I say with a slight laugh.

She smiles. “Well, that’s progress.”

“Did camp work? You said you were looking for something to change and inspire you. Do you think it did?” I shake wrinkles out of a shirt with a loud snap of the fabric in the air.

She laughs softly under her breath.

“I don’t know. It was one of those things I’m proud I did because it was hard, but I’m not on track to be a park ranger or anything.”

“Well, that’s too bad. You’d rock a ranger uniform,” I tease.

She abandons folding the clothes and faces me. “What are you going to do about Ethan?”

I shrug. “There’s nothing to do.”

“I loved Maine,” she says.

“Me too, kid.”

***

The next morning, the kids are gone so early it’s like they didn’t just get home from a summer spent trekking around the country. Finn goes to baseball practice, and Marin goes to her friend’s house.

Alone, with a coffee in hand that surprisingly doesn’t taste nearly as bad as it used to, I replace the paintings in our living room with the one of the Androscoggin River. The corners and edges are tattered from being tossed around the Avion in the accident and then shoved with luggage on the plane ride to get home, but the bright colors that dapple the water and the vibrant lines that slope the mountains are still perfect.

I stare at it until I feel like I’m there. Until I can hear the whir of a fly rod and smell the smoke from a fire. I stare at it for so long that when the loud ring of my phone slices through the air, it makes me jump so high I spill coffee across my lap.

Dad flashes across the screen. I yelp from the heat of the coffee on my crotch as I answer, “Hey, Dad.”

I pinch the phone between my ear and shoulder as I fumble to pull too many paper towels off the roll.

“Nelly! If you’re up and moving, why don’t you come by the bar? We can talk about menu changes and some ideas I have. Catch up.”

What he means is, time for work, but I can hear his smile through the phone.

“Sure thing, Dad,” I say as I blot madly at the brown liquid on my shorts. “Let me finish up here, and I’ll be right over.”

I end the call and give one last longing look at the painting.

After I change my shorts, I go meet my dad.

Not even twenty-four hours home, and summer already feels like a dream that never really happened.

***

We are back in my dad’s office—the table he randomly selects next to the Gulf of Mexico under the palm frond thatched roof of the Crow’s Nest. Only this time, in his shirt covered with coconuts wearing sunglasses, it’s him who is speechless.

I didn’t plan it, but sometimes ideas are like that. They are just seeds until they take root and start to grow so rapidly they overpower everything with their bigness.

There’s a deep crease between my dad’s eyes as his mustache twitches.

“Explain this to me one more time, Nelly. I’m struggling here. I didn’t really fire you. I just wanted you to take the summer off—the summer!” he says, stunned.

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