Page 24 of The Serendipity

“Hi, Mom.”

At least once a week I make the twenty-minute drive to my parents’ house for dinner or to say hello. Just walking through the front door makes my day better.

Unless I think about moving back here if things don’t pick up with my business. Or if Archer Gaines decides to make me pay to use the kitchen space. Then, this house would stop feeling like a comfort and start feeling like a real-life metaphor symbolizing my failure toadult.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asks. “You just tensed up.”

She pulls back to examine me, her silver-threaded blond hair falling into her eyes.

I brush it away and offer her the best smile I can muster. “Just the same old. Nothing new.” Which is mostly true.

Mom and Dad are very aware of my struggle to get Serendipitous Sweets off the ground. They’ve been supportive in every way they can be, including financially. Mostly, their support comes by way of cheerleading and telling everyone they know about my cookies.

As far as business advice, they’re both lifelong teachers and know more about their respective subjects—history for Dad and English for Mom—than they do about business and finance.

In fact, just last year Dad got taken by some kind of random phone scam. Maybe a Ponzi scheme? I don’t know what that is, exactly, or how he got tricked. All I know is that he lost a chunk of their retirement. Now, when telemarketers or scammers call the home phone my parents insist on keeping, he finds creative ways to mess with them.

So, yeah—our family is all in the same boat when it comes to the ins and outs of money and business stuff.

“What’s wrong with my Willa?” Dad bellows, lumbering into the hall.

While I’m average height like my mom, Dad is a staggering six-foot-four and built like a one-man wrecking crew. Helooks like some kind of retired sports hero, or maybe even a lumberjack, what with his propensity for flannel.

People are surprised whenever they find out that he never played a sport in his life. He spends most of his time on the model train set in the basement, wearing an Optivisor to help him see the tiny pieces. I like to take pictures of him wearing it, especially when I catch him looking up, his eyes distorted through the magnifying glasses. He’s an adorable nerd trapped in the body of a linebacker.

Now, Dad lifts me off my feet in a hug so tight, I can feel my back snapping into alignment. His beard scrapes pleasantly against my forehead.

“Who do I need to pummel?” he growls.

I giggle. “No one, Daddy.”

“Oh, George. What have we said about you fighting people?”

“That I should leave it to the experts,” he says, setting me back down and giving me a wink. “Like you.”

Mom swats at him, and he bends down to plant a kiss right on her lips. The two of them are disgustingly adorable. I love it, even if it makes my heart ache with longing for the same thing.

“You’re just in time for dinner,” Mom says. “Your favorite—chicken and dumplings.”

“It’s like she magically knew you were coming and made dinner just for you,” Dad says.

I roll my eyes. “Or, like you have it at least once a week, so my chances are one in seven.”

“I prefer my explanation.” Dad chuckles and wraps an arm around my shoulders, guiding me downstairs before dinner to show me the latest updates to the whole little world of model trains he’s created.

The tracks are just part of what he’s built over the years. There are buildings and people and roads with cars that drive. Tiny houses with lampposts and sidewalks, bushes and trees.Most recently, he added a lake with sunbathers and a power boat. One year for Christmas, I got him a tiny dog with his leg lifted. I didn’t think he’d really put it up, but he likes to move it around to “water” different shrubs.

“Do you want to blow the whistle?” he asks with a grin. Dad has the tiniest gap between his front teeth, and it makes his smile all the more endearing. “You can make a wish when the train goes through the tunnel, just like old times.”

“Sure, Daddy.” The sound of the engine humming and clacking over the tracks is familiar, reminding me of being so little I’d have to stand on a chair to see. Back then, his display was a tiny fraction of its current size, but it brought him every bit as much joy.

I press the button to make the little whistle blow, a sound that leaves me feeling both nostalgic and sad, even though Dad winks at me when the train enters the tunnel, its tiny engine light cutting through the dark.

Not unlike Sophie, Dad is always looking for signs and magic in average daily events. I have no doubts that if I told him about my closet experience, he would light up and insist on driving to my place right now so he could test it out.

Which is exactly why I don’t tell him.

It’s been a few days, and I’ve already started convincing myself that I somehow wandered up into Archer’s closet in some kind of stupor.

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