“It’s just for the summer,” he told me and Daniel over a bucket of KFC. “You know your grandmother would love to spend more time with you.”
My mother’s mother is nearly eighty, and I can’t imagine she wants much to do with a rebellious seventeen-year-old girl or her selfish older brother. We’ve met Grandma Nell only a handful of times, none of which was particularly endearing. It didn’t matter, though. Because that night, sitting in Daniel’s dark bedroom, my brother and I figured she was the only person willing to take us in. Dad was giving us away. Giving up.
But now that Daniel’s eighteen, he promises to bring me with him when he gets enough money to take off on his own. Although Dad puts on the ruse that he’s coming back, we know he’s not.
“Your grandmother told me they renovated the attic for you, Audrey,” my father says from the driver’s seat, not looking over as he talks. “They got a new bed, dresser—she asked your favorite color. I told her it was pink.”
“It’s blue,” I respond, earning a quick glance. “I haven’t liked pink since the seventh grade.”
My father swallows hard, readjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “Well, I guess you can repaint. That’ll be fun.”
“And where am I staying?” Daniel asks. “Did they tidy up a haystack in the barn?”
Dad takes so long to answer, I’m about to repeat Daniel’s question. But then our father cracks his neck and glances in the rearview mirror. “You’ll be in your mother’s old room.”
I lower my head. At first I’m overwhelmed with betrayal at my grandmother’s decision to give Daniel the connection to my mother’s childhood instead of me. Locking me in an attic like a character from a V. C. Andrews novel. But when I can stand the pain, I turn and find Daniel watching me, his jaw clenched; the expression that tells me not to worry. We won’t be there long. Even if it means running away.
I glance at the radio again, about to continue my rhythmic pursuit, when I notice a red light above the CD player. I can’t recall a time when I listened to a CD in this car. Normally, I’d have my earbuds in, or nothing at all. Curious, I switch the mode and watch as the dash flashes PLAY.
I press it, but at first I’m met with silence. I’m about to skip to the next song when chords blast from the speakers, ten times louder than anything on the stations. I jump and then laugh, looking at my father. He doesn’t react, though; he’s not paying attention. He’s lost in his head again.
The song is an oldie, one I vaguely remember my mother enjoying. When I realize her connection to it, I reach to lower the music, unable to turn it off altogether. I don’t mention the song, content to spend the remainder of the drive in emotional isolation, much like the last three months of my life. I close my eyes and recline the seat, opting for the escape of sleep.
The seconds tick slowly by, my inactive thoughts always haunted by my last moments with my mother, the way I took her for granted that morning before she left for school. She was a counselor at my high school, beloved. Respected. And I sent her away to her death without so much as a good-bye.
I clear my throat and turn in my seat, restricted by the seat belt. I unfasten it to get comfortable and then force down my sorrow. Stop thinking. I let the song lyrics flood my mind and wash away my mother. And in the absence of pain I finally drift off to sleep. It might have been only a moment or an hour, but when I hear the clicking of the blinker, I sit up, slightly disoriented.
“We’re here,” my father says in a tired voice. I’m stricken for a moment by the glistening of tears on his cheek. He wipes his sleeve over his face and then takes a hard turn that knocks my shoulder into the door.
There’s a pathway into the trees, a road covered in debris of broken branches. I’m about to ask my father where the hell he’s going when a set of open iron gates appears in front of us. They’re ornate and oversize. Beautiful. Golden lights wrap their way up the tree trunks and illuminate the drive, now cleared. We pass the courtyard, a circle of stone benches and statues, low manicured shrubs with tiny lights brightening everything. But when the hotel itself comes into view, Daniel leans between the front seats.
“No way,” he murmurs. “Are we stopping here?”
Here, in the middle of nowhere, is a grand building—lit up at 3 a.m. like it’s New Year’s Eve. A white stone front, huge archway with ivy crawling up the walls. I can’t help but smile as we park at the entrance.
“I’m exhausted,” my father says. “And when I saw the sign for the Hotel Ruby, I thought we could splurge for the night.” I see a shadow of my father, of who he used to be. “Think of this as our family vacation,” he adds.
“Well, in that case I want my own room,” Daniel says from the backseat.