He gives her a slow peck while my cousins and I exchange a look. Our aunts and uncles have always been publicly affectionate. We dig it.
“We’re letting the kids pack?” she asks.
“Not a lot of room,” Justin repeats.
I puff up, “Hey!” all in fun.
Her smile softens as she comes in for a hug. “You are going to be missed, my dear.”
“Feeling’s mutual, Aunt Jamie.”
Stepping back she looks at Nicholas, Wyatt, and Nathan. “Are your parents not coming?”
Justin answers for them. “I talked to Jeremy this morning. He and Meagan are on a cruise. I forgot to tell you.”
An elegant eyebrow rises. “No, you didn’t want to put any ideas in my head.”
“I don’t like cruises.”
“You’re too funny,” she chuckles, returning to quietly tell me, “Don’t stay away too long, Caden. I think your mom…”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll stay in contact. Promise.”
They touch me as they pass, and Uncle Justin yells to Dad, “Jason, I’ll give you a call tonight!” before the front door shuts.
Max’s live-in girlfriend, Natalie, appears with a stack of linens in her arms, calling out, “Caden, if your place in Chicago is furnished, why don’t you tell us what you want to keep, first. We should organize this so you don’t end up without what you need. Then we’ll have this packed up in no time, to ship off to the Women’s Shelter Samantha chose.”
“Sounds good, Natalie. Just give me a second first?” I walk through the group, nod to my brother, “Your girl’s producing my move.” He laughs as I step over the disarray. “Dad, have you seen Mom?”
Looking up from his phone, he says, “I’ve just cancelled your electricity and WiFi. Is the password you gave me the one you use for everything?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t do that. Have one for all your financial accounts. Another for stuff like this. And one easy password for websites that never keep your credit card info. In fact, never let them keep it.”
Ethan, our family’s literal software genius, calls in from the kitchen, “That’s how you get your identity stolen! They send a bot through your system and any stored passwords and credit cards are swiped. Never save them in your computer!”
Hannah calls back, “Such a pain to retype!”
“Consider the alternative, Hann!” He pokes his head in, Kaya peering into the room as her dad adds in a conversational volume, “Just save the password for things that don’t need your bank or credit card information.”
Glancing around the family, Dad frowns, “She might be out back,” and starts to walk with me.
“I want to talk to her alone.”
His eyes soften. “Oh, okay. I’ll be here.”
I discover that Hunter is hand-washing pots while Eric and Ethan pack.
I stroll up to him and point at the basin filled with bubbles. “What’s this? Someone spike your lemonade or something?”
“There’s lemonade?”
I point to the glass next to him. “What’s that?”
“Beer.” He picks it up, bubbles drifting down his hand.
Frowning, “You okay?” I cross my arms and lean against the counter, while Eric and Ethan move a little slower, quieter.
Hunter shrugs, shoving his hands back into the water, scrubbing my pots with the wrong side of the sponge. But right now I don’t care if they get scraped up—he’s more important.
“Hunt, talk.”
His lips flatten. “I’m good.”
I remove the pot from my baby brother’s grasp, turn him around and hug him. “Hey, I’ll be back.”
“I know,” he rasps, tightly gripping me. We take a deep breath, our chests expanding against each other before we let go. “Got suds on your back now, Caden.”
“This shirt was dirty. The suds knew it.”
He laughs, eyes red around the edges. I smack his arm and walk to the back door, briefly locking eyes with Eric and Ethan. They nod that, as brothers, they know how it would feel if one of them had to move away.
Shaking my head I walk outside. “Mom?”
She turns around, curly red hair shoulder-length. She dyes the grays out, and in the sunlight her laugh-lines appear faded. Since she’s so short, all of this makes her look way younger than her years.
I shove my hands in my pockets. “I need fresh air, too.”
She slides a glance over the backyard. “You never put any patio furniture out here.”
“I’m rarely home. And when the cousins hang out, it’s at bigger backyards than mine.”
Staring at the overgrown foliage that lines the fence, she sighs, “It’s like you knew you wouldn’t stay.”
“No, I thought I would.”
“Are you ready? I saw you talking with Kian. Everything set?”
We lock eyes. “Mom, don’t give me the fake smile.”
“This is a real smile!”
“Yeah right,” I chuckle, yanking a hand free to run through my hair as I look at the sun. “I heard you the other night.”
She gasps, “Oh, Caden, I didn’t want you to hear that—”
“I’m glad I did. I love you, Mom. Might not say it enough.” Meeting her eyes I give her a half-smile. “It worked. You snapped me out of it. I needed that, and you put me first. It means a lot.”
She throws open her arms. I bend down to lift her off the ground, kiss her hair as she whispers, “I am going to miss you so much!”
“I’m going to miss you, too, Mom.” Setting her down I wipe my eye, clear my throat. “I’m going to make you proud of me.”
“You can’t make me more proud than I am,” she smiles.
I wipe a tear from her cheek, blow it up to the cloudless sky like I’m making a wish. “Oh yeah? Just watch.”
Laughter bubbles as Mom shakes her head. “So competitive.”
Max appears at my back door. “Caden? Guess who’s here.”
It’s like someone sucker-punched me, how fast my heart races. “Who?”
“Ben.”
My shoulders relax, and Mom catches it. “Who did you think it was?”
Glancing to her as we head inside, I ask, “Huh? Nobody. Just the way Max said that had me thinking it might be Sofia.”
Lie.
Lie.
Lie.
My brother’s face remains passive as he backs
