Page 5 of Summer Reading

“Thrilled?” I asked. “Really?”

“Well, as thrilled as any fourteen-year-old boy is about anything,” he said.

I took that to mean Tyler was not very jazzed that I was here and would be acting as his babysitter while Dad and Stephanie were away.

Dad picked up my suitcase and gestured for me to enter while he brought up the rear. I crossed the threshold and stumbled to a stop. Gone was the old wooden paneling. Yes, I said paneling. I know, pause to shudder.

With its removal, creamy white walls had been revealed. Pale gray furniture, all matching, filled the living room, and the old redbrick fireplace had been refurbished in mottled shades of gray from a soft dove’s wing to deep charcoal. Gone were the kitschy family tchotchkes of generations, and now a tasteful glass vase here and a short stack of books there adorned theminimalist shelves. It looked amazing and yet not at all like the summer home I’d once known.

The half wall that used to separate the kitchen from the living room had been removed, making the space an open floor plan that flowed right into the brightly lit kitchen with new cabinets, also white, quartz countertops, and steel appliances.

“Wow!” I said. It was the only word that came to mind. “No more avocado appliances and country blue cupboards.”

“We’ve been working on it, room by room, for over a year,” Dad said. He put my suitcase and shoulder bag at the foot of the stairs.

I could hear voices above. They didn’t sound heated. Stephanie wasn’t a yeller. In fact, in all the years I’d known her, I’d never heard her raise her voice. Still, there was a tension pouring down from upstairs that led me to believe not everyone was happy about this summer’s arrangement.

“I think I’m going to need a more detailed accounting of how Tyler reacted to being told I’m going to be his babysitter?” I asked.

Dad crossed his arms over his chest, then he uncrossed them and shoved his hands into his pockets. No small feat given the skinny jeans he was wearing.

“We didn’t use the word ‘babysitter,’ ” he said. “We thought the term ‘chaperone’ was more appropriate given his age and all.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

Dad gestured for me to take a seat, and I sank into one of the new armchairs. I wasn’t sure what to say. When Dad had asked if I could take some time off from the restaurant to come out to the island to watch Tyler, he’d had no idea that he was throwing me a lifeline I desperately needed.

The truth was I had lost my job as a chef. I had been in between gigs and poised to sell most of my worldly possessions online if I didn’t come up with a job immediately, when my dad called and asked me to babysit... er... chaperone while he and Stephanie took the trip of a lifetime to Europe. Of course, I said yes. The timing had been epic.

I hadn’t told either of my parents about my unemployed situation, not because they wouldn’t be supportive but because I was ashamed. It’s hard to look up when you’re in a downward spiral, and twenty-eight and jobless felt like I was circling the bowl compared to where I’d planned to be at this age.

“Don’t you think, Sam?”

I shook my head, realizing Dad had been talking to me. “Um, sorry, what was that?”

“I was saying that your brother never really got to know your vovó as well as you did, and this might be a good time for you to share stories about her with him,” he said.

Vovó was my dad’s mom, Maria Gale, mygrandmother, and easily the most influential person in my life. She was the one who taught me to cook, encouraged me to be my authentic self, and just loved me for me, no expectations or conditions. Just pure Portuguese grandma love. A pang of grief hit me hard in the chest. Even though she’d been gone for seven years, it still knocked the wind out of me sometimes.

“I know,” Dad said. He patted my knee, and I glanced up to see the same grief I felt reflected in his gaze. “I miss her, too.”

We sat silently for a while in the house that had been Vovó’s. Widowed young, she’d raised all three of her children here, my dad and his two younger sisters Tia Luisa and Tia Elina. Both had married and left the island. They still came to visit when they could, but their lives were busy with their own families and careers, and I knew Dad regretted that he didn’t see his sisters more often.

Still, the three of them were very close, and they called each other all the time. I knew every single prank and misdeed my cousins had pulled just like they knew mine. This was another reason I didn’t want to share the news about my job situation. The entire Gale family would know in minutes, and I just wasn’t up for that.

I wondered if that sibling bond my dad shared with his sisters was why he wanted me to get closer to Tyler. Maybe he felt we needed to be as close as he had beento his sisters growing up. I resisted the urge to remind him that I was twenty-eight and any opportunity to bond that Tyler and I might have had was likely past us.

“Tony, I’m not sure this trip is a good idea,” Stephanie said as she came back down the stairs and joined us, sitting beside Dad on the love seat. “I don’t think I can leave when Ty needs me.”

Dad’s eyes were in a half roll, when he thought better of it—smart man—and instead he closed his eyes and said, “He doesn’t need you.”

“But—” She looked offended, and he started explaining himself immediately.

“Ty is fourteen. He enrolled in this robotics competition so that he could win the scholarship to the Severin Science Academy. That’s his dream and he’s working hard for it. It’s on him to win it, not you.”

“I know, but I want to be here to give him support,” Stephanie said. “I’m a teacher. I could help.”

“You’re a history teacher. This is robotics camp. You’re a fabulous mom for wanting to pitch in,” Dad said. “But this is our time. We’ve been looking forward to this trip for years. You’ve never been to Europe, and you’ve always wanted to go. From a pure financial perspective, if we don’t do it now, by the time we’re finished paying for his college—which if he gets into this elite high school, he’ll likely go on to a top-tier university and it’ll be expensive—we’ll be old and poor.”

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