Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 82(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 82(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Half-way through the conversation, I realize most of my blood has stopped circulating to my brain and instead have rushed down south. Fuck my life.
A voice booms up from downstairs. "Heath! You up there?"
Alvin, Harriet's dad. He's always treated me like family instead of some kid who just happened to grow up next door, and he taught me things that "all boys must know."
"Yeah, Mr. Lane."
"Good. I need those linebacker shoulders of yours. Come help me haul this stuff down for dinner."
"Wide receiver," I call back, but I'm already standing. "And yeah, I'm coming."
Harriet grins up at me. "Linebacker?"
"The man's been watching football for thirty years and still can't tell the positions apart." I duck to avoid the ceiling beam. "Don't go anywhere."
"Where would I go? It's an attic. My only options are the stairs and the window."
Downstairs, Alvin's waiting with a grin and a folding table under each arm. "There's my free labor. Grab that cast iron skillet, would you? And the cooler by the door."
I hoist the skillet—the thing weighs about twenty pounds loaded with nachos—and tuck the cooler under my other arm. Easy weight, good to move after sitting still too long.
"Harriet settling in okay?" Alvin asks as we head toward the back door.
"Yeah, she seems good."
"Good. Ma's been wound up about this weekend for months. You know how she gets." He pushes through the screen door, holding it for me. "She basically just summoned all of us here."
The air outside is warm and still, cicadas humming in the trees. The fire pit sits close to the water, ringed with mismatched chairs and a log bench worn smooth by decades of use.
String lights hang between the trees, not lit yet but ready. The dock stretches into the lake, and lights from other houses scatter along the shore.
This place, man. It gets into your bones.
We set up the tables, and Alvin starts arranging the food while I unfold chairs. Through the screen door I can hear Gram's voice, probably telling someone they're doing something wrong, and Harriet's laugh.
My hands still on the chair I'm placing.
"Ma thinks the world of you, you know. Always has. Says you're the only one who visits just to visit, not because you need something."
Guilt pricks at me because God knows, I often come here fishing for the latest information on Harriet. "She's family."
"Exactly." He claps my shoulder. "Come on. Let's get the rest of this spread before Ma comes out here and starts yelling in a voice that could be heard all the way downtown."
By the time we've got everything set up, the whole family's filtering outside. Gram appears with a platter of garlic bread. Her older sister, Juliet, follows, carrying nothing but complaints about the humidity and the bugs and how late they're eating and if Gram's trying to starve everyone to death.
So much talk of death for a birthday weekend.
"Eleanor, this is ridiculous. It's nearly eight o'clock."
"It's summer, Juliet. People eat late in summer."
"People eat late when they don't know how to manage their time."
Gram sets the garlic bread down and raises a brow at her sister. "I manage my time just fine. I manage everyone else's too. It's my birthday weekend, but I seem to be the busiest around here. You slept all afternoon when you should have been making casserole."
"I'm eighty-three, the oldest here. I deserve to nap because I need the energy to deal with you."
"You can get lots of sleep when you're dead."
Harriet appears with plates and napkins, her mom, Janine, behind her with a salad that looks like it came from a magazine—all colorful vegetables arranged just so. I'm not even a salad guy, but wow, it looks hella delicious.
The thing sits on the table while everyone gravitates toward the nachos and burgers.
"Mom made a salad," Harriet says, smiling at Gram and wringing her hands.
Gram eyes the salad the same way you look at a gnat on your steak. "Nobody at my age aims to be healthy. I don't want to live forever. That's just exhausting."
"Ma." Harriet's mom sighs. "You could at least try—"
"I could try a lot of things, like pissing in public. Doesn't mean I will." Gram piles more lasagna on her plate, maintaining eye contact with Harriet's mom. "Pass the meatballs. I'd also have the regular soda, not the sugar-free one."
Juliet snorts. "You'll outlive us all out of pure stubbornness. I'm older, I go first, so quit hogging the drama."
"You're older by twenty-eight months and you never let anyone forget it."
"Damn right I don't. Not until the day I die."
Like I said, a lot of talk about death for a birthday weekend.
They bicker—about how the lasagna needs more bechamel or the burger buns are too dry—while sitting close enough to share an armrest. Harriet catches my eye across the table and rolls hers, and I have to bite back a grin.