Page 8 of On the Ropes
I pressed my fingers to my lips. “I think it might be buried in the alley next to Mrs. Kozlowski’s house.”
“That thing was my one true love before this guy came along,” Alexis said, nodding at her husband. “But by the next year, it was as if it had never happened. And we’ve been inseparable ever since.”
I smiled at my niece and wiped syrup from her cheek. “Even when we’re far away.”
Alexis squeezed my hand under the table three times, the sister code we developed the year after our sibling arguments ended and the simmering unhappiness between our parents erupted. The burst of high-pitched sounds, the never-ending back-and-forth, the anger and grief evident in every vowel and consonant. In a tiny row home, with almost no privacy, we had a front row seat to the end of our parents’ marriage, even as Dad tried to protect us from it.
He wasn’t the problem though. And it became obvious to Alexis and me that a united sisterly front made our days a lot easier to get through.
The far-off look in my dad’s eyes had me changing the subject. “But enough about curling irons and whether or not they’re still buried somewhere.” I tapped the watch on my wrist. “I’m home for exactly seventeen days, which is when Aunt Linda said she’s coming back from the shore and kicking me out. And I’ll need to be hitting the road again anyway. You better enjoy me while ya have me.”
“You’re the fun aunt, Aunty Tabby,” Juliet said wisely.
“I’m also your only aunt, sweetheart,” I said with a wink. “And we can do all the things your mom and I liked to do as kids.”
“Except with more tequila,” Kathleen stage-whispered.
Eric reached behind him to the little speaker, turning up the music as we got back to our summer morning breakfast. I was already picking up on the sounds and smells of the neighborhood—radios turning on, kiddie pools filling up, barbecues getting lit.
Always pack lighthad been my motto since UCLA, and it had served me well until now. Of course, South Philly had an extra charm in the summer. There was charm in every city I traveled to.
I didn’t get too attached to those places either.
