James’s head snapped up. He shot a look at Dylan, but his brother’s face was unreadable.
“It got me thinking a new highway might be a good place to open up a service station. I wanted to get an idea of whether you’d be open to a move yourselves. To Richmond.”
James turned around to catch Nana’s eye. She had risen to stand in the doorway.
“Whatever you boys decide is best, I’ll go along. If I’m invited, that is.” She smiled at his father, and James sensed this wasn’t the first time Nana had heard about the possibility of moving.
James had thought Nana would object to this whole discussion. But as she stood there, she was the image of tranquility. James was confused. Was this all about Mr. Thompson’s gift, or Sam coming home? Or his mother’s passing?
His father brushed his hair back along his temples, a habit he had whenever he was mulling something over. “Nana, you wouldn’t mind leaving this old house? Just pulling up stakes and having to start all over?” His gaze swept over the boys, as he addressed his mother, still standing in the kitchen door. “You sure you’re okay with this?”
Nana’s eyes sparkled. “I think it might be nice.”
James had been staring at his father for the last several minutes, and felt oddly like he was seeing him for the first time. Sam’s eyes dropped to lock softly on James. “Well, boy. What do you think?”
The porch felt fluid to James, the chair not solid, the railing a prop that could vanish if he let go. His life was mutating at a giddy pace, and he felt dizzy with the speed of it.
“I guess it might be okay,” he heard himself say. He instantly felt betrayed at his own hand, but his life was veering in a direction he felt powerless to stop.
***
Later in their room James dropped into his bed, and grabbed The Sinister Signpost from the Hardy Boys mystery series. He had just finished Treasure Island, and handed it over to Dylan. “See if you can find the hero buried in this book.”
He tried to focus on the words on the page, but they made no sense. He rose and went to the bathroom. Running water in the sink, he squeezed toothpaste over the bristles of his brush. James looked in the mirror and saw a dismal dread in the eyes staring back. His life was here in Crane Ridge. But it had been in an uproar since his father came back. Things were a lot less confusing when Sam wasn’t around. Calmer. He wasn’t calm at all now. He flicked the light out and made his way back down the hall. Tomorrow, he decided, he would talk to Anne.
10 / House of Secrets
The Saturday morning looked bright outside Dylan’s window, but he had a grayness in his head that wouldn’t shake loose. Things had been good with just Nana, James, and him. Then his dad came home. Now Mr. Thompson was dead and they might be moving away. How many more Saturday mornings would he get to sleep in, in this bed, in his room?
Dylan lifted his arms slowly over his head and stared at the ceiling. His ceiling. Directly above him, his latest craft, the Cessna 150, hung by a thin piece of sewing thread, angled in a shallow descent. He and his dad had collaborated on the 150. Dylan had never bothered to put on the little decals that came with the model airplane kit. He thought they just made the models look cheap. Like they were store-bought, made-in-Japan.
But when Dylan was nearly complete with the 150, his father had appeared at the foot of the stairs to Dylan’s bedroom with several small bottles of modeling paints and a couple of small brushes. Dylan waved Sam up the steep stairs.
“Thought you might want to jazz up the fuselage a little,” his dad had said, handing Dylan the paints and brushes. “Never seen one fly overhead that had quite that dry-putty look to it.”
Dylan had held up one of the small glass bottles, inspecting it with a dubious expression. “Think you might be able to give me a hand?”
Almost as if this recollection had summoned Sam, there was a light tap at the door. Dylan called, “Come ahead.” His father clumped up the stairs and took a seat at Dylan’s desk.
“Happy Fourth of July, son.” His father glanced over to James’s bed, and Dylan had a feeling there was another reason Sam had wanted to come up.
“Your brother out and about already?”
“I guess he is.”
Sam rubbed his chin. “You know what time he left out of here this morning?”
“I didn’t hear him leave. So, no.”
It was not unusual for James to be gone when Dylan woke up. But it was just a week or so ago that Dylan started out of sleep at some noise, in time to see James slipping out the bedroom window. He almost spoke, but the way James turned and slid the screen back down, he was clearly trying to move quiet. Dylan was a little hurt. James and he, as two boys without either a mother or a father, had had a tight bond as long as he could remember. It felt like James was growing away from him.
“See you downstairs?” Dylan turned to go.
“Right behind you,” said Sam.
Sam and Dylan tramped into the kitchen just as Nana set down their plates. A stack of pancakes sat in the middle of the table, along with a bowl of scrambled eggs and a small plate of toast.
“I’ll be going over to Mr. Thompson’s house this morning, if you want to come along.” Sam forked up several pancakes and passed the plate to Dylan.
“I’d like to have a look, sure.”
Nana bustled in and took a seat on the window side of the table. “That poor man. My guess is you’ll find his house neat as a pin.” She sipped her coffee, glancing over her shoulder.
“Me and that lawyer fellow walked through it quick.” Sam scooped eggs out onto his plate, set the bowl in front of Dylan, and reached for the pepper. “He even said we may just want to leave the furniture in case somebody needs that too.”
Nana nodded.
Sam glanced at her. “Do you want to see if there’s anything you want?”
She shook her head vigorously before he finished his sentence. “I’ll just keep the memory of a good man. There’s nothing we need from the house, I don’t suspect.” Dylan knew that was the end of that subject.
After they finished eating, Dylan and his father rose. Sam gave Nana a light kiss and squeeze, thanked her for the meal, and turned to Dylan.
“Ready?”
“I’ll be along in just a minute,” Dylan said, avoiding his father’s eyes.
Sam stepped out the front door. Nana drew the plug from the bottom of the sink and dried her hands on the towel hanging from the bar on the stove front. She turned to Dylan. He was surprised they were nearly the same height.
“I know things are changing, maybe a little fast for you.” Nana pursed her lips. “It sounds silly, I know. But home is where your heart is. It’s not a square of land. It’s where you’re happy.”
Dylan stared at Nana. He felt an odd discomfort at Nana’s words. She was not talking to him as she would a child. Another change that felt somehow…wrong. He had a disorienting sense of being mistaken for someone else. He also had a feeling that Nana was not simply who he’d always imagined her to be: the elderly woman in the constant monochromatic dress who ran the affairs of the house. Nana was someone with wishes of her own. That also made him uneasy.
She patted his arm, glancing down. “You are going to tear that cap asunder, the way you work it, boy. And don’t fret so. He’s made some mistakes, but he is your daddy, and he won’t let anything bad happen.”
They stepped out into a quiet, radiant morning, the sun still low and the day cool, but with the promise of a baking later. A summer Saturday was the best, because