“We forgot to buy any in Rockland yesterday,” Tam groaned. “Bear and Daniel are going to be zombies without coffee.”
“I can go,” Wally offered. “It’s just down the road.”
“Thanks,” Tam said, at the same moment that a little burst of high-pitched giggles echoed from upstairs.
“I think Nell’s awake,” I said, as a heavier set of footsteps began to thud faintly—Daniel, most likely, going to get you and bring you downstairs, before you woke everyone else up.
I thought Tam would go to the landing to meet him, but instead, she grinned mischievously, and jumped toward the counter, where both sets of car keys were resting on a jumble of other papers and junk—gas and grocery receipts, napkins, spare change, and that silly little gas station map.
“This is Daniel’s morning to watch her,” she said, snatching the entire bundle for lack of time. “If he tries to hand her off to you, don’t let him! Tell him Wally and I will be back in thirty minutes.”
“Let Wally drive, he won’t speed,” I said, shooing them out the door to the long driveway, where the cars waited, their windshields dotted with pollen from the trees.
“Did she just run out to avoid toddler breakfast duty?” Daniel asked behind me as the sound of one of the engines shuddering to life rumbled in. I turned to see him holding you, his hair still standing straight up.
“She said it was your day,” I said, wagging a finger at him.
“What!” He pretended to be affronted, gasping dramatically, which made you laugh. “How about some eggs, Nelly?”
Daniel cooked you an egg and a little bit of bacon while I assembled your high chair, to be helpful. Overhead, we heard the others stir a few times, but still none of them had woken up by the time we got you settled at the table and Daniel had cut your food into a bunch of little bites.
“I hope they remembered to buy cream and sugar,” I said at the same moment that a sudden crunch of tires on pebbles made us all look to the door.
“Just in time,” Daniel started as the door clicked open. “Everyone’s still asleep!”
But we both fell silent as Tam and Wally lurched into the room.
“Daniel,” Tam gasped. “Francis.”
They came in at a dead run, the car engine still idling outside. Tam was in front of Wally, and he was just behind her, almost as if he were chasing her in. Their eyes were wild and huge, flashing with an emotion I couldn’t quite read. Awe, or disbelief, or exhilaration.
“What’s going on?” Daniel asked, half out of his seat, unsure of whether to be panicked or excited. “Are you okay?”
“We’re okay,” Tam managed. She crossed the kitchen in two steps and grabbed him by the arm. “Come on. You have to see this.”
“Tam,” Wally said, his voice tight. At the time, I thought it was because he was simply afraid. That he hadn’t wanted to tell us quite yet only because he didn’t fully understand what was going on. Not because he had wanted to keep it a secret, under his control.
Tam could not hear his feeble protests. She was electrified, like a live, leaping wire. “Come on.”
Daniel and I stumbled after her, Daniel carrying you, and Wally trailing all of us, your breakfast still half-finished at the table, the coffee still unmade. She shoved all of us into the back seat and forced Wally again behind the wheel before throwing herself into the front beside him.
“So, same road as always, right?” she was saying frantically as Wally turned south onto County Road 206, heading for Rockland again, and we began to pick up speed. The old station wagon rumbled over the asphalt, the grass turning from individual blades into a blur of green, as she talked. “Nothing but field.”