Free Where I Want to Be by Adele Griffin

are just a step along the way. Don’t you see that?”
    And then Granpa appeared in the doorway, rosy cheeked, changed into a fresh cotton shirt and with his silver hair swept back in a puff. Jane blinked. His face was blurred. He looked like all the different ways she’d ever known him. He sniffed at the air and then, smiling, began to dance, snapping his fingers and catching Augusta by the waist as he twirled her to the tune of one of his nonsense songs. “Roast-a beef and lemon-ade and I’m a lucky man-o. Roast-a beef and lemon-ade and dancing with my girl.”
    As Jane watched, she could feel her grandparents lost in each other. It was the one place they created that shut her out. It reminded Jane of Lily and Caleb, and their private life together.
    “Time for dinner!” she said, to interrupt them.
    Augusta smiled and tweaked Granpa’s nose as the dance ended. They took their places at the table. Jane could smell the tobacco and grass and cotton in her grandfather’s skin, the bitter lemon in her own fingers, and the verbena that she had picked earlier and set in a glass jar, for a centerpiece. All the right smells of summer.
    On impulse, she reached out and gripped one of hergrandparent’s hands in each of her own, so that they made a chain around the table, the way they used to say grace.
    “You see? I’m not letting go of you,” she told them. “Ever.”
    She meant it as a happy thing, but as soon as the words were out, she knew it wasn’t.

14 — ONE LEFT OVER
Lily
    I’m doubtful about tonight, but I keep up the whole charade of preparing. So does Caleb. It’s like a game of chicken. By seven-thirty, I’ve shaved the stubble off my legs, washed my hair, and combed it out with a daub of my new, overpriced, undersized tube of hair gloss. In my closet, I pick out my favorite dark denim mini along with an off-the-shoulder white top that I bought on sale at Wilner & Webb. The tag’s still on because there hasn’t been any special occasion to wear it. Till now. Maybe.
    The phone rings just as I’ve scooted my desk chair to my closet door mirror for a long-overdue eyebrow tweeze. Behind me, Caleb bends into different angles, checking himself out. The setting sun warms the hollows in Cay’s eyes and cheekbones while brightening the highlights of my hair. We smile at each other’s reflections. I wish I could feel as sparkly on the inside. Just thinking of tonight dries up my mouth in anxiety.
    On the second ring, I guess out loud. “La Mom.” I dash for the phone, slide flopping across my bed to grab it off my bedside table. “H’lo?”
    “Lily?” Mom’s voice sounds a thousand miles away. “How are you? How is everything? Aunt Gwen and Uncle Dean send their love.”
    “Fine, fine. Everything’s cool. Tell Aunt Gwen and Uncle Dean I say hi.”
    “And have you eaten dinner?”
    “Uh-huh, those spring rolls you bought. Caleb gives them two thumbs up. He’s here. We’re going out a little later.”
    “Hi, Mrs. Calvert,” Caleb calls absently.
    “That’ll be fun.” Mom continued, “Say hi to Caleb for me.”
    “Is everything okay?”
    “Honey, your dad and I were thinking.” And now Mom
ahems.
“If you wanted to drive the car up here, both your father and I trust your highway driving enough to make the trip.” There’s a stamped-and-finalized way that she says this. She and Dad must have been wrangling with this topic for hours. “As long as you promise to leave before it gets too late. And not to drive in the left lane with all the crazy speed demons. Oop—hang on. Daddy wants to say something.”
    I hear a mumble mumble in the background. Now Dad’s got the phone. “Can’t you make it for the weekend, Lily? Your aunt and uncle sure would like to see you.”
    “Dad, I already said…” Then the thought strikes me—like a bolt from the blue, only this bolt is the kind that slides across a door and locks me in. Here it is, the Calvert family’s new reality. This is the way it