When we get there, the house looks the same from the outside, but as we walk around the side of the yard to get to where the party’s happening, my jaw drops.
The nice fire pit that my parents built five summers ago is still there, but the rest of the yard is completely transformed. There’s a hot tub and a deck outfitted with an entire outdoor kitchen, and even a small, detached guest house at the back of the property.
“Aunt Nora, Uncle Nash!” Brooklyn and Prescott’s little girl, Haley, is the first to spot us, and she jumps up from the little cart full of books on the deck to run toward us.
I crouch and catch her in my arms, then wrap my arms around Clara, Cassidy and Chuck’s daughter, when she runs over too. I’m busy for a minute or two, getting all the kids settled down again, and then Chelsea takes the lead.
“Come on,” she says, holding her hands out to Jack and Rosie. “Let’s all go read a story!”
Cassidy and Brooklyn come up to me and pull me into a long, tight group hug, then Cass nods at Chelsea and says, “She’s gonna make a great librarian one day.”
I have to agree—in just about a minute flat, she’s got four kids under the age of five circled around her and listening intently as she reads them Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. So much the better, because the next fifteen minutes or so are a whirlwind of all my sisters and I talking over each other, trying to catch up and share our lives all at once while the guys just stand back and crack open some beers near the fire pit.
“So what’s going on with these renovations?” I ask at last. “Where are Mom and Dad?”
“Mom’s inside finishing up a cake for dessert with Lydia and Jane,” Grace tells me. “And Dad’s marinating steaks for the grill.”
“Somebody call?” My dad asks as he emerges from a sliding glass door on the back of the house that definitely wasn’t there the last time I visited. He’s holding a giant platter of steaks, and Nash goes over to help him with the grill.
“Dad,” I say, meeting him at the grill and getting one of his famous bear hugs. “So, what’s the surprise? Does it have to do with the entire house you built behind your existing house and didn’t tell us about?”
“I knew,” Grace brags.
“You live here,” I point out, rolling my eyes, and she just laughs.
“Hey, Martha, come out here,” Dad calls. “We have to tell everyone the big news or I think Nora’s going to burst.”
Mom comes outside, flanked by my two middle sisters. She’s holding a gorgeous cake decorated with fresh strawberries, and I know this is a mistake—the minute Rosie and Jack see processed sugar, all hope of getting them to eat a reasonable dinner goes right out the window. But hey, we’re only home for a few weeks—they can be little sugar demons for Grandma and Grandpa if that’s what they want.
Mom sets the cake on a stand on the outdoor dining table, then sets a glass dome down on top of it. Smart lady. Then she comes over and gives out a round of hugs to all us newcomers.
“Well?” I demand. “What’s the news already?”
Dad laughs. “Well, tell them, Martha!”
“We’re… drumroll… opening a bed and breakfast,” she says.
“What, seriously?” Cass asks.
Mom nods, the excitement clear in her eyes. “Your dad’s getting ready to retire at the end of the next school year, and I’m not sure how many more romance novels I’ve got left in me,” she explains. “Grace is moving out after she graduates college next year, and we’ll have an empty nest. What better time to move on to the next chapter in our own story and start something new?”
“Besides,” Dad adds, “with five daughters all starting and growing their families, we’re going to need plenty of room for you all to come and visit. We’ll rent out the rooms when you’re all off living your lives, and keep them open for you and the grandbabies at the holidays.”
“What do you think?” Mom asks.
“I love it.” Brooklyn is the first to respond, and she looks a little misty-eyed at the whole idea.
“I do too,” I say, and pretty soon every last one of us, kids and husbands included, are wrapped up in the biggest group hug this family has ever had. It’s perfect, and so are my parents’ plans for retirement. “I’m so happy for you two.”
“Okay, enough mushy stuff,” my dad says after a minute, breaking out of the hug so he can pick up a spatula. “Give me half an hour at the grill and we’ll eat.”
The whole night is wonderful—just the first in our month-long visit.
In some ways, it reminds me of my twenty-sixth birthday party, when all I wanted was a family and I didn’t care how I got it. Now, five years older and so much wiser, I know that this is the family I was always meant to have, and it all came together exactly as fate designed it, too.