expressions. “I suppose you should know. Uncle Albie’s
ill. That’s why he didn’t join us for dinner.”
“He never joins us for dinner,” Shelley said. “Uncle
Albie is always ill.”
“Not always.” Sylvie scrubbed the inside of the sauce-
pan and then the bottom and then the handle.
“Almost always,” Lane offered. No one could legiti-
mately argue with that. For as long as he’d lived with
them something had been wrong. When he first moved
in there’d been a menu of explanations for his absence at
dinner. He was under the weather. Getting over a virus.
Feeling run-down. Running a low fever. Finally their
mother settled on the blahs.
“Nothing you can do about it,” she would say. “The
blahs are the blahs.” If their father was home he’d chime
in with, “The miseries are the miseries.”
Oblivious to the suds still coating the handle, Sylvie
placed the saucepan on the drying rack. “It’s no one’s
fault,” she said, meeting Lane’s eyes. “Your uncle has—”
“The blahs,” Shelley said. “We know. He has the
blahs. The blahs are the blahs.”
Their father walked in and nodded. “The miseries
are the miseries.”
Shelley shook her head. “Whatever you say.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Marshall asked.
“It means,” Shelley said, “you’d think with all the
doctors you’ve taken him to, something would have
worked. I think Uncle Albie likes being sick.”
“No one likes being sick,” Sylvie snapped. “Anyway,
this time it’s different. He’s not himself.”
45
Nancy Star
“He’s exactly himself,” Shelley said. She’d never had
any patience for Uncle Albie.
h h
h h
Henry’s fingers slipped out of her hand and Lane opened
her eyes. He was finally asleep, head tipped to the side, small hands neatly folded on top of his seat belt. She checked
the time—an hour to go—and closed her eyes again.
On their last trip to Florida Henry had one tantrum—
he was, after all, two years old—and then gave up. Lane
could tell that he sensed her discomfort, even if he didn’t understand it. And why would he? He had no way to
know that his grandfather was more ornery than usual
or that his grandmother didn’t always look as faded as a
photograph left out in the sun. He had no clue that it
wasn’t normal for grandparents to fail to make a single
accommodation to a grandchild’s visit; there were no toys
or games or children’s books anywhere in the house. When
Lane finally turned on the TV hoping for the Cartoon
Network—really anything would do—the knob came
off in her hands.
Eventually her mother dug up a pile of paper and a
couple of pens and Henry occupied himself with that.
His pictures were mostly scribbles but even then, at two,
drawing seemed to soothe him.
Lane and Shelley did their best to try to organize an
outing but Marshall shot down every idea. The circus
museum was being renovated. The animal sanctuary was
under investigation. The beach would be too cold.
It would definitely not be too cold for Henry, so the
sisters decided to take him to the beach on their own.
They proceeded to deal with the obstacles as they arose.
46
Rules for Moving
No umbrella? They had hats. No beach chairs or blanket?
Towels would do.
“You’re just going to go?” Marshall asked them. “And
leave your mother here?”
That was it for Shelley. She led Lane into the kitchen
and said, “They’re impossible. I don’t know what I was
thinking. I’m rebooking my flight for tomorrow. You
should do the same. It won’t get any better. It never does.”
“It’s not that bad,” Lane said.
“It’s totally that bad.” Without consulting her, Shelley
returned to where their parents were sitting—side by side, as if glued together, on the love seat—and announced the
change of plans. “I just heard from Quinn,” she reported.
“He has to go on a business trip so I have to go home.
And Lane just got a call from Aaron. He isn’t feeling well.
She has to leave too.”
Later, when they were upstairs packing, Shelley
told Lane to stop feeling bad that they lied to cut the
trip short. “Did they ask a single question? No. Did
they say, ‘Where is Quinn going?’ or, ‘What exactly is
wrong with Aaron?’ No. Believe me, they’re as relieved
as we are.”
In the morning when they all left for the airport it
was more getaway than departure, the sisters hurrying
Henry into the taxi, arms waving, kisses blown from
tense mouths and in the cab, two long sighs of relief on
either side of an oblivious boy.
Once they got past airport security, Shelley turned
to Lane. “Next time, you come visit me. I can’t do this
anymore. I hate to fly. Feel how clammy my hands are.”
She laid her sticky hands on Lane’s cheeks. “And that’s
after taking a Klonopin.” She squatted in front of Henry
and looked him in the eye. “These trips are killing me.
47
Nancy Star
Will you come to London? Melinda is desperate to meet
you in real life.”
Henry didn’t know how to answer so Lane answered
for him. “Thank you.”
“All right then. Time for Aunt Shelley to go find a
bar near her gate.” Shelley grabbed Lane in a tight hug. “I wish we had time to talk.” She held fast. “On the count of three. One, two—” She stepped away. That was Shelley,
always leaving before Lane was ready.
As she watched her sister disappear into the crowd,
Lane felt a wave of grief that made her gasp. “Tickle in
my throat,” she told Henry, who’d looked up to see why
she’d made a noise.
He remembered none of this. His cousin, Melinda,
was now sixteen and though the two of them had spoken
on screens of many sizes, they’d still never met in real life.
h h
h h
Sylvie must have been looking out the window when
they arrived because by the time they got out of the
taxi she was standing on the front walk, waving. “Look
at you.”
Since their last visit her mother had turned from slim
to frail. When Lane hugged her she felt bones.
“Look at you,” Sylvie repeated. She turned to Henry.
“Look at you.”
Since her mother didn’t move, Lane pulled Henry
close and gave him a hug by proxy.
“It’s all right,” her mother said. “It’s all right.”
“What’s all right?” Lane asked.
Henry tugged at his mother’s sleeve. “Can I see the
pool?”
48
Rules for Moving
Sylvie’s face turned pink and Henry seemed to shrink
as he belatedly remembered his mother’s warning. His
grandparents had a pool in a ro
om they called the lanai.
A sliding door connected the lanai to the living room but
the door would be locked and the pool off-limits. Pool
closed. House rules. Uncle Albie never learned to swim.
When Henry looked up at Lane, his eyes were wet.
“I’m sorry I forgot.”
“That’s okay,” she told him and drew him closer.
“Turtle?” Lane’s father came barreling out of the
house and Sylvie stepped aside to make way. “There she
is. Turtle.” He gave Lane a one-armed hug and extended
his hand to Henry. Lane braced herself, unsure if Henry’s
handshake would pass muster.
“Excellent,” Marshall said, and Lane felt her shoulders
drop a notch. “Very strong. Did your dad teach you that?
To shake hands?”
“Oh,” Sylvie said.
“It’s okay.” Lane put a hand on her mother’s shoulder
and felt a tiny shudder. “Henry and I talk about Aaron all the time. It’s good to talk about him. We don’t avoid it.
And yes, Aaron had a good strong shake. Like Henry’s.”
“Don’t just stand there,” her father boomed. “Come in.”
Lane felt herself slide into a state of high alert. She
glanced at Henry, whose eyes were tracking her, studying
her movements to figure out what to feel. She put on a
smile and led him inside.
Henry sat down in the foyer to take off his shoes. At
least he’d remembered the rule about that. It took some
tugging; his feet grew surprisingly fast. Some days it
seemed the shoes that fit in the morning were tight by the afternoon. The sneaker on his right foot wasn’t a problem
but when he yanked off the left one it flew out of his hand 49
Nancy Star
and skittered across the floor. He froze and Lane readied
herself to defend him from the inevitable scolding.
Her father let out a booming, full-bodied laugh. “What
an arm! Have you tried out for baseball yet? With an arm
like that you should. I had quite an arm when I was your
age. Your mother did not. Some kind of eye-hand coordi-
nation issue. But you don’t have any issues at all, do you?”
Henry looked at his mother, unsure of whether he had
any issues and if he did, unsure of what they were. Lane
mouthed, Thank you, and Henry echoed the words out loud. It was only after she heard him let out a quiet sigh that she realized both of them had been holding their breath.
h h
h h
The house was more furnished than the last time Lane
visited, which wasn’t saying much. The last time there had only been the essentials. A love seat in the living room.
Two stools at the kitchen counter. A dresser and bed in
each bedroom. Now, there was a table and chair set in the
dining alcove and there were books on the shelves in the
living area. But it still retained a just-moved-in look that belied the five years her parents had been there.
Five years in one place was the Meckler family record,
if they didn’t count Shelley. Shelley broke the record
in a big way when she married Quinn and moved into
the Wimbledon home his family had occupied for three
generations. It was Lane’s opinion that the existence of
that family home was what attracted Shelley to Quinn
in the first place.
That her parents had taken little with them to Florida
was not a surprise. Take Only What You Love was the
first item on Sylvie’s Rules for Moving, a list Lane and
50
Rules for Moving
Shelley were made to memorize and recite every time
they packed up house, which they did every three to five
years while Marshall hopscotched from job to job and state to state, Nutley to San Diego, Rochester to Saint Louis,
rising up the ranks of various pharma companies, first sales rep, then district manager, then regional manager, then
a job in headquarters that didn’t last long because—well,
Lane didn’t really know why. Something about her father
didn’t like being on the inside. What followed that were
several months of unemployment and a move back to
New Jersey for a job at a lower rung on the ladder and
when that didn’t work out, a rapid slide downhill, one
less appealing job to the next, none as good as the last,
until, unexpectedly, early retirement.
The Florida house was supposed to be their last move.
“Only way I’m leaving this place is on a stretcher,” her
father joked, and then got annoyed when no one laughed.
Their place was now no more or less furnished than any
other the Mecklers had lived in, but it was missing the
single sign of settling in that Sylvie allowed: a crewel
embroidery saying that she would stitch, have framed,
and hang on the wall herself.
Another of her mother’s routines: she left behind the
old sayings and hung up a new one shortly after mov-
ing into each new house. Sometimes there would only
be one; sometimes there were a few. In one house, Lane
remembered, Sylvie bought so many crewel kits that
their living room wall ended up covered with squares
and rectangles of sayings. The sayings themselves made
no sense to Lane. Today is a good day for a good day. All you need is love and a little rain.
When Shelley asked what that one meant— All you need
is love and a little rain—their mother looked flummoxed, 51
Nancy Star
as if before that moment, she’d never given a thought to
what her needlework said; she just bought what was in
stock at whatever store she’d managed to find.
Lane was wondering about what the absence of an
embroidered saying meant—could her mother be less
gung ho about their final move than her father claimed?—
Henry with his face pressed against the sliding door to
the lanai.
“Is that the pool? I could teach Uncle Albie to swim.
I could teach him the back float. The back float is easy.”
His grandfather winced. “No one’s swimming.” He
stepped over their bags. “I’ll bring those up later, Turtle.
I’m in the middle of organizing the garage. Been putting
it off for years. Here’s some advice for you, Henry: Don’t put things off. If you do, it just makes things worse.”
“Thank you,” Henry said.
“Finally,” Marshall muttered. “A polite one.”
The door from the kitchen to the garage groaned
open and slammed shut.
Sylvie turned to Henry. “Would you like to go out
and play now, dear?”
Lane couldn’t imagine what her mother thought
Henry would do outside. “How about you show us
around?” Her nose picked up the chemical tang of new
carpet. The walls smelled of fresh paint. “Did you just
redecorate?”
Sylvie shrugged. “Who can say? Time flies. This is
our living room area. Love seat. Chair.” She walked a
few steps and stopped. “This is our kitchen area. Fridge.
Yellow cabinets.”
“Speckled countertop,” Henry offered, thinking this
was a game.
52
Rules for Moving
Sylvie smiled and led them up the stairs. She stopped
in the hall. “That room is Grandpa Marshall’s and mine.”
She pointed. “That room is Uncle Albie’s.”
Henry bent down to look through the slit between
the closed door and the floor. “Is he there?”
“I’m afraid not, dear. He’s away on a little vacation.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Marshall bel-
lowed from the foot of the stairs. He let out a sound of
disgust. “Where’s my level, Sylvie? It’s not where I left
it. Did you move it?”
“I’ll be right there.” She hurried to finish the tour.
“Bathroom. Guest room.”
Lane was stuck on Uncle Albie. “On vacation where?
With who?” Her mother stayed silent. “With Aunt
Beadie?” Lane shook off the chill of a memory she didn’t
want to have.
The color drained from her mother’s face. “I didn’t
think you remembered her.”
“I only met her that once, but her face—it scared me.”
Lane wasn’t sure why she’d chosen this moment to admit
that. In true Meckler style, they had never spoken of that night. What she remembered about her aunt was the stuff
of dreams, bad dreams. A woman with slick, oily cheeks
and eyes that peeked out of tiny slits. She understood
now that what she saw that night was a woman slayed
by grief. But at the time it had looked to her like Aunt
Beadie’s features were melting off her face. To get away
from her, she ran upstairs and Shelley followed and they
hid in what they would soon be told was their shared
bedroom. It was through the closed door of that room
that they heard yelling and sobbing. And it was in that
room where Shelley made up a game called Guess Who’s
Crying Now? that Lane didn’t want to play.
53
Nancy Star
h h
h h
Marshall’s voice cut through Lane’s reverie. “Sylvie,” he
boomed from downstairs. “Are you ignoring me because
you’re trying to annoy me? If you are, it’s working.”
“I have to help your father find his level. I’ll be back
with the bedding.”
While Sylvie made her way downstairs, Henry and
Lane walked into the guest room.
Henry asked the obvious question. “Where’s the bed?”
There had definitely been a bed the last time they visited.
Now there was a couch covered in delivery plastic. Henry