"Grandma."
"What?"
She winked at me.
"I'm old. I've earned the right."
Within minutes, someone had handed me a glass of lemonade.
Someone else asked if I wanted pie.
His cousins invited me to join a card game before I'd even unpacked my suitcase.
I'd never been welcomed into a family so effortlessly.
Derrick noticed me taking it all in.
"I told you."
"You did."
That evening, while everyone else prepared dinner, Derrick offered to show me around the house.
"This used to be my grandparents' room."
He pointed down one hallway.
"Kitchen's through there."
"The game room is downstairs."
"My uncle converted the attic into extra bedrooms."
We wandered from room to room.
Every space came with another story.
"I broke that window playing baseball."
"I fell asleep under that piano once."
"My cousins nearly burned down the deck trying to roast marshmallows."
"You did not."
"I wasn't technically there."
I laughed.
"So you come from a family of troublemakers."
"We prefer 'creative problem solvers.'"
By the time we reached the far end of the upstairs hallway, there was only one door left.
Unlike every other room we'd passed, this one was closed.
An old brass lock hung beneath the doorknob.
I reached toward it without thinking.
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