Only for a visit, true, but a visit where Ruth and I get to dig up our box of memories. Together.

There’s another secret too. A secret plan I came up with as soon as this trip was scheduled. I haven’t even told Ruth about it.

I slide the four pictures back out in front of me. Each one is from that first drive across the country, our big move. The first three are of Ruth: In one, she’s jumping in front of a mural with the word NEW written on a banner across the top. The second photo shows her standing next to an old tyrannosaurus skeleton at a dinosaur museum, a matching tooth-baring grimace on her face. I remember we were both laughing so hard I could hardly take the picture. The third shot is more distant, showing Ruth on a bridge with railings covered in metal locks. She’s got a hand on the railing and is looking out over the water, and she’s wearing the green pants she used to wear when we played pirates.

When Ruth and I were little, we used to play pirates the way most people play the floor is lava, jumping around couch cushions on the floor, making each other walk the plank off the edge of the couch, battling with empty paper towel tubes. When we found small treasures we could keep, we used our special wooden box as the treasure chest.

The pictures make me grin even though I’ve seen them thousands of times before. I want to take them with me on the trip, but would rather not risk damaging them or Ruth seeing them. They might spoil my surprise.

The fourth and last picture is from the very end of that trip. It’s of both of us, each with a moving box in our arms, standing in front of our new house for the first time. In the photo, the sunset makes the walls and windows glow. I wonder if Ruth would see what I see when I look at these pictures. Would she remember what she was thinking? Would she recognize the same story as me, or would it be different? Would she see happy leaps into the air and golden, glistening walls?

Mom’s voice calls from downstairs. “Olivia!”

Mom, Dad, and Ruth are already seated at the kitchen table when I come down. Ruth is in her big black hoodie. She wears hoodies even on hot summer days, and in Tennessee that is something. Usually she goes for black or dark blue, her favorite colors since forever. The colors of the deepest ocean, she says.

“How’s packing?” Mom asks. She’s got ridged worry lines at the corners of her eyes, but the most elegant smile and cheekbones. Her eyes are clear and smart, like she notices and understands everything, which fits with her job as a college professor.