And we load the seven into the car, a perfect fit.

As the car rolls to the edge of the driveway, Q and Autumn busy watching clips on her phone, I’m increasingly desperate for any distraction.

Whit studiously glances left, then right, waiting for traffic to clear, the street seemingly infinite in either direction.

“So,” I clear my throat. “How’s Angeles’s finals going? Any news yet?”

And yes, I do care about his tests, but mostly I conjure Angeles to redirect my brain, to wash away Dad’s voice: Our love is at an al-pine high! Our love is at an al-pine high!

“He says everything’s a lot harder than he thought it’d be, that he’s probably gonna fail the quarter and get a job selling used cars, asks me if I’ll still love him. Which, in Angeles talk means finals are going great,” she says, grinning.

But then it clicks for Whit, and she quickly turns us around, cuts the car across the lot. And despite it leading us onto another street, essentially forcing us to drive in a circle and easily adding ten minutes to our trip, we use another exit.

We can’t use that exit.

Because not everything should be as it was.

Because every trip should build in time for detours.

We swing by Q’s to pick up his mom, and to grab shovels and rakes and other gardening equipment.

And then the five of us make the drive my family never got to finish.

It’s odd.

How a road you’ve never traveled feels cursed?

How sometimes it’s the things that don’t happen that haunt us hardest.

We scour the preserve for the perfect spot.

Settle on a clearing encircled by spruce and evergreen.

Everyone sort of stands back while Whit and I argue over who should break ground first. But in the end, Whit wins, and after I double-glance her way to make sure it’s really okay, I stab the shovel into the grassy soil.

And I hold it there a minute, half the shovel face beneath ground.

I wait for a sign, any indication that this is wrong, wait for Mom and Dad to materialize and voice their displeasure. But that doesn’t happen, and all I feel is a happy-sadness.

Two years ago, I couldn’t wait to be here. We’d had a program at school about protecting the environment, and every student was given a sapling to take home.

That same evening, I sunk my shovel at the back of our lawn, Dad looking on.

“Hole needs to be bigger,” he’d said.

And I’d made it bigger.

“Still not big enough,” he’d said. I kept digging.

We went on that way another few rounds until Dad bust out laughing. “I better stop you before you get to China.”