“I’m also your only aunt, sweetheart,” I said with a wink. “And we can do all the things your mom and I liked to do as kids.”

“Except with more tequila,” Kathleen stage-whispered.

Eric reached behind him to the little speaker, turning up the music as we got back to our summer morning breakfast. I was already picking up on the sounds and smells of the neighborhood—radios turning on, kiddie pools filling up, barbecues getting lit.

Always pack light had been my motto since UCLA, and it had served me well until now. Of course, South Philly had an extra charm in the summer. There was charm in every city I traveled to.

I didn’t get too attached to those places either.

3. Dean

Three

Dean

I shifted the carton of oranges in my arms and nodded at the group of white-haired veterans sitting in lawn chairs on the sidewalk, telling the same old stories while they sipped coffee from Styrofoam cups. Bells rang out from the nearby Catholic church as I walked past the Cambodian temple, with its Buddhist statues and bright red tiled roof. When I rounded the corner onto Tenth, two little kids with dark hair ran past me, backpacks bouncing.

“Buenos días, Dean,” Marco yelled as he and his little sister, Lía, ran for the 47 bus about to stop at the corner.

“Buenos días,” I said. I spotted their mother, Natalia, leaning outside her storm door with a smile. She and her husband, Martín, had moved here from Mexico City about ten years ago. Marco, Lía, and a big group of other kids played on these streets late on summer nights until various adults called them home. It was what Rowan and I had done—and the kids before us and the kids before them. Of all the neighborhood traditions, it was the strongest one.

“Did they make the bus?” she called out. “They’re late to summer camp every morning.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Looks like they did.”

“And tell your parents I’m bringing by some of my cherry tomatoes for them.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It’s appreciated. If you have any extra…”

I trailed off, but Natalia understood. “It’s no problem. I hear Eddie loves tomatoes too.”

“Yeah, he does,” I said, starting to walk again.

She cleared her throat. “I hate to say this, but…it’s, well, it’s starting to smell.”

I paused mid-step, my teeth grinding together. She didn’t need to explain what it was.

“It’s probably the heat,” I said. I shifted the oranges to my other arm and glared at the eyesore I was avoiding.

I’d grown up on a typical South Philly block with connected, two-story brick row homes; front stoops; and a street narrow enough for neighbors to yell out their windows at each other if they wanted to know the score of the ball game.