When I got to Gina’s room, Bones was standing among a clutter of clothes and boxes. That was when I realized: Gina was going away. I guess I’d been in denial for a long time, but seeing the mess made me realize just how bad I wanted her to stay.

Gina saw the look on my face and went quickly into mother mode. “Hey, Ceej, you guys are going to come up for parents’ weekend, and that’s only a month from now. Then it will be Thanksgiving before you know it.” And she added to make me laugh, “And we’ll have a nicely catered turkey dinner.”

Estelle tried very hard to be a mom, too hard, but Gina didn’t have to try, mostly because she made it her mission to fill the loss of our real mother.

Bones was standing in the middle of the room leaning on a box when somehow his orangutan arm managed to slide off it and knock the box and its contents all over the floor. Poor Bones, he was all embarrassed looking away from the mess, “Sorry! I didn’t mean to knock over those bikinis—boxes, I meant boxes.”

Gina laughed. “I’ll call you guys down when I’m ready. I just wanted to make sure you were around to help when I needed it.”

Page 115