"Girls," Dad said, smiling as he walked in. "It's that time of the year again."
I blinked obliviously. "What time?"
He exchanged a look with Mom. "They forgot."
"Forgot what?" Sadie demanded.
"Oh nothing," Dad said, a mischievous look on his face.
"Tell us, Daddy," Gabby begged. "What is it?"
"What do we always do this time of the year?" Dad prompted.
"What?" I asked.
"Richelle, come on," Mom smiled. "You, of all people, should know this. It's August. Where do we go?"
I blinked.
"California!" Mom and Dad said in unison.
Oh. That. We always spent the second to last week of Summer Vacation in a cabin in California with our cousins. It was a tradition we called, "Unplugged Cali Summer." It was "unplugged" because my family made us leave all electronics at home.
"When is it?" Gabby asked.
Mom shook her head disappointedly. "I thought you girls would remember. It's tomorrow, guys!"
My sisters and I exchanged looks with each other. "What?"
"Yes!" Mom prompted. "Gosh, we thought you'd remember and were just faking us out. Girls, we've got a lot of packing to do."
The rest of the night was spent washing clothes, pulling things out of the back of our closets, and dragging suitcases down from the garage.
I sat on Sadie's floor, watching everything go on. It looked like a tornado had struck. Clothes, shoes, everything. It was all strewn across Sadie's room as Mom, Dad, Gabby, and I tried to help her pack. We'd gotten Gabby packed already. I was next.
"Richelle, can you sit on this?" Sadie called. "Gabby's not heavy enough."
I never thought I would hear that sentence spoken in my life.
I sighed, walked over, and casually sat on top of Sadie's suitcase like a perfectly normal human being.
"Bounce," My mother told me.
I bounced. Eventually, they got her suitcase shut.
"Do we need to clean this up?" Dad muttered.
"That's an after-vacation problem to worry about," Sadie said.
"No," Mom said. "Girls, clean this up. Then we'll get to Richelle's packing."
So we sighed, and started picking up all of Sadie's stuff.
We trudged through the heat, up to the quaint little cabin in San Antonio, California. Sadie trudged beside me and Miles, who had come with us, picked his way on my other side.
My parents had made me leave my prosthetic leg in my suitcase, because apparently, I wouldn't need it to do the short amount of walking.
When we got inside I breathed in the warm pine smell and let the homey feeling of family surround me. This had to be my favorite place in the entire United States. Apart from my hometown, of course. It just felt so homey and inviting.
"Smells amazing," Miles said, taking a deep breath.
"Right?" I said.
"Cabin?" My cousin Andrea said, appearing beside us. "This place is bigger than my house!"
My lips twitched. "True."
"Lunch, everyone?" Mom asked.
It was tradition that, on the way over there, we went to a local Crest Foods and bought our lunches. We were each assigned a food item, then tasked with breaking out into groups when we got to the cabin, of who we were with on the road there, and organizing a picnic-type thing.
Miles followed me over to a little corner where we sat with Mom, Dad, and my cousins Will and Andrew.
"Who had bread?" Dad asked. He was surrounded by Crest Foods bags.
Mom nudged Dad. "You had it, hon." Sometimes Dad was a little scatter-brained.
"Oh," Dad beamed at us and pulled a package of rolls out of his bag and set them down.
"Goodness, Miles, he got rolls," I muttered to my friend so he wasn't completely lost. "We're next."
"We had the meat assignment," Miles started. We had planned this.
"So we got some deli turkey," I finished.
"Who had cheese?" Dad asked.
"Me," Mom said, pulling out some string cheese. "I got string cheese."
"Wonderful," Miles said. "Won't that just be simply divine with turkey on a kaiser bun."
"We at least need condiments," Andrew said. "I need ketchup and mustard with this monstrosity."
"Oh," Will said. "Is that what those are?" He turned his bag over and let a giant jar of peanut butter roll out.
"I need to throw up," I said, my stomach flipping over on itself at the gross mess. "Peanut butter, Will? Really?"
"And what are we washing this down with?" Miles asked. "Chocolate milk?"
"Mountain Dew!" Andrew announced, letting his bottle roll out onto the floor.
"Delightful," Mom murmured to Dad. "We're going to be peeling them off the ceiling."
"I'm eating peanut butter with turkey?" I asked, my lip curling up. I leaned over and murmured where everything was for Miles.
"I'll pass on the turkey on a bun," Miles said, grabbing string cheese.
I glanced behind me where Sadie, Gabby, and my cousins Lydia, Andrea, sat eating sandwiches with slices of ham and cheese with mayonnaise and a cup of Sprite. Why did they have to get good food?
I took the peanut butter jar like Andrew had given me like the jar had Chicken Pox. I handed it to Miles. "Next time ask someone what a condiment is, Will."
"Alright, two things are needed for this vacation," Dad said.
"One, we lose your cousin," Miles muttered to me. "Two, we lose your other cousin. Sound good?"
"Yes," I muttered back.
"Communication and consideration are our goals this week," Dad said. Dad always had goals for every family trip. Last year it was kindness and community.
After we finished eating our monstrosity, we got room situations figured out.
Mom smiled mischievously at Miles and I. "Miles, Richelle," she said. "You two are not allowed to share a room together."
Miles and I coiled away from each other, disgusted looks on our faces and let out a simultaneous "Ew!"
"You can share with my male cousins," I informed him. Miles looked utterly horrified at the prospect.
Miles did actually end up sharing a room with Andrew and Will, not that we spent much time in our rooms anyway.
We spent the entire week playing board games, reading books aloud from the massive library, and playing in the water.
I sat under the shade with Miles, playing music from my phone, and watching Gabby and Sadie play. At least until they came up and asked me if I wanted to play.
I glanced down at my stump. "Uh, I can't?"
"Sure you can," Gabby prompted. "We'll help!"
"No," I said, scrambling backward.
"Oh come on, Richelle," Miles' lips twitched.
"Yeah, listen to your boyfriend," Sadie teased.
"Oh don't you dare- you little-" I reached over and yanked Sadie's legs out from under her, landing her flat on her back in the sand, her blonde hair in a tangled mess underneath her.
I smirked, pinning her underneath me. "Nice try," I said. "But it doesn't matter how many limbs I'm missing. The older will always rule the younger."
"Hear that?" Andrea nudged Andrew, her little brother.
Andrew grabbed his older sister's arm and twisted, and all of a sudden she was the one bent to his will.
I snorted and crawled over. Standing on one leg, I pinched that one nerve in Andrew's neck that always, even when he was young, made him drop to the ground instantly.
I smirked, watching him collapse on the sand. "Ha."
He stood up, brushing himself off, and stood on his tiptoes to meet my eyes. "Meanie."
"That's me," I said, not moving a muscle.
Beside me, Miles was cracking up.
I loved making him smile.