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while he lived here. “Yup. All me. I guess you approve.”
    “Definitely approve. I may incorporate some of your ideas into this one client’s palette. She would love this paint color.”
    I watched as she admired everything, even the mess of Luca’s toys all over the once immaculate family room. I never understood the reason for a museum-like room. It was called a family room for a reason. Zack hadn’t gotten that memo, I guess. “Well, I’m glad you like it. I’ll show you the rest later on. Let me go open this wine. Keep an eye on Luca man for a sec?”
    “Of course.” She popped off her flats and sat down next to him, Indian style. She focused so intently on him, smiling at all the little things he did. We hadn’t touched on why she wasn’t a mom yet, or married or even dating for that matter. Maybe tonight.
    As I walked into the kitchen I yelled back to her, “You hungry?”
    “Starved,” she yelled back.
    “Good. I made pasta and broccoli, Luca’s favorite.”
    “Yum,” she sang over and over again, in a silly baby voice. I heard Luca giggling. He really was warming up to her. It was no surprise, Riley was good people. I needed to surround myself with good people.

 
     
     
    Pigsty was right. Mom was surely rolling in her grave. Everything was still in its rightful place, but the sheets and plastic coverings did diddly squat to keep the summer house free of the thick layer of compact dust, grime and filth.
    I swiped my hand across the edge of the log-cabin inspired furniture and snarled at the residue left on my hand. “Shit! Sorry, Mom. Never again.”
    And I meant it. Letting my old man neglect this place—never again would another summer go by without keeping the house the way she would’ve wanted it. Fresh and clean and full of life. A radio always blaring, a frozen drink in the blender, and something cooking on the grill. Shit! The grill! I hoped nothing had crawled up into that thing and died. A manly man I liked to think I was, but when it came to raccoons and rodents… well, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t scream like a girl if I had to fight one off.
    For the next three hours I cleaned my ass off, pissed that Riley wasn’t here to help. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing, but I just hated the idea of someone walking in on me wearing a pair of yellow scrub gloves bent over the toilet. I hired someone to do this shit for me back home. Jezebel wouldn’t mind coming up here for the day. It might’ve been worth it to pay her double time for this, but just add that to the list of things I should’ve done… like pick up more beer and bring an up-to-date radio, with an iPod dock. I was stuck listening to the hick station because popping in Mom’s old Bob Dylan CDs would have just been too… painful.
    Suddenly, it all seemed like too much to deal with. I was starting to get why Dad didn’t want to be up here—everything was a reminder of Mom. The curtains that hung from the window in the kitchen, the little ducks on the borders, prompting an image of Mom washing and ironing them at the start of every summer. The tiny tear in the country-plaid sofa that we told her ‘got there on accident,’ when in fact it was my sneaky obsession with Dad’s Swiss Army knife that ruined the fabric. The ratty old comforters on the twin beds in the bedroom Riley and I shared growing up. Mom and Riley picked them out together. Riley was into the whole decorating thing even as a kid and she convinced my mother that the yellow and blue toile was something I wouldn’t mind. But I did… I always had and now that Riley wasn’t here to object, that shit was gone. Finally.
    In fact, a lot of it had to go. It needed an upheaval, a total makeover, and my mind was already picturing the parties this place was capable of housing with the right amount of atmosphere.
    I punched in a quick text to Riley, letting her know her services would be needed. To my shock and surprise, instead of fighting me