"You remember Myrtle Beach," Laura said. "And Aunt Bea's. And the picture on the piano with three people in it. I spent thirty years telling everybody I was at camp. I almost did the exact same thing to Eli, and I'd have told myself it was for his own good, just like you did. So I'm asking you, and I need an honest answer. Do you want your grandson at your birthday? Because if the answer is no, I'll understand, and we'll stay home, and I'll send you a card."
For a long time there was nothing on the line but her mother's breathing. When Margaret finally spoke, her voice was one Laura had never heard before. It sounded old.
"I didn't think you remembered that summer," she said.
"I remember every day of it."
Another long silence. "Bring him," Margaret said. "Bring all of them. I'll see you tonight." And she hung up.
Laura put the phone down on the table. When she turned around, Eli was standing at the bottom of the stairs in his pajamas, the new binoculars around his neck, his hair sticking up on one side.
"How long have you been there?" she asked.
"Since 'listen to me for a minute.'" He frowned. "Who's Aunt Bea?"
"Someone I'll tell you about. On the drive, if you want. It's a long drive."
Eli considered this. He looked at the van keys on the hook by the door, and then at the window, where the first gold light was coming up over the neighbors' roofs, and then at his mother.
"Can I bring the notebook?" he asked.
"You can bring anything you want."
"And I get to pick my shirts."
"Every single one."
He nodded once, a small decisive nod, exactly like Mark's. "Okay," he said. "But I'm still kind of mad at you."
"That's fair," Laura said. "You can be mad at me all the way to North Carolina."
He was mad at her as far as Charleston, West Virginia. Somewhere in the mountains past Beckley, with Lily asleep against the window and Mark driving and the green ridges folding into each other like the pages of a book, Eli leaned forward from the back seat and asked again about Aunt Bea, and Laura told him. Not all of it. Enough. He listened the way he listened to bird calls, with his whole body, and when she was finished he sat back and was quiet for a long time.
"So Grandma did it to you first," he said at last.
"Yes."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"No. It doesn't."
"But it makes it make sense," Eli said, and went back to looking out the window, and somewhere in Virginia he reached forward and put his hand on her shoulder for a second, and then took it back, and said nothing about it, and neither did she.
Sea Oats House stood on tall pilings at the end of a sandy lane, gray-shingled and enormous, with a wraparound deck that faced the ocean on three sides. They arrived at seven in the evening. Rachel's children were already running on the beach. Rachel came down the outside stairs to meet them, and hugged Laura a little too hard, and whispered, "Mom told me. I'm sorry. I should never have said anything," and Laura said, "Me neither," and that was all, but it was enough.